A 30 lane motorway would never be pointless. Have you driven on the new 6 lane portion of the M25? It's great!
Depends how much traffic is on the road! Rendering will use it. Games won't.
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Intel sockets: i5, i7, i9
- Thread starter Hades
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Depends how much traffic is on the road! Rendering will use it. Games won't.
Soldato
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They might start to if they have the hardware to support it. Bet someone once said you would never need a dedicated graphics card =p
It would be long after the lifetime of these chipsets.
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jesusss 6core!! corrrreee!
Depends on intended use. The x58 is going to dominate on bandwidth, which gamers seem to talk about so might be important. The x58 chips are faster clock per clock than the P55s tested so far, which suggests that the P55 chips are going to have to clock significantly higher than the i7 to beat it. I'm reasonably certain x58 is going to remain the faster system for heavy use, but probably not the most economic.
I'm a bit confused by the complaining about future upgrades for x58 users. The reason everyone is using the 920 D0 is that it clocks exactly the same as the 950 under air and very close to it under water. Hardly anyone is using the extreme ones, since they get very few mhz for much more money. So the only useful upgrade will be to the very expensive six core chips.
However everyone on P55 is going to be using whatever the chip of choice turns out to be, and when it's time to upgrade from your P55 quad, the only place to turn to is a six core chip which, oh no, is only on the X58 platform anyway
My best guess is that people are worried they'll kill their 920 then be stuck buying a very expensive chip to replace it, to which I respond 3 year warranty if it's not your fault, second hand if it is.
I'm a bit confused by the complaining about future upgrades for x58 users. The reason everyone is using the 920 D0 is that it clocks exactly the same as the 950 under air and very close to it under water. Hardly anyone is using the extreme ones, since they get very few mhz for much more money. So the only useful upgrade will be to the very expensive six core chips.
However everyone on P55 is going to be using whatever the chip of choice turns out to be, and when it's time to upgrade from your P55 quad, the only place to turn to is a six core chip which, oh no, is only on the X58 platform anyway
My best guess is that people are worried they'll kill their 920 then be stuck buying a very expensive chip to replace it, to which I respond 3 year warranty if it's not your fault, second hand if it is.
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s1336 was ALWAYS going to be a high end / enthusiast system, with the 6 systems and future 8 cores then will probably see tri-channel ram come good.
The only real problem is that people have jumped on the i7 920D0 and x58 as clock well, making it a larger market share then Intel probably intended originally.
This will mean that for MOST people that can't afford 6 core or 8 core processors then there won't be a drop in processor upgrade for them, however this was never really Intels intention for the x58, as they would have expected them to go with P55. It hasn't helped with the delays to the P55/i5 with Intel extending the life of the C2Q and skt775 boards.
Will likely find that a good P55 board will compete well with the x58 until the x58 is unleashed with the faster / more core CPU's.
However not really sure that many people will NEED a 6 core processor at home just yet.
The only real problem is that people have jumped on the i7 920D0 and x58 as clock well, making it a larger market share then Intel probably intended originally.
This will mean that for MOST people that can't afford 6 core or 8 core processors then there won't be a drop in processor upgrade for them, however this was never really Intels intention for the x58, as they would have expected them to go with P55. It hasn't helped with the delays to the P55/i5 with Intel extending the life of the C2Q and skt775 boards.
Will likely find that a good P55 board will compete well with the x58 until the x58 is unleashed with the faster / more core CPU's.
However not really sure that many people will NEED a 6 core processor at home just yet.
There has been a lot of sense posted in this thread. Personally I think that unless you really have to upgrade now, you would be mad not to wait until the socket 1156 stuff comes out.
Don't forget that socket 1156 gets the 32nm cpus before the S1366 does and in theory they should be tasty overclockers.
Also, although the i5 cpus are slightly slower clock per clock compared to the i7 and have no hyperthreading, proper i7 cpus are coming to the s1156 platform early next year.
Also of note is that a p55 has being shown to handle BCLK 272 which might mean that if you are an euthasiast that a cpu on the s1156 may well overclock much higher than it's s1366 equivalant and more than wipe out any difference at stock.
And from memory, I beleive usb 3, sata 3 and pci-e 3 are all scheduled to come to the s1156 platform before the s1366 platform.
And lastly, nobody knows how much Intel will want for their 6 core cpu since that platform is meant to be highend/server then even in a year or two's time there might not be a £200 six core cpu available for current s1366 people to upgrade to.
So do you buy s1366 now with the certainty of a 4ghz i7 cpu which is one hell of a number cruncher but perhaps never having an affordable upgrade route to anything better?
Or hang on for s1156 and hopefully get a higher overclocking and faster (and perhaps cheaper) system than it's i7 equivalent with reasonable costing upgrades later on but never anything as powerful as the i9?
Difficult choices and why I will not be upgrading until the dust settles. After all, if you really needed the power of i7 with 8 threads you would have one now.
Don't forget that socket 1156 gets the 32nm cpus before the S1366 does and in theory they should be tasty overclockers.
Also, although the i5 cpus are slightly slower clock per clock compared to the i7 and have no hyperthreading, proper i7 cpus are coming to the s1156 platform early next year.
Also of note is that a p55 has being shown to handle BCLK 272 which might mean that if you are an euthasiast that a cpu on the s1156 may well overclock much higher than it's s1366 equivalant and more than wipe out any difference at stock.
And from memory, I beleive usb 3, sata 3 and pci-e 3 are all scheduled to come to the s1156 platform before the s1366 platform.
And lastly, nobody knows how much Intel will want for their 6 core cpu since that platform is meant to be highend/server then even in a year or two's time there might not be a £200 six core cpu available for current s1366 people to upgrade to.
So do you buy s1366 now with the certainty of a 4ghz i7 cpu which is one hell of a number cruncher but perhaps never having an affordable upgrade route to anything better?
Or hang on for s1156 and hopefully get a higher overclocking and faster (and perhaps cheaper) system than it's i7 equivalent with reasonable costing upgrades later on but never anything as powerful as the i9?
Difficult choices and why I will not be upgrading until the dust settles. After all, if you really needed the power of i7 with 8 threads you would have one now.
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Sensible man Greebo. One thing which never seems to come up in these is that the i7 920 throws out a hell of a lot more heat than the q9550 and similar, so the upgrade may well involve needing more radiators or tolerating a lot more noise. Oh, costs more to run too.
Had my q9550 not kicked the bucket I wouldn't have upgraded either. The downtime the move + my incompetence has caused is ridiculous
Had my q9550 not kicked the bucket I wouldn't have upgraded either. The downtime the move + my incompetence has caused is ridiculous
Soldato
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You know what the other solution is of course. Have two PCs =D =p
Sorry, I couldn't resist
As for SATA3, the new Gigabyte boards will have that when the are released. Still haven't had a response to Gigabyte on this yet (sent a message last night) and as far as I had read, PCI-E 3 has been pushed back for 2011 products (http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/PCI-Express-3.0-Delay-PCI-SIG,news-31635.html)
Sorry, I couldn't resist
As for SATA3, the new Gigabyte boards will have that when the are released. Still haven't had a response to Gigabyte on this yet (sent a message last night) and as far as I had read, PCI-E 3 has been pushed back for 2011 products (http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/PCI-Express-3.0-Delay-PCI-SIG,news-31635.html)
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Soldato
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Yeah. Let's just hope the prices drop first =D
They have and will continue to do so. Look at the superb crucial 64gb drives for £100. It wasn;t long ago this kind of performance cost you £300+
Give it a few months and you will see larger, faster ssd drives for under £100. Already they are pushing the limits of sata 2 and will soon need sata 3 to run at their full potential.
Don't worry about the LGA1156 platform only having a dual channel memory controller, most benchmarks are showing the LGA1366's triple channel controller giving it ~3-5% more performance, but that's in synthetic memory benchies.
If you put 1600MHz RAM on an LGA1156 platform, it won't be lacking in bandwidth unless your core is running at ~5GHz+ which for most of us it won't be.
The real reason the 1366 needs triple channel is for multi socket server boards, where 2 CPUs might be trying to hit on the same memory controller simultaneously.
It's the same with the QPI link on the LGA1366 platform which runs way in excess of it's required speed if you only have a single CPU socket.
As someone above correctly noted, the i7 8xxs are LGA 1156, the i7 9xxs are LGA1366.
For gamers, the LGA 1156 will be very close to the performance of LGA1366 but cheaper.
As such it will be the platform of choice for most people.
If you put 1600MHz RAM on an LGA1156 platform, it won't be lacking in bandwidth unless your core is running at ~5GHz+ which for most of us it won't be.
The real reason the 1366 needs triple channel is for multi socket server boards, where 2 CPUs might be trying to hit on the same memory controller simultaneously.
It's the same with the QPI link on the LGA1366 platform which runs way in excess of it's required speed if you only have a single CPU socket.
As someone above correctly noted, the i7 8xxs are LGA 1156, the i7 9xxs are LGA1366.
For gamers, the LGA 1156 will be very close to the performance of LGA1366 but cheaper.
As such it will be the platform of choice for most people.
I disagree slightly. The hard drive has always being the slowest part of the system. You wouldn;t want to buy a nice 500mb/sec ssd drive next year and have it capped to around 270mb on sata 2 would you?
I'm with you on hard drives always being the limiting factor. What I'm wondering is whether 300mb/s on sata 2 is still the bottleneck. If so, my computer is currently limited by the vertex and a second in raid 0 would be a sensible route to go down.
However the scores of people shouting 'raid is pointless for ssds' may have influenced me on this belief. Any ideas? I don't mind at all if my potential 500mb/sec drive is limited to 270 if the rest of the system still can't read and write to it faster than 200, though I'd have been foolish to buy the drive if so
However the scores of people shouting 'raid is pointless for ssds' may have influenced me on this belief. Any ideas? I don't mind at all if my potential 500mb/sec drive is limited to 270 if the rest of the system still can't read and write to it faster than 200, though I'd have been foolish to buy the drive if so
Soldato
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I do know that OCZ have released the first 1TB SSD. Retails for around $2000 or something I think. I'm sorely tempted by an SSD, but really I have too many programs and games that it doesn't seem worth it currently.
You only need enough space for the OS and essential apps - everything else you would store on a separate (SATA etc) drive/s.
You can get by, quite comfortably, with a 64GB SSD.
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Hmm. That is a fair point. Thing is, I have found some games won't patch unless they are on the system drive =( I'll have a think about it. For now, a WD Caviar Black may have to do me =(
It's a luxury component at the moment (if your work doesn't benefit from it) - so if you feel it's an excessive expense it probably is. If your present drive is doing the job i would wait until the costs come down.
Having said that i'll be adding one to my basket in the next month...