Will Intel® Core™i7 (Bloomfield/X58) owners be able to afford an upgrade?

[Big.Wayne]

With all this talk about the next gen LGA1366 processors coming out soon (Gulftown) and speculation they may have a huge £500/£900 proce tag I am wondering if Intel® have any plans to release updated chips on the X58 platform that are affordable?

Is it a possibility that they view the Bloomfield i7 920 as their Happy Hour chip sold at a reduced cost so that people buy into the X58/LGA1366 platform who will then be forced to pay top dollar $$$ for any future processor upgrades?

I've watched Intel® releases for many years but I've not seen them release multiple platforms/sockets like this before? . . . sure they have released different chipsets to cater for the high end and mainstream but they both had the same socket and we had the choice of which chipset to plug our chips into?

I just wondered what your thoughts were, I am looking at a new system and although the LGA1366/i7/Bloomfield is a stonking platform I am unclear what the processor upgrade path may look like?

Thanks in advance for any useful feedback!

 

[Moeks]

I must say the same thought occurred to me, when I was debating weather to go with an X58/Bloodmfield setup or a P55/Lynfied setup, I selected the later for 3 main reasons, plus a few minor ones, but primarily because I also question weather the S1366 platform will simply become unaffordable for most, thus the 920 will be the only really 'popular' and affordable chip on that platform, I suspect that it will be. Secondly, the Lynfields and P55 are all 'new' tech, it's always nice to have the new stuff ...and third ...it cost me about £100 less than a similar Bloomfield setup would have cost me.

I've heard a lot of talk of the 6 core I9's ...but quite frankly I can't see them costing much less than £500, maybe £450 or so for the entry level model, but that's way, way more than I would ever pay for a cpu, so it's of little interest to me as an upgrade. Quite what else we are likely to see on S1366 that is affordable or even much of an upgrade to an overclocked 920 I don't know, I am struggling to see where it can go and maintain affordability.

I like making cheaper cpu's run as fast or faster than expensive ones anyway, it's always been a big part of the fun for me, the direction S1366 is heading in, I don't see that being possible. I really don't know though, just my take on the situation from what we know really.

Basically I think you’re probably going to be right. But I haven't seen or read anything to confirm it one way or another, it's just a feeling, a hunch.

 

[=VTA=MANFACE]

I see what you mean Big.Wayne. Intel have me a bit baffled at the moment releasing i5 on a different platform.

It would have been logical to release i5 before i7. I suspect it's all to do with costs. i7 platforms are great pieces of kit, but are expensive. Intel know this, and therefore released a cheaper platform to capture the lower end of the market, where AMD are doing quite well.

My personal upgrade path will be the LGA1366, it is overkill for what I need, I just game.
My next upgrade will not be till maybe Q2/3 next year.

 

[95thrifles]

I agree completely, if I were to be building a new system now (managing to resist so far, lol) I think Id go 1156 with an i7 860 CPU, the only thing I have slight hesitation over is why intel have chosen to limit this socket to 8x PCI-E bandwidth instead of 16x, new gfx cards are going to be throttled by the controller which seems daft to me, then again maybe thats why intel did it, otherwise no one would buy 1366
Edit: Ive just noticed that a lot of the boards are listed as PCI-E x16, however in reviews Ive read they state the chipset only handles x8? talking about dual card set ups but still, specs dont list it as x16 or x8/x8 just 2 x16

 

[Stanners]

It has x16 pci-e bandwidth, only x8 in sli/crossfire.

 

[95thrifles]

Yes but if you read the boards' specifications, it doesnt state that they drop to x8/x8 in sli/xfire, it merely states 2x 16, thats my point
eg: Expasion slots: 3x PCIe 2.0 x16 Slots, 2x PCIe x1 Slots & 2x PCI Slots (Supports ATI CrossFireX & NVIDIA SLI Technology)

 

[Daegan]

All depends what plans Intel have for quad-core 32nm chips. We know about dual-core Clarkdale coming out on LGA1156 around the end of the year, and hex-core Gulftown coming out on LGA1366 early next. Seems there won't be anything in between until their new Sandy Bridge micro-architecture, and all we've seen of that so far is a quad-core 32nm CPU with IGP due late 2010 / early 2011.

 

[Typhoon]

Intel make far more money selling the 920's then they do selling the EE965/975, so whislt the first i9's will be EE chips for the early adopters, the cheaper parts will surely follow, like they have in the past. I'm sure Intel would like to milk its sk1336 a little further if it can and it wont do that with just a EE i9 chip. I think an £300 2.66Ghz i9 is entirely feasable a few months after lauch.

 

[Sayso]

Intel make far more money selling the 920's then they do selling the EE965/975, so whislt the first i9's will be EE chips for the early adopters, the cheaper parts will surely follow, like they have in the past. I'm sure Intel would like to milk its sk1336 a little further if it can and it wont do that with just a EE i9 chip. I think an £300 2.66Ghz i9 is entirely feasable a few months after lauch.

lets hope so.

 

[OrphanBoy]

Why should a six-core CPU cost £500-900? Okay, most of the 1366 lineup is really expensive - but if AMD can sell a quad-core for $99 when they release a six-core CPU I can't imagine it costing 2-3x more than a quad-core. I think this logic would apply to Intel too. It just doesn't make sense to buy one as an end user!

 

[McstylisT]

Great thread. Questions that need to be asked.

I would be one of those who could and would not be paying £500 for a CPU . I just could not financially afford to do it , i have a family and bills to pay.
I have also seen a strange pattern from Intel in the way 1366 and 1156 have released as Big Wayne mentioned. The scary bit for me is what was there motive in doing this. It could we be Intel thought exactly what we are talking about here and decided to make another socket to allow cheaper desktop computing as maybe the 1366 future is purely extreme CPUs costing big bucks. ? I hope this is not the case. If going by previous releases then we " should " see other 32nm quads on the 1366 at some stage. That would ease my fears personally. The bad thing is Intel could have the 1156 lined up for all the quad line keeping it the most affordable platform and pretty much leaving the 1366 to high end market platforms.
If i were to build now , then my route would have be 1156 and i7 860. Solely due to the positive future outlook for affordable future cpu releases.

McT

 

[VoG]

I just wondered what your thoughts were, I am looking at a new system and although the LGA1366/i7/Bloomfield is a stonking platform I am unclear what the processor upgrade path may look like?

Thanks in advance for any useful feedback!

personally, the cpu upgrade path for 1366 never came into it for me, i went i7(1366) because of the exceptional clocks being gotten by the 920's. i normally tend to have more of an eye on the gpu upgrade path than the cpu upgrade path, so the up coming 6 core chip never figured in my long term plans in the slightest.

 

[D1ngd0ng]

Intel make far more money selling the 920's then they do selling the EE965/975

When I7 accounts for just 1% of total sales it is hard to see where the margin is built in. Intel has always said that the I7 was designed to serve the high end workstations where money as no object market and I5 was always going to be the mainstream replacement for Core2 systems. Still there are years of life in my 920 (touch wood) and some of the xeons are quite reasonable if I am in dire need and the low end I7's are no more

 

[PaulyD]

Yes but if you read the boards' specifications, it doesnt state that they drop to x8/x8 in sli/xfire, it merely states 2x 16, thats my point
eg: Expasion slots: 3x PCIe 2.0 x16 Slots, 2x PCIe x1 Slots & 2x PCI Slots (Supports ATI CrossFireX & NVIDIA SLI Technology)

I can see the confusion but intel are correct. all 3 PCIe 2.0 slots are indeed x16 slots when used individually but will drop to 8x when used together. Gives the user a choice of slots to use. IIRC the EVGA Tri sli board has 3 x16 slots but when using all 3 the middle would drop to 8x and the others stay at x16

 

[Moeks]

Why should a six-core CPU cost £500-900? Okay, most of the 1366 lineup is really expensive - but if AMD can sell a quad-core for $99 when they release a six-core CPU I can't imagine it costing 2-3x more than a quad-core. I think this logic would apply to Intel too. It just doesn't make sense to buy one as an end user!

Have a look at the prices of the new AMD 6 core Opterons, the cheapest isn't too bad, but it only runs at 2.0Ghz stock and in all liklihood, Intel's introduction to the market will be a fair bit more costly, albeit faster too. The cheapest I have seen for pre-orer prices is £336 or so for the 2Ghz (the 2.2 is the same price though) 6 core Opteron, lets assume they will settle down to about £300 after a few months, this to me, strongly suggests Intel will be pricing at, at least £430 if not a bit more for a 2.66 Ghz Nehalem 6 core chip.

Right now, to pre-order a 2.6Ghz Opteron 6 core, you are looking at £732. This is for the 2000 series, not the 8000, those are around £2k at 2.6Ghz.

 

[lukext]

MMM, well i was all set for the 920 before reading this thread! Got to admit its one of the best threads I have read in a while.

Im currently on the aging system (ye olde 939) in my sig. I have upgraded it numerous times over the course of its life with more and see upgradability as a big part of the pc. However, in terms of everything bar the cpu, the x58 is better for this, espcially with more pcie bandwidth (not only for sli and crossfire but for newer gen single cards that may require such) and more ram allowance.

To be honest though, I mainly game, do a little video encoding and will probably never have a dual graphics set up, so i guess a cheaper 1156 set up with a 860 would suit me perfectly? But there is still something in me that says get the x58 and a 920.

 

[DavyBoy]

This is an interesting question Wayne, and it's something that I had thought about as well.

It could very well be the case that Intel did all of this on purpose, just so that lots of people jumped onto the X58 platform, so when the 32nm Gulftown chips get released, they will charge big bux for them, which will mean that all of us X58 owners who want to upgrade our chips will have to pay a large sum of money to do so.

I personally can't see myself paying anything more than £300 for a processor, so I doubt that I will be taking this route when these chips get released.

By the time I am ready for another large upgrade, I will more than likely jump back to AMD again tbh, as they were always my choice because they are usually more affordable, and have decent performance as well.

Though in saying that, if Intel were to release a lower budget Gulftown chip for X58 platform, I would probably grab one of those if the price was right.

I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens though.

AMD seem to have a few interesting things in the horizon, I saw a thread on XS where someone was benching a system with dual Magny Cours 12 core processors!!

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=233565&highlight=magny+cours

The stock frequency of the cores are 1.6GHz I think, but if you read the thread above, you will see he managed to get it clocked up past 3GHz which is pretty darn good if I do say so myself!

They should be getting released sometime next year.

http://www.pclaunches.com/processors/amd_magnycours_12core_processor_coming_in_2010.php

MMM, well i was all set for the 920 before reading this thread! Got to admit its one of the best threads I have read in a while.

Im currently on the aging system (ye olde 939) in my sig. I have upgraded it numerous times over the course of its life with more and see upgradability as a big part of the pc. However, in terms of everything bar the cpu, the x58 is better for this, espcially with more pcie bandwidth (not only for sli and crossfire but for newer gen single cards that may require such) and more ram allowance.

To be honest though, I mainly game, do a little video encoding and will probably never have a dual graphics set up, so i guess a cheaper 1156 set up with a 860 would suit me perfectly? But there is still something in me that says get the x58 and a 920.

I personally wouldn't let something like this put you off getting an X58 and i920, I mean if you are still using a 939 system, then you obviously don't do big upgrades that often, and the X58 platform is solid, so it would be quite capable for many years to come yet.

 

[easyrider]

The main hangup people are having is the lack of HT on the 750.

I see this as no biggy.

The dual core hard core fans didn't care about only having two cores.They said gaming doesn't really benefit go with a 8400 cpu or something over the Q6600 or Q9450


Now they can have a monster Quad core Chip on the cheap in the i5 750.. they are worrying about HT


Fact is the 750 HT or not Blows chunks all over the dead tech s775 stuff so the lack of HT is not a concern right now.

However I got a P55 mobo for 60 quid so might aswell get the 860 .But having said that an OEM 750 at 140 quid is tempting too.

 

[queamin]

I would chose 1366 over 1156 only if i was using 2 or more video card now and in the near future

 

[easyrider]

I would chose 1366 over 1156 only if i was using 2 or more video card now and in the near future

NOt enough performance gain over 2 x16x pcie lanes than there is over 8x8 to warrant the premium.IMO.


p55 can run xfire or SLI and by the time you want to upgrade a signle cheaper faster GFX card solution will be out.