Sandybridge vs Ivybridge vs Haswell budget gaming

[rtwjunkie]

I would say get least an i5 as some games won't run on dual core chips.

You are correct, but for the most part it applies to the pentiums. The i3's have been fine according to most forums/sites, because for whatever reason, the HT seems to fool the games affected into thinking there are more cores.

 

[newconroer]

SQL only really take a lot of CPU power if you have a lot of people accessing it. A current gen i3 can easily handle up to 5 users or even more, it largely depends on how big the databases are and how complex the queries are. I've got i3-4160 servers with 10 users accessing SQL and it is plenty fast. I can't really see a home environment being that stressful with SQL. My guess is he'll probably be the sole user, so an i3 should be just fine.



That sounds like he is probably running a platform that is already DDR3, so he doesn't need new memory. Just a new CPU and Motherboard. So the budget can be stretched a lot further. He could probably squeeze in a 4690K and Z97 motherboard(I'd say AsRock Z97 Extreme3) for just about £250. I don't see a reason to go with a dated used platform.

Edit: After looking on pcpartspicker, it seems a 4690K and Z97 board would be about £275 after taxes and everything. So, if he really wants to stay under the £250, or he just doesn't care about overclocking, then a 4690 and H97 board would do. Even the H97/4690 setup would crush whatever AMD he currently has.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£167.00 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: ASRock H97 Anniversary ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£76.09 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £243.09
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-05-29 20:19 BST+0100

He found the Devil's Canyon for a tenner more, however it requires the Z97 board. Do we think that Devil's is a one off series and there's no upgrade path in using that version of the 1150 boards?

 

[newtekie1]

I would say get least an i5 as some games won't run on dual core chips.

I don't think there is anything that won't run on an i3 because it appears to the system as 4 usable threads. This is really only a problem with the Pentium chips.

He has a Phenom II X4 965 on an Asus Crosshair IV 890FX

So he already has DDR3, and only needs a new CPU and Motherboard. A 4690 would be a really big upgrade for him.

He found the Devil's Canyon for a tenner more, however it requires the Z97 board. Do we think that Devil's is a one off series and there's no upgrade path in using that version of the 1150 boards?

Devil's Canyon doesn't require a Z97 motherboard, it will work just fine in the H97 I posted, he just won't be able to overclock it. But, again, if he isn't into overclocking there is no point in getting a K series Devil's Canyon processor. He can just go with the standard i5-4690 and an H97 motherboard. He'll still get a massive boost over his current Phenom II x4.

Z97 and H97 both will get Broadwell, but that will only be a limited release with only 2 processors coming to the desktop, and probably won't be worth upgraded to over Haswell(Devil's Canyon is still Haswell). Skylake is coming out, but it will have a new socket and chipset, so you'll need a new motherboard, and likely still won't be worth upgraded to from Haswell. If he wants to buy now, Z97/H97 and Haswell is his best choice.

 

[rtwjunkie]

He found the Devil's Canyon for a tenner more, however it requires the Z97 board. Do we think that Devil's is a one off series and there's no upgrade path in using that version of the 1150 boards?

Check around. Your possibilities expand, bc if I'm not mistaken there are a whole lot of Z87's that support Devil's Canyon also, via BIOS update.

 

[newconroer]

Well after that back and forth, he's considering a motherboard that supports Crossfire. My concern is that most of them are still using the 8x/8x arrangement. ARe there any that support PCI E 3.0 16x/16x simultaneously?

 

[newtekie1]

Well after that back and forth, he's considering a motherboard that supports Crossfire. My concern is that most of them are still using the 8x/8x arrangement. ARe there any that support PCI E 3.0 16x/16x simultaneously?

The 1150 CPUs only have 16 PCI-E lanes, so they can only do x8/x8 natively. There are some boards that use a PLX chip to give x16/16, but they are more expensive. Also, x16/x16 makes not noticeable difference over x8/x8, so it really doesn't matter.

 

[newconroer]

The 1150 CPUs only have 16 PCI-E lanes, so they can only do x8/x8 natively. There are some boards that use a PLX chip to give x16/16, but they are more expensive. Also, x16/x16 makes not noticeable difference over x8/x8, so it really doesn't matter.

But isn't a single PCI E 3.0 about 10% faster than PCI E 2.0 at full chat?

 

[peche]

He'll still get a massive boost over his current Phenom II x4.

not so difficult to get a boost with any intel core processor,

 

[krusha03]

But isn't a single PCI E 3.0 about 10% faster than PCI E 2.0 at full chat?

PCIE 3.0 x16 vs PCIE 3.0 x8 is 1% and PCIE 3.0x 16 vs PCIE 2.0 x8 is 5% difference in performance

 

[Aquinus]

But isn't a single PCI E 3.0 about 10% faster than PCI E 2.0 at full chat?

More bandwidth, yes. Performance difference? No.

source

Also PLX bridge chip add latency, you might lose that 1% advantage with it to do 16/16. In reality, the CPU can't do more than 16 lanes anyways, they're just shared with the PLX chip. So instead of each GPU getting a dedicated 8 lanes, it shares all 16. You don't get "more". You gain efficiency at the cost of latency and purchase price.

All in all, don't worry about PCI-E because anything more is way out of the budget for minimal gain for dual-GPUs.

 

[krusha03]

Well after that back and forth, he's considering a motherboard that supports Crossfire. My concern is that most of them are still using the 8x/8x arrangement. ARe there any that support PCI E 3.0 16x/16x simultaneously?

For 250 pounds you can get a new i5 k type and a z97 board or look at used i7 k type. If he doesn;t want to overclock it gets even cheaper

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£177.99 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: MSI Z97-G43 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£69.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £247.98
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-05-29 23:35 BST+0100

 

[newtekie1]

Also, if he is going for Crossfire, make sure he has a good PSU.

 

[peche]

Also, if he is going for Crossfire, make sure he has a good PSU.[/QUOTE]

^^^^^
This !!!

Regards,

 

[xvi]

The Phenom II X4 he has already isn't particularly anemic, but a modern (or even older Intel) would likely give a healthy jump in performance. Because of the need for transcoding capabilities and SQL, I'd suspect they'd be able to take advantage of an i7. If not for that, an i3 or i5 would probably do fine. Any word on how much load the SQL portion will see? If it's just a test environment, then anything should be fine. If it's actually in production, yeah, throw as many threads at it as you can.

I'd lean towards an i7-2600k and scale up from there depending on budget.

 

[arbiter]

You are correct, but for the most part it applies to the pentiums. The i3's have been fine according to most forums/sites, because for whatever reason, the HT seems to fool the games affected into thinking there are more cores.

I don't think there is anything that won't run on an i3 because it appears to the system as 4 usable threads. This is really only a problem with the Pentium chips.

there was 1 or 2 games that refuse to run on dual core even with HT, yes the game will be able to see if its dual core or quad.

Because of the need for transcoding capabilities and SQL, I'd suspect they'd be able to take advantage of an i7. If not for that, an i3 or i5 would probably do fine. Any word on how much load the SQL portion will see? If it's just a test environment, then anything should be fine. If it's actually in production, yeah, throw as many threads at it as you can.

Yea SQL work depending on what it is can be nasty on a cpu. transcoding well if its depends on what kinda you are doing can take almost no cpu to well a lot.

i looked up board he has, he could drop an FX 8150 on it with beta bios would save a bit of $.

 

[xvi]

i looked up board he has, he could drop an FX 8150 on it with beta bios would save a bit of $.

I was thinking that too. A FX 81XX or FX 83xx (depending on compatibility, of course) would likely do well at both transcoding and SQL performance and the money saved by keeping the current motherboard could go towards nice cooling to allow for a bit of overclock (or something). Should do decently well with both gaming and all but the heaviest workloads.

Edit: I find that people who decide on switching to Intel can rarely be swayed to stick with AMD. Usually it's people complaining about their $50 FX 4100 being too slow, so they want a $500 Intel proc. In this case, I don't think the FX series will be huge jump for everyday tasks, but multithreaded tasks should get a healthy bump.

 

[newtekie1]

there was 1 or 2 games that refuse to run on dual core even with HT, yes the game will be able to see if its dual core or quad.

None that I've heard of. FarCry4 and COD:Advanced Warfare and Dragon Age. Farcry4 works with an i3, but not with straight dual cores like the Pentiums, COD:AW has since been patched and works with dual-cores, and Dragon Age also works with i3s.

The fact of the matter is that we probably won't see any games that won't work on the 2-Cores/4-Threads configuration for a very long time. The main reason for that is most laptop processor, even a lot of the i7s, are 2-Core/4-Thread. Plus, it would eliminate all the AMD APUs, as they are all read as 2-Core/4-Thread. No game dev in their right mind would cut out such a massive portion of the already slim PC market.

 

[R-T-B]

But isn't a single PCI E 3.0 about 10% faster than PCI E 2.0 at full chat?

Each PCIe 3.0 lane is about twice as fast as a PCIe 2.0 lane. So a PCIe3 x8 is about the same as a PCIe2 x16, and offers very little tangible difference in actual gaming speed (if there is any, it's less than 1FPS in most reviews with current cards).

Only compute users will even notice a difference, tbh.

 

[arbiter]

I was thinking that too. A FX 81XX or FX 83xx (depending on compatibility, of course) would likely do well at both transcoding and SQL performance and the money saved by keeping the current motherboard could go towards nice cooling to allow for a bit of overclock (or something). Should do decently well with both gaming and all but the heaviest workloads.

reason i said 81xx is cause that is highest they listed on the website. they don't say 83xx as supported.

Each PCIe 3.0 lane is about twice as fast as a PCIe 2.0 lane. So a PCIe3 x8 is about the same as a PCIe2 x16, and offers very little tangible difference in actual gaming speed (if there is any, it's less than 1FPS in most reviews with current cards).

Only compute users will even notice a difference, tbh.

wonder with DX12 if that will change.

 

[R-T-B]

wonder with DX12 if that will change.

If anything, it will buy us PCIe 2.0 users on x58 and others more time, as it will reduce communication with the CPU (and thus, give us LESS bandwidth usage). That's supposedly how it should work.

 

[Frick]

Wait there are actually games that won't even launch on dual cores?

 

[GhostRyder]

Wait there are actually games that won't even launch on dual cores?

Yep, Far Cry 4 and Dragon Age were two big names that will not run on chips like the Pentium Anniversary (G3258).

If your not overclocking, you could just look into a locked i5 then on a new platform. They do have a few H97 boards that will support CFX. Also PCIE 8x does not effect performance especially at 3.0 speeds enough for anyone to truly notice so I would not worry.

 

[newtekie1]

Wait there are actually games that won't even launch on dual cores?

Yes, FarCry 4 just opens a black screen and won't load at all.

 

[newconroer]

Thanks guys. He will decide between 4690/H97 or Devil's Canyon/Z97.
As for power supply, I have looked at it (forget name), was 900 wattts, reputable, enough amps.

 

[Folterknecht]

If he has an Phenom II with DDR3 its probably 1.65V RAM. Dont know if its a good idea to let the RAM work 24/7 with 1.65V on modern Intel platforms - try lowering the RAM voltage a little bit on the Intel platform to 1.55V, maybe he has to downclock the RAM or loosen up the timings a little bit for that.