Upgrade dilemma - Go for LGA1155 or wait for Haswell?

[McSteel]

As per the title, I can't decide if I should pull the trigger now or have a little more patience and wait for the new architecture.

Currently I have a somewhat strange machine, made up from salvaged/repaired parts I've acquired from friends, and some even from grateful customers. Namely, I work as a service tech/electronics repairman at an IT company of 15 employees. The pay is horrible, so I'm as poor as a church mouse, but the workplace itself is ok, my colleagues are wonderful, and the unemployment rate is > 50% where I'm from, so I'm kind of stuck with little to no money for now. All this talk is an intro to my rig, which I hope you can see under "System specs".

The case and the PSU are gifts from my GF. She's not imaginary, contrary to what is typical for an IT nerd MoBo and VGA are repaired after being abandoned by their former owners. Two of the HDD's are salvages from thrown-away PCs from some law firm after they upgraded... You get the picture.

"Sad story" aside, I have an opportunity to select 4 components of my choice (within reason), and have them at a 90% discount. Meaning I could have, say, an i5 3570k + MSI Z77 MPower + 8GB DDR3 + <X> for about as much as I can realistically spare. Haswell is expected to arrive between March and May of 2013, IIRC. The offer to acquire components at a symbolic price will stand until May. It doesn't look like I'll have a chance like that anytime soon afterwards.

I should probably mention that I ran a Barton 2600+ on an Abit NF7 up until two years ago, when I completed my current rig, so I'm used to running painfully slow machines. I'm not exactly happy with how (un-)fast my machine is, but thanks to CUDA I can watch HD movies fluently, I can play some high-budget games, run a PSX emulator, etc. But I don't think my rig can keep up with the industry's pace for much longer.

In the interest of getting the most longevity, it's probably a good idea to wait for Haswell. On the other hand, Ivy Bridge is worlds apart from what I have now, and certainly more than enough for most consumer needs, including my own. There's also the option of selling the Ivy Bridge setup and going for Haswell as it becomes available...

Any and all advice, mockery, random *chan-inspired remarks and suggestions welcome.

 

[Fourstaff]

I see no reason in waiting for 1150, sure you would miss the ability to upgrade etc., but given that you are not going to anyway and most of the new tech (thunderbolt, USB3, PCIe3) are here. Also, you are probably going to use the rig for as long as it lasts. My 4 components will be 3570, Z77, good 500w PSU, and SSD. Get ram on your own (since its cheapest).

 

[Caspase]

90% discount?! I say go lga 2011... What is your max budget? 3930k... If you keep system for that long, considering the future is multi-threaded and you can have it for 40 bucks, I would not think twice! gtx 670/7970 or wait for 8000 series and a solid PSU/case/corsair hydro h100i

 

[qubit]

A 90% discount is amazing! I say pull the trigger and do it now, before this offer expires. They are telling you now that it will last until May, but fantastic offers like this have a habit of getting cancelled.

Do it, don't delay!

Can we ask how this discount came about, or is that a bit confidential? I'm dead curious.

EDIT: If you're interested in overclocking, then get a 2500K, 2600K or 2700K rather than Ivy Bridge, because of the non-enthusiast friendly heatspreader issue, which makes IB run about 20C+ hotter when overclocked.

 

[JNUKZ]

Don't wait for Haswell just get the i5 3570K. There no need of getting a i7 3930K

 

[Caspase]

Don't wait for Haswell just get the i5 3570K. There no need of getting a i7 3930K

The difference is like 20/30 bucks... Are you kidding me? Even if you sell it in the after-market of course it is worth it... But I agree with the pull the trigger now part

It is 4 threads against 12 (amongst other advantages)... For 20 dollars. I rest my case.

 

[McSteel]

A 90% discount is amazing! I say pull the trigger and do it now, before this offer expires. They are telling you now that it will last until May, but fantastic offers like this have a habit of getting cancelled.

Do it, don't delay!

Can we ask how this discount came about, or is that a bit confidential? I'm dead curious.

EDIT: If you're interested in overclocking, then get a 2500K, 2600K or 2700K rather than Ivy Bridge, because of the non-enthusiast friendly heatspreader issue, which makes IB run about 20C+ hotter when overclocked.

The discount is actually a generous gift from one of the owners of a large IT distribution company, as a token of gratitude for exceptional service. No sex was involved, if you're wondering.
Sorry, can't give any more details than this, out of respect for the man. This is coming out of his personal wallet.

I see no reason in waiting for 1150, sure you would miss the ability to upgrade etc., but given that you are not going to anyway and most of the new tech (thunderbolt, USB3, PCIe3) are here. Also, you are probably going to use the rig for as long as it lasts. My 4 components will be 3570, Z77, good 500w PSU, and SSD. Get ram on your own (since its cheapest).

That sounds about right. Actually thinking more about it, since I'm not planning to overclock too much, and virtualization instructions would come in handy (I like to experiment with various software/tweaks/etc in a VM), I'd probably go for a "non-K" CPU.

90% discount?! I say go lga 2011... What is your max budget? 3930k... If you keep system for that long, considering the future is multi-threaded and you can have it for 40 bucks, I would not think twice! gtx 670/7970 or wait for 8000 series and a solid PSU/case/corsair hydro h100i

Don't wait for Haswell just get the i5 3570K. There no need of getting a i7 3930K

The difference is like 20/30 bucks... Are you kidding me? Even if you sell it in the after-market of course it is worth it... But I agree with the pull the trigger now part

It is 4 threads against 12 (amongst other advantages)... For 20 dollars. I rest my case.

That may be so, but it's not like no one is paying for the actual difference in price. The goods I'm able to purchase are not stolen, so please, treat this as if it was a full-price purchase. I could possibly get away with an LGA2011 system, but I don't want to be greedy, and as much as parallel computing is becoming the norm, I seriously doubt anything but professional productivity software will start multi-threading beyond the 4th thread.



Thanks for the answers so far; it seems the message is clear for now: No need to wait, actual gains may not be worth it. Am I getting this right?

 

[qubit]

Thanks for the answers so far; it seems the message is clear for now: No need to wait, actual gains may not be worth it. Am I getting this right?

From what I've seen a couple of months ago, Haswell will be a big step up from IB, but with an offer like this, especially coming from someone's personal finances, I wouldn't delay and you can always sell the mobo and CPU later and get Haswell.

I agree with you about not overly spending his money on a super expensive upgrade. However, I think you should get the top 3770K CPU. If you're worried about taking too much of his generosity with it, then perhaps you could offer to put some more money towards it? It sounds like this guy is really decent to make you this offer.

 

[McSteel]

It would've been a 100% discount, but he's a "nothing-should-ever-come-completely-free-in-life" kind of guy. I tend to agree with the notion that one has to feel they're giving up at least a little something in order to gain something valuable (to them). No profits without investments, you can't truly appreciate what you haven't worked for, stuff like that. The price I'll pay will be symbolic more than anything. And I do believe I won't be charged beyond a certain figure. I have actually been paid for the work I've done, by my own company, but the man, the customer, firmly believed that was not nearly enough, because I solved a big problem that several people before me couldn't.

So you believe an IB i7 is the best choice? Is hyperthreading worth it? Day-to-day usage-wise, I mean. Any concrete suggestions on the motherboard? I've been eying the ~150-200€ range, Asus Maximus V Gene, MSI Z77 MPower, Gigabyte Z77X series and the like. Any forum favorites?

 

[Naito]

Go a i7-3770 if you do VM work. I got one and it's as smooth as butter when running multiple VMs. As for the MB; out of the few you listed, I'd go Gigabyte. They tend to offer great features without as much as a price premium like Asus. Maybe an ASRock Z77 Extreme4?

 

[Norton]

If this were my offer, I would consider that maybe it was a test- He may be wondering "How willing is this person to spend my money"

I would proceed by putting together the Z77 combo (mobo, cpu, ram, really good 750-850w psu) and then price out an AMD A10 5800K combo (mobo, cpu, ram, really good 650-750w psu). Start by saying originally I planned for this combo (Z77) however this other combo (A10-5800K) makes more sense for both of us.

My $0.02.... have been on both sides of similar offers.

 

[Naito]

Perhaps a i5-3570 in place of a i7-3770, if price is creeping up. Haswell's biggest improvement, AFAIK, is in the IGP department, thus it may not be worth waiting for it.

 

[qubit]

It would've been a 100% discount, but he's a "nothing-should-ever-come-completely-free-in-life" kind of guy. I tend to agree with the notion that one has to feel they're giving up at least a little something in order to gain something valuable (to them). No profits without investments, you can't truly appreciate what you haven't worked for, stuff like that. The price I'll pay will be symbolic more than anything. And I do believe I won't be charged beyond a certain figure. I have actually been paid for the work I've done, by my own company, but the man, the customer, firmly believed that was not nearly enough, because I solved a big problem that several people before me couldn't.

I don't agree with the not giving 100% rule. If you're grateful for something, don't make the recipient pay for the gift! No matter how much it costs. You've already worked for it by fixing his difficult problem that no one else could touch, haven't you? Anyway, we're not here to argue this one and it's still a great offer. Certainly don't go asking for that 100%...

So you believe an IB i7 is the best choice? Is hyperthreading worth it? Day-to-day usage-wise, I mean. Any concrete suggestions on the motherboard? I've been eying the ~150-200€ range, Asus Maximus V Gene, MSI Z77 MPower, Gigabyte Z77X series and the like. Any forum favorites?

I don't have any concrete suggestions for models, but I would go Gigabyte with an enthusiast chipset. Lovely motherboards, some with Ultra Durable, dual BIOS and great features. I would tend to steer clear of Asus after this Asus RMA horror story being played out in TPU's forum here.

I recently bought an Asus VG278HE 144Hz monitor, for gaming. I also bought an Asus mobo about a year ago (see specs) since Gigabyte didn't do a UEFI BIOS at the time and this was a must-have requirement. I do like my Asus mobo, but I miss not having Gigabyte in my rig and my next one will. They're just nicer.

I hope like hell I don't have to RMA either of these items.

 

[Protagonist]

So you believe an IB i7 is the best choice? Is hyperthreading worth it? Day-to-day usage-wise

i7 is a good choice, I don't know if its the best for your situation but if you decide to get the i7 go with the i7-3770 you prefer not to over clock, and you prefer VM, I'd prefer the non K variants of CPU coz of full feature set coz I'm not into overclocking but i do it at times and with my i7-3770 it run @ 4.3GHz with the stock cooler NOTE I here not all chips are same.

The hyper threading is totally worth it, coming from 2 i5s (i5-760 and i5-2500K) I've owned both at some point they are great chips but i do lots of trans-coding/encoding work with video and when i switched to i7-3770 the extra threads have come in handy with the software i use in a day to day basis and my encoding downtime has reduced considerably. So hyper threading helps a lot to me.

Go a i7-3770 if you do VM work. I got one and it's as smooth as butter when running multiple VMs

This too.

 

[Caspase]

I actually like the nothing in life is for free philosophy, however not every payment is monetary... And it would seem you have paid your dues already. Shame that it is a friend and not some faceless, evil ginarmous corporation giving you the discount...
Well, in that case it really depends on your conscience and on how much do you think you have deserved.
An i5-3570k is pretty much enough, there are some things in which the 3770k is better, but not a single one where the i5 is unusable, then again so is a simple a8/a10 for the average user. What exactly do you use the computer for?

 

[Naito]

An i5-3570k is pretty much enough, there are some things in which the 3770k is better, but not a single one where the i5 is unusable, then again so is a simple a8/a10 for the average user. What exactly do you use the computer for?

I think McSteel mentioned something about VMs, so K-Series CPUs aren't the most ideal choice. The reason I got my i7-3770 was primarily for VT-d support (which the K-Series lack). This allows interrupt and DMA remapping of physical hardware such as, graphic cards, through to the VM. An i5-3570 should still be decent, if price gets too high, but the HT support of the i7-3770 helps with running multiple VMs at once. AFAIK, AMDs FX-8350 comes close to the i5-3570 in performance and price, so could be considered as well.

 

[Caspase]

Didn't see the VM post... Makes sense Naito, and the fx-8350 is great too of course, in certain benchmarks it even competes with the 3770, just not as great as intel in ST, and Mcsteel could support the future of AMD, always nice.

 

[qubit]

The reason I got my i7-3770 was primarily for VT-d support (which the K-Series lack). This allows interrupt and DMA remapping of physical hardware such as, graphic cards, through to the VM.

Why the hell don't Intel sell a CPU that isn't crippled in some way? Surely they could sell a K series with VT-d for an even more premium price?

My old E8500 has VT-d. I've heard that you need a special motherboard to make VT-d work though. Is this true? It's running on a Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P motherboard.

 

[McSteel]

Okay, so, TPU likes Gigabyte best
This wouldn't be out of a backlash against Asus' recent poor RMA conduct, would it? I've heard quite a few Gigabyte-related RMA horror stories as well...

Morals and ethics concerning the situation I'm in could've gone into a separate thread, it seems
Fact of the matter is, though, my decision will inevitably influenced by the final price.

I use 4 different VMs right now, but not simultaneously (obviously), and there's no real need to ever run more than 2 concurrently for the testing I need to do. Since I can only run one at a time, I've been (ab)using my GF's laptop for the other VM, and I'd like to give the girl a break. I believe the i5 will be just about enough for this. I used to do some video encoding, but in XviD, and it's been a while since I needed it. It was mostly some home videos of friends and friends' friends that were grabbed from DVR cams and the like, and I don't really do tons of image editing or audio production, so, I guess there's no real need for an i7...

Perhaps an SSD would be a nice addition to the system, as an overall system agility factor?

 

[qubit]

Windows 8 on an SSD boots like greased lighting.

Heck, it's damned quick on this old 500GB HDD I'm trying out on at the moment. The PCs BIOS boot takes way longer than that!

 

[skitz9417]

skitz9417

i have the same problem but i have a sandy brigde cpu and i dont what to do wait for haswell or get ivy cpu

 

[Naito]

Why the hell don't Intel sell a CPU that isn't crippled in some way? Surely they could sell a K series with VT-d for an even more premium price?

Lol. I don't know why Intel decided to do this. AFAIK, the K-Series is meant to be orientated more towards enthusiast, thus I would thought these processors would have carried everything the microarchitecture has to offer, but apparently not. I, for one, don't mind a bit of OC'ing, but I will always go feature set over that; not that it really bothers me so much, as the i7-3770 will happily hit 4.3GHz (ratio limited). But who knows, maybe having the VT-d extension limits the OC ability of the processor, so Intel decided to leave it out?

I've heard that you need a special motherboard to make VT-d work though

I'm not too sure on this, but I will hazard a guess and say that this may have been true for earlier implementations due to the fact the northbridge used to contain the PCI bridges, etc, thus would have had to support it. And Intel being Intel, you were probably expected to buy the more expensive 'enthusiast' tier chipset to see such features.

EDIT: This is still the case.

It's running on a Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P motherboard.

Unfortunately it seems the P45 chipset does not support the VT-d instruction, but of course the more expensive X48 chipset did.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Okay, so, TPU likes Gigabyte best
This wouldn't be out of a backlash against Asus' recent poor RMA conduct, would it? I've heard quite a few Gigabyte-related RMA horror stories as well...

Everything is mass-produced, all manufacturers have their woes. I, personally, am a bit of a Gigabyte fan, but have no problem with Asus, I just find they tend to have a bit of a price premium (well, at least where I live). Lately I have grown rather fond of AsRock; between my own build and many others, I have found them to offer great features at a great price, but more importantly, are rock solid. I see them as pretty much Asus-quality boards without the price premium (I guess maybe because AsRock was(is?) an Asus subsidary).

 

[BarbaricSoul]

I've heard several horror stories recently from both ASUS and Gigabyte. For ASUS, the stories were concerning the RMA conduct. Then add the fact that AsRock(the former bastard child of ASUS) is producing motherboards just as good as ASUS boards for less money. ASUS wouldn't even be a option for me. As for Gigabyte, I could be wrong, but I want to say I'm still hearing about issues where people are still having problems concerning Gigabytes UEFI bios. Me personally, with that in mind, how good the Z77 M Power does in benchmarking compared to other boards ( http://www.techpowerup.com/174864/MSI-dominates-3DMark-11-Performance.html ) and how well my Z68A GD80 has done for me, I'd pick the MSI board.

Also, honestly, considering how much you seem to "not want to be too greedy", like already mentioned, a Sandy Bridge 2600 CPU is a very viable choice. Yes, Ivy Bridge gives more performance then Sandy Bridge(5-10% more), but considering what you currently have, Sandy Bridge would make you very happy. I know I'm extremely satisfied with my 2600k, so much so that I'm skippy Ivy Bridge and Haswell, barring some very good deal like I got for my 2600k($400 for the 2600k and a Z68 motherboard when the 2600k was priced at $320) or the deal I got for my MSI board ($150 when it was selling for like $230)

 

[Naito]

I use 4 different VMs right now, but not simultaneously (obviously), and there's no real need to ever run more than 2 concurrently for the testing I need to do. Since I can only run one at a time, I've been (ab)using my GF's laptop for the other VM, and I'd like to give the girl a break. I believe the i5 will be just about enough for this. I used to do some video encoding, but in XviD, and it's been a while since I needed it. It was mostly some home videos of friends and friends' friends that were grabbed from DVR cams and the like, and I don't really do tons of image editing or audio production, so, I guess there's no real need for an i7...

From what you described, it sounds like an i5-3570 would be the way to go. Depending on the VMs, they probably would happily run using 1 core/thread, if you needed to run two or more; especially that the more modern CPUs IPC is much higher than what you currently have. Anyway, usually it's the RAM that matters more (I find anyway).

Perhaps an SSD would be a nice addition to the system, as an overall system agility factor?

This. Most definitely this.

 

[Naito]

Nope, I stand corrected. Sorry qubit, but the chipset (for whatever reason), must still support VT-d, in this day and age. Anyone who wants VT-d support (1155 socket), regardless if you have a non-K series CPU or not, will require a board with the Q67 or Q77 chipset, not the 'enthusiast' Z77 chipset. Sigh. I searched high and low for this information when I researched my build, and yet I find it many months after the fact.... goddammit

.... bit of a 'rookie error'