Sandy Bridge E or Ivy Bridge

[the54thvoid]

I run an x58 set up currently and to be honest it does everything it needs to and it does it well. The only caveat is it does it by consuming power, overclocked cpu and 580 lighting for gfx.

I am setting aside £2000* for a rig but after reading lacklustre previews about SB-E I figured I'd hold off till IB comes out (by which time my set up will be >3 years old.)

My question is and it's for the tech heads out there:

I like fast set ups and I plan on w/c and overclocking and having that pc for another 3 years potentially. Which platform will have more longetivity and which would be more fun to have?

My x58 might be bested by SB-E now so I dont want to get an X79 platform only to be equalled by a IB set up.

I game and browse but that's not the point - I like having a good powerful PC, same way some folks here have cars that do 140mph + but really don't drive them that way. It's all about the love of the machine.

Should I hold off for IB or move up to X79. Or wait to see how X79 goes down and then decide? Genuine techy insight would be appreciated - not interested in "SB-E's gonna suck!" - I need factoids.

*I'm a cheap date and have few costly vices.

 

[lyndonguitar]

IB is a better choice. smaller die. runs cooler. less power consumption and plus from nehalem and sandy bridge you could tell that IB will be better than SB-E.(like 2600k is on par with 980X)

and of course nothing's better than having the latest gen

your system is still awesome. it may be better to skip sandy bridge and go straight to ivy.

and of course wait for matured benchmarks to come before buying either..

If I'm in your place I would go straight to Ivy Bridge.

 

[brandonwh64]

I would see what IB holds, I am also thinking of 2600K but with these two closing near, I would wait

 

[Black Haru]

I run an x58 set up currently and to be honest it does everything it needs to and it does it well. The only caveat is it does it by consuming power, overclocked cpu and 580 lighting for gfx.

I am setting aside £2000* for a rig but after reading lacklustre previews about SB-E I figured I'd hold off till IB comes out (by which time my set up will be >3 years old.)

My question is and it's for the tech heads out there:

I like fast set ups and I plan on w/c and overclocking and having that pc for another 3 years potentially. Which platform will have more longetivity and which would be more fun to have?

My x58 might be bested by SB-E now so I dont want to get an X79 platform only to be equalled by a IB set up.

I game and browse but that's not the point - I like having a good powerful PC, same way some folks here have cars that do 140mph + but really don't drive them that way. It's all about the love of the machine.

Should I hold off for IB or move up to X79. Or wait to see how X79 goes down and then decide? Genuine techy insight would be appreciated - not interested in "SB-E's gonna suck!" - I need factoids.

*I'm a cheap date and have few costly vices.

I don't know how SB-E will do on heat, but ivy bridge will likely not need water cooling. (SB didn't) with an H-60 (not a real WC setup) I never had temp problems, even when I was overvolting the crap out of my chip, I would say it is a safe bet that IB will operate the same way (voltage wall is hit long before the temp wall)

honestly, if you are happy with your rig now, you stand to loose nothing by waiting for IB and making your decision when it releases. you will have more time to save money, Intel will have time to make revisions to SB-E, and you will be able to get an accurate look at IB and make an educated decision.

 

[the54thvoid]

You're all backing up my gut feeling. I'm still gonna water cool my system even if it doesn't need it - too much fun not too

 

[theeldest]

I think Ivy Bridge is going to be the better bet. The main things LGA 2011 has over LGA 1155 are:

1. 32 PCIe lanes vs 16 in LGA 1155
2. More 6Gbps SATA ports
3. Quad channel memory

Regarding #1: Ivy Bridge will get an upgrade to PCIe 3.0 and will have the same bandwidth in 16 lanes as LGA 2011 has in 32 lanes. So this is meaningless.

Regarding #2: Most high end LGA 1155 boards complement the standard two 6 Gbps SATA ports with 2 more. Unless you're looking to do more than 2 SSDs it's unlikely you'd need/use more than the 2 (or 4) 6 Gbps ports.

Regarding #3: It's pretty easy to get a dual channel kit that will run up to 2133MHz with LGA 1155 and that makes up for quite a bit of the memory bandwidth difference.


Pros for Ivy Bridge:

1. Smaller manufacturing process so it'll be more energy efficient.
2. And the normal optimizations will increase core performance over Sandy Bridge E.

I'd definitely go Ivy Bridge. Outside of needing to fully populate 8 dimm slots (max of 64GB) or running large RAID arrays with the 10 SATA ports I don't see Sandy Bridge E being a gamer's chip with Ivy Bridge hot on it's heels.