[Shambles]

Hrm, I'm torn. What i'd like to see is if a SNB chip overclocked on air cooling will compare to an overclocked IVB chip on air. Still not sure which way I'll end up going.

[surly]

Does anyone say whether it can be sold today or next week? Or do we just have to wait and see if some retailer decides to start selling?

They're not supposed to be sold until the 29th apparently.

[_woLf]

Does anyone say whether it can be sold today or next week? Or do we just have to wait and see if some retailer decides to start selling?

Both HEXUS and guru3d's reviews said the 29th/30th.

[Brettison]

So is it 3770k or bust? Would the 3570k serve me just fine as a mid range chip and an upgrade over my current Core2 setup?!?!

[sk3]

So is it 3770k or bust? Would the 3570k serve me just fine as a mid range chip and an upgrade over my current Core2 setup?!?!

3770k has hyperthreading. If aren't doing encoding/media creation its not much use to you. Not worth $100 anyway.

[Sethos]

3770k has hyperthreading. If aren't doing encoding/media creation its not much use to you. Not worth $100 anyway.

or something as simple as unpacking a large RAR will take a fortnight without HT.

[mkenyon]

I haven't found a single review where they OC beyond 4.8Ghz. Maybe the glass ceiling does exist? Anyone find a review where they go beyond?

[brotkasten]

I haven't found a single review where they OC beyond 4.8Ghz. Maybe the glass ceiling does exist? Anyone find a review where they go beyond?

Nope.

cross post

In any case, the frequency potential of the new Ivy Bridge processors turned out to be below our expectations. We didn’t manage to overclock them even to the same heights as the previous-generation Sandy Bridge. So, we can state that the overclocking potential of the newcomers has become worse, which may have been caused by the reduction of the geometrical die size of the new Ivy Bridge. Its overall size is 25% smaller than the Sandy Bridge die, and the computational cores have become only half the size of the Sandy Bridge cores. However, contemporary approach to processor die cooling doesn’t allow increasing the heat flow density in equal proportion, which causes local overheating of some parts of the processor cores during overclocking. High operational CPU core frequencies indirectly confirm that this problem indeed exists, although the processor cooler remained practically cold in this case. As a result, it looks like even after the launch of the new Ivy Bridge the title of the best enthusiast platform will go to LGA 2011. These processors not only boast additional features that allow overclocking them by simply raising the BCLK frequency, but also boast better overclocking potential. However, if the LGA 2011 platform seems financially out of reach, then the old Sandy Bridge processors may present a worthy alternative to Ivy Bridge. Especially, since they do not fall too far behind the newcomers working at the same clock speeds in computational performance.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu...k_9.html#sect0

Looks like I waited for nothing.

[x-Lundz-x]

So, I know we do not have any official reviews right now but what is GAF's take on these new chips? Worth waiting for if I do not plan on overclocking and going ahead and getting an i7 2700k now and just be done with it?

[Edvardelis]

I haven't found a single review where they OC beyond 4.8Ghz. Maybe the glass ceiling does exist? Anyone find a review where they go beyond?

According to techreport when you raise the voltage past the stock, power consumption and the amount of heat generated go through the roof. They managed to get it to 4.9Ghz on an air-cooled ASUS motherboard.

I think you'd need a custom water cooling system to get that high.

[ParityBit]

So, I know we do not have any official reviews right now but what is GAF's take on these new chips? Worth waiting for if I do not plan on overclocking and going ahead and getting an i7 2700k now and just be done with it?

Well, besides overclocking, its the only way to get USB 3.0 and PCI-e 3 right?

[GoingGreen]

Well, besides overclocking, its the only way to get USB 3.0 and PCI-e 3 right?

Doesn't SB support USB 3.0?

[brotkasten]

Doesn't SB support USB 3.0?

I don't think it has native 3.0 support.

[mkenyon]

According to techreport when you raise the voltage past the stock, power consumption and the amount of heat generated go through the roof. They managed to get it to 4.9Ghz on an air-cooled ASUS motherboard. I think you'd need a custom water cooling system to get that high.

Yeah, that was the original rumors and what I thought might be going on. Intel had some PR folks that tried saying it was due to engineering samples or yada yada yada.

Well, besides overclocking, its the only way to get USB 3.0 and PCI-e 3 right?

Nope. P67 and Z68 boards have USB 3.0, just not built into the chipset. What this means is that when ASUS goes to build a board, they source USB 3.0 stuff from a 3rd party and add it on there. PCI-E 3.0 is worthless for all but a tiny portion of people, and can be found on ASRock's Z68 boards as well as the "Gen 3" ASUS boards.

I don't think it has native 3.0 support.

That doesn't really mean much.

*edit*
Furthermore, Z77 and ivybridge are two different things. You can get a Z77 board and get a SB processor, or upgrade to a Z77 board and keep your SB proc.

[Shambles]

Doesn't SB support USB 3.0?

USB 3.0 support is provided by third party chips on the motherboard. IVB is Intels first natively supported CPUs for USB 3.0.

[disap.ed]

Well he could still buy a Z7x-Motherboard together with a SB cpu, no?

[ParityBit]

I don't think it has native 3.0 support.

Yes, I believe it is not native. Plus I am not so sure I would be overclocking it over 4.8. Just call it a hunch but I would think that would be more than adequate.

Also coming from a Core 2 Duo, 3 hamsters on a spinning wheel would be an upgrade.

[dr. apocalipsis]

You originally brought up three pillars of futility. I only wanted to clarify that two of the three weren't quite right. Even with the overall performance discrepancy, you could be overlooking the productivity tasks where the AMDs matched, or beat, comparable Intels.

Power Consumption - Five results from the link YOU posted.

-

http://techreport.com/articles.x/16147/12

Man, is that ever close. The two systems idle at just about the same power level and complete the rendering task in nearly the same amount of time. (The Phenom II is a smidgen quicker.) True to its lower 95W TDP rating, though, the Core 2 Quad Q9400 draws less power under load than the Phenom II. The Phenom II's higher peak power draw is evident here, but still, AMD has shaved 30W off of the Phenom X4 9950's peak while delivering higher performance at the same time. Because of its higher draw under load, the Phenom II's power efficiency can't quite match that of Intel's Core 2 Quads, but it comes very close.

-

http://www.techspot.com/review/137-a...20/page13.html

Probably the worst and most flawed review I saw in a while. No comments here. Loled with the gaming results.


-

http://hothardware.com/Reviews/Enter...4-940/?page=10

They offered the lowest idle power consumption of the bunch and peak consumption was lower than all of the Intel-based systems with the exception of the lower-clocked Core 2 Quad Q9400.

Being the Q9400 the closest one (slightly better) regarding performance in that table.


-

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu..._13.html#sect0

AMD managed to significantly lower the power consumption of its platforms. However, there is still room for improvement. Contemporary systems with quad-core Intel LGA775 CPUs still boast better “performance-per-watt” ratio.

-

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpu...-920-review/13

The load power is still higher than the Intel Core 2 Quads, but not by much

4 - 1 here, just looking at reviews you posted. Techspot one was pure shit. I don't know why you posted that one.

X4 Overclocking - First five Google results, all on air (including stock cooler). http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/...-p2-980oc2.jpg "On our sample that meant 4.2GHz with the stock cooler. Given enough voltage hitting 4GHz+ on air isn't a problem." http://www.guru3d.com/imageview.php?image=30237 "Here's an overclock at 4263 MHz 100% stable. We boosted Voltage towards 1.575v in the BIOS and simply applied a multiplier of 21 versus a small bus speed increase of 203 MHz. Temperatures are now much higher, but really acceptable. Again, and I can't stress this enough -- we are only using a 35 USD air based Vendetta cooler here, nothing fancy." http://tpucdn.com/reviews/AMD/Phenom.../images/oc.jpg "The end result was 4.21 GHz, which is about 100 MHz below what Phenom II X4 975 achieved when it was reviewed, but still a nice result for Deneb core. Results vary from sample to sample, but we have seen most C3 Deneb cores pass 4 GHz maximum clock." http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/im..._X4_980_43.jpg "This is going to sound repetitive for those who have read our previous Phenom II reviews, but were once again were able to achieve a new highest stable Phenom II clock speed. 4254Mhz at 1.45V with enough stability to pass 3 hours of Prime 95 Blend, one hour's worth of LinX, and a few wPrime and SuperPI runs is quite impressive. We were able to squeeze an extra 74Mhz from this chip compared to the X4 975." http://www.overclockersclub.com/vima..._x4_980/oc.jpg "For the Phenom II X4 980 I was able to reach a top speed of 4.36GHz which came out to have a multiplier of 20.5x and a reference clock speed of 212MHz at 1.5v." These aren't magical chips, either. Numerous X4 955/965/970/975s have eclipsed the 4GHz mark. Two of those quotes make note of that. Overall, a large number of 45nm Phenom II/i5 7xx/i7 8xx/i7 9xx tend to fall within the 3.8-4.2GHz range for standard 24/7. One of my systems still houses a 24/7 Q9550 @ 4.2GHz on air. The 4.4GHz C2Q you brought up isn't any more indicative of what most get, than the few Phenom IIs which have also hit that clock. Percentage of overclock headroom doesn't exactly mean much when you arrive at the similar results. Look at how i7 920s top out compared to higher end i7 9XXs, or how the higher stock clocked Intels top out compared to the AMDs (of similar stock frequency).

I was talking all the time about 24/7 OC's. You posted even suicide shots there: 1,620 Vcore! So you got the very last release of the Phenom II family, 980BE, peak of AMD's 45nm, released in 2011 with the ultimate revision of the chip, and you try to tell me they are on par with first revision of Intel 45nm tech released in 2008, when that AMD chip can only OC 400~600 mhz (Tops at 16%) under extreme voltages. Seriously, I can't understad your point at all.

It's so easy to find better Q9650 OC's:



Have a look at Vcore.


http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...ALL-AIR-4.9GHz

On air OC with high Vcore.


http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...0-3870-all-air

http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=423924

5 ghz on air. Suicide shot for sure since Vcore is not shown.

And remember that it still have better IPC, so with both chips at 4ghz C2Q will have even better margin over Phenom II. The very first revision from 2008.

I don't understand why Phenom II had so good press. Phenom I was on par with Conroe tech wise, but lacked in raw frecuencies due to flawed 65nm proccess. Not talking about TLB bug. They were released just a few months after Conroe, and only faulty GF manufacturing hold them back.

Phenom II fixed that, adding a nice pool of L3, but they arrived 1 year after Yorkfield/Wolfdale/Penryn, with Nehalem in stores for months. They were so cheap because they can't compete tech wise even with the already past Intel generation.

I feel we are wasting time here. I'm not even talking about SS4.1 or better South Bridge performance. Yorkfield is way better than Deneb. Just try PCSX2 or Dolphin emulators and tell me.



Back On Topic. Here in europe IB it's being selling for days. Many users reports problems with Z68 boards being unable to OC at all, forcing them to run in stock values. Manufacturers says they are holding BIOS updates due to NDA. We may have a problem here with retrocompability.

[Sethos]

Well he could still buy a Z7x-Motherboard together with a SB cpu, no?

or a 2011 and be ready for IB-E as well, requires a bit more dough of course.

[Monarch]

Disappointed.

I could grab an i5 2500K for 177€ tomorrow if i wanted with no hassle to finally assemble my PC, or wait a week for the i5 3570K for 5% more perf in games (@stock) at 212€+ with less headroom to overclock and, the worse of it all, much more heat.

Damn you Intel :<

[UltimateIke]

Disappointed. I could grab an i5 2500K for 177€ tomorrow if i wanted with no hassle to finally assemble my PC, or wait a week for the i5 3570K for 5% more perf in games (@stock) at 212€+ with less headroom to overclock and, the worse of it all, much more heat. Damn you Intel :<

My i5-2500k is at 4.5GHz. I could still overclock it a good bit further if I wanted. It is stable with a Vcore of 1.296 V and tops out at 55°C in Prime95 (using a Cooler Master Hyper 212). Sandy Bridge is a beast in its own right.

Ivy Bridge is just a tick. If you hadn't already waited so long, I'd tell you to find a Sandy Bridge to hop on, and wait for the tock! As it is, you should probably hold out a little longer just to see how Ivy works out!

[muu]

Diablo3 turned out to play very well on my Q9300/HD5770 system, so now I'm stuck asking myself whether there's any reason to upgrade. Guess the biggest gain would be reduced idle power consumption, but a ~50w savings is going to cost me ~300-400 for CPU/Mobo/RAM. At this point it might almost be worth waiting for Haswell...

[Monarch]

My i5-2500k is at 4.5GHz. I could still overclock it a good bit further if I wanted. It is stable with a Vcore of 1.296 V and tops out at 55°C in Prime95 (using a Cooler Master Hyper 212). Ivy Bridge is just a tick. If you hadn't already waited so long, I'd tell you to find a Sandy Bridge to hop on, and wait for the tock! As it is, you should probably hold out a little longer just to see!

I waited several month, even grabbed the famous GEN3 version of the ASUS Z68 mobo (just for IB and PCI-E 3.0 compatibility) :p

Now, the thing is that IB is not so much of a valuable upgrade compared to a SB, PCI-E gen 3.0 is not useful right now (i'm not running 4 GTX 680s on 3*27" LCD alright lol) and even when it'll become usefull I'm sure any Z77+Ivy combo should be outdated.

An i5 2500K at 177€ is, I think, much more interesting from a performance/price point of view.

[x-Lundz-x]

USB 3.0 support is provided by third party chips on the motherboard. IVB is Intels first natively supported CPUs for USB 3.0.

I'm buying a Z77 Mobo, so this means if I get an i7 2700k I still will not have USB 3.0 support unless I get an IB CPU? Am I understanding that properly?

[UltimateIke]

I waited several month, even grabbed the famous GEN3 version of the ASUS Z68 mobo (just for IB and PCI-E 3.0 compatibility) :p Now, the thing is that IB is not so much of a valuable upgrade compared to a SB, PCI-E gen 3.0 is not useful right now (i'm not running 4 GTX 680s on 3*27" LCD alright lol) and even when it'll become usefull I'm sure any Z77+Ivy combo should be outdated. An i5 2500K at 177€ is, I think, much more interesting from a performance/price point of view.

If you already have a z68 board, what are you waiting for? :P

We even had a discussion a page back about how it might be difficult to update the BIOS on a z68 board for Ivy if you don't already have a Sandy chip on-hand.

I'm buying a Z77 Mobo, so this means if I get an i7 2700k I still will not have USB 3.0 support unless I get an IB CPU? Am I understanding that properly?

Yes? No? Maybe? The USB 3.0 controller is a part of the Ivy chips. I wouldn't think they'd include the third-party controllers anymore. They'd be redundant.

[Shambles]

I'm buying a Z77 Mobo, so this means if I get an i7 2700k I still will not have USB 3.0 support unless I get an IB CPU? Am I understanding that properly?

A third party controller will still give you USB 3.0 with a Sandy Bridge chip. People tend to prefer it being on-die because the Intel controllers tend to be much more robust than third party chips. Don't worry about it, you'll be fine.

[ParityBit]

I'm buying a Z77 Mobo, so this means if I get an i7 2700k I still will not have USB 3.0 support unless I get an IB CPU? Am I understanding that properly?

I have one at my house. The GPU is still somewhere in the void, so waiting for a week may NOT be an issue here. That's what I say now though. I don't know anymore what to do.

[UltimateIke]

A third party controller will still give you USB 3.0 with a Sandy Bridge chip. People tend to prefer it being on-die because the Intel controllers tend to be much more robust than third party chips. Don't worry about it, you'll be fine.

Will the Z77 still have a third-party controller though? I didn't think it would...

[Monarch]

If you already have a z68 board, what are you waiting for? :P We even had a discussion a page back about how it might be difficult to update the BIOS on a z68 board for Ivy if you don't already have a Sandy chip on-hand. Yes. The USB 3.0 controller is a part of the Ivy chips.

Yes the discussion was with...me lol
I'll grab a SB tomorrow and then my beautifull Graphite White 600T will illuminates itself with that beautiful subtle white of his <3
Can't wait ahah

[mkenyon]

Will the Z77 still have a third-party controller though? I didn't think it would...

It doesn't matter. Some might, some might not, depends on how many ports they want to provide.

[Reikon]

Well, I guess I'm going to use my $200 2600k + Z68. Doesn't seem worth the ~$80 to get the i5 Ivy Bridge and Z77 instead.

[x-Lundz-x]

Cool, thanks for the responses guys. I'll just wait and see what happens with the price of everything once they are released. As long as I have my new build done by May 15th is all I care about.

[UltimateIke]

Yes the discussion was with...me lol I'll grab a SB tomorrow and then my beautifull Graphite White 600T will illuminates itself with that beautiful subtle white of his <3 Can't wait ahah

Haha, I realized it was with you after I posted. I have a hard time keeping up with who I'm talking to.

[kuroshiki]

or something as simple as unpacking a large RAR will take a fortnight without HT.

Wait.

Winrar does use hyperthreading? Since when?

[spwolf]

Wait. Winrar does use hyperthreading? Since when?

it doesnt of course, no archiver uses multiplecores for extraction.

[dr. apocalipsis]

Will the Z77 still have a third-party controller though? I didn't think it would...

You may want more USB 3.0 ports. Lot of high end mobos offer third party controllers to have more SATA or USB ports. OFC native ones will be better most of the time.

it doesnt of course, no archiver uses multiplecores for extraction.

Extraction is hard drive limited. Compression is where CPU matters.

[UltimateIke]

It doesn't matter. Some might, some might not, depends on how many ports they want to provide.

You may want more USB 3.0 ports. Lot of high ends mobos offer third party controllers to have more SATA or USB ports. OFC native ones will be better most of the times.

I didn't think about Ivy itself being limited to only four USB 3.0 ports. Good point.

[mkenyon]

I didn't think about Ivy itself being limited to only four USB 3.0 ports. Good point.

The point is, it doesn't *really* matter if they are third party or automatically included in the chipset to intel's spec. Sometimes that can mean better performance, but we're talking about USB 3.0 here, not SATA ports. If you're relying on USB 3.0 for large data transfers often, you're doing it wrong.

[Hazaro]

If a $30 air cooler does Ivy well at 1.10V and that nets a 4.4Ghz OC (Effective 4.6 SB)... I'll probably substitute it into the build. Power savings are good.

Guess we will find out as more people post up stuff.

[bee]

to get pci-e 3.0 support for my triple monitor and soon to be gtx 680 sli setup, i need to sell my perfectly good 2500k and p67 mobo, unimpressed tbh :/

[Kadey]

I need something better for video encoding. Should I upgrade from a 2500k?

[mkenyon]

to get pci-e 3.0 support for my triple monitor and soon to be gtx 680 sli setup, i need to sell my perfectly good 2500k and p67 mobo, unimpressed tbh :/

As long as your motherboard can do x16/x16, no need. Otherwise, why not just get a new motherboard without a processor upgrade?

I need something better for video encoding. Should I upgrade from a 2500k?

Could do this or go for a socket 2011 w/ an i7 3820. I'm in the same spot as you.

[bee]

As long as your motherboard can do x16/x16, no need. Otherwise, why not just get a new motherboard without a processor upgrade?

mobo only does x8/x8 and i need the bandwidth for 5760x1080, some really eye opening benches out there for pci-e 2.0 vs 3.0 at that res

normal sandybridge doesn't support pci-e 3.0 as far as i'm aware and you need both the processor and mobo to support it?

[Hazaro]

I need something better for video encoding. Should I upgrade from a 2500k?

You already have your 2500K overclocked past 4.4Ghz right?
If you really do want more performance it looks like a 3770K and a 2600K might end up very similar with their overclocked speeds, but the 2600K with much easier overclocking and lower temperatures. Being the same price the 2600K would probably be the way to go.
Hopefully more reviews come in on how exactly Ivy does on OC and temps and it's not as bad as what Anandtech is reporting.

That's the cheap option. You can go with a Socket 2011 SB-E mobo and CPU for 6C/12T but then you are looking at a $600 upgrade.

[dr. apocalipsis]

PCIE controller is in the CPU in Intel since Lynnfield, nothing to do with motherboard.

If you want 2x16 you need x79 at socket 2011

Reviews UP!

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5771/t...7-3770k-review
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...pu-review.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...770k,3181.html
http://www.hardwareheaven.com/review...roduction.html
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/artic...PU-Review/1537
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/467...iew/index.html

[mkenyon]

That's the cheap option. You can go with a Socket 2011 SB-E mobo and CPU for 6C/12T but then you are looking at a $600 upgrade.

3820 is 4C/8T for a bit cheaper on 2011. Still around $500+ though.

[Hazaro]

PCIE controller is in the CPU in Intel since Lynnfield, nothing to do with motherboard. If you want 2x16 you need x79 at socket 2011 Reviews UP! http://www.anandtech.com/show/5771/t...7-3770k-review http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...pu-review.html http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...770k,3181.html http://www.hardwareheaven.com/review...roduction.html http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/artic...PU-Review/1537 http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/467...iew/index.html

Thanks :)

Main points:
4.4Ghz on ~1.10V seems to be norm, any higher is hard or gets super hot and draws tons of power. Much worse than SB.
About 5% faster roughly for easy numbers
No idle wattage savings, ok load savings

*Useful:

[Zyzyxxz]

Wow the Intel HD4000 integrated GPU is starting too look somewhat bearable. Still a long way to go but I wonder how long before we see useful integrated GPU's for higher resolution gaming.

[dLMN8R]

Jesus, why is ASUS so fucking convoluted? I mean, just look at this shit:

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Int...1155/Intel_Z77

Such a ridiculous number of models with negligible difference between them.


Anandtech reviewed the P8Z77-V PRO and DELUXE. I was about to get the PRO, but then I saw that there's just a vanilla P8Z77-V.

What's the difference between the P8Z77-V and P8Z77-V PRO?

The ASMedia® USB 3.0 controller on the PRO has an extra 2 USB 3.0 ports.

That's it. Seriously. Go do a comparison on their web site. There's nothing else different between them!

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Int...t_1155/P8Z77V/
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Int...55/P8Z77V_PRO/

[Hazaro]

Jesus, why is ASUS so fucking convoluted? I mean, just look at this shit: What's the difference between the P8Z77-V and P8Z77-V PRO? The ASMedia® USB 3.0 controller on the PRO has an extra 2 USB 3.0 ports. That's it. Seriously. Go do a comparison on their web site. There's nothing else different between them! http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Int...t_1155/P8Z77V/ http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Int...55/P8Z77V_PRO/

The PRO probably has more VRMs just looking at the boards, also some extra caps and chips scattered about. Regular should be more than fine.