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[Reallink]

I've thought the ocs for devils canyon were overstated, but I could be wrong. I heard the thermals were a little better, but not as much of an improvement as hoped from the first haswell batch. It depends what you are doing? I'd still want those extra cores if I were a professional streamer on twitch while playing games.

I'm not sure. I went through a few of the DC reviews and all of them managed at least 4.6 IIRC. The i7 is 4.4 out of the box (turbo), so it's not inconceivable most samples would be able to full time that and a hair more on all 4 cores at or near stock turbo voltages.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

If you are an itching for an upgrade and yet doesn't want to spend thousands for a marginal upgrade, do what I did and buy a Xeon 5660. It's a 6-core CPU compatible with most x58 motherboards. I bought it for $150 and provided the extra boost that I needed for games that scale well with the extra cores.

Best part? the cpu can be easily OC-ed without much effort. My CPU runs at 4.6ghz 24/7.

edit: the fuck at above

Is that with watercooling or on air? I could certainly do with upgrading my i7-950 to something cheaper than Haswell-E, if the gains can be meaningful. My i7-950 runs at 4 ghz already, so a Xeon 5660 also doing 4 ghz would mean fuck-all to me.

 

[Waikis]

Is that with watercooling or on air? I could certainly do with upgrading my i7-950 to something cheaper than Haswell-E, if the gains can be meaningful. My i7-950 runs at 4 ghz already, so a Xeon 5660 also doing 4 ghz would mean fuck-all to me.

I'm using corsair H100.
Here's a good thread for more info on Xeon 5660 http://www.overclock.net/t/1461359/official-xeon-x5660-x58-full-review-discussion-comparison-to-x79-high-end-cpus-and-xeon-l5639-benchmarks-inside-longest-post-ever

 

[LiquidMetal14]

literally installed an i7-4790k in my rig today...lol.

it was an upgrade from an i5-760 though, so i'm expecting good things regardless.

With that kind of grunt I would advise doing what I do and get SP stuff on PC and MP stuff on console if you have enough friends. I end up getting most multiplatform games on PC these days due to price as well.

 

[CreepingFear]

I'm not sure. I went through a few of the DC reviews and all of them managed at least 4.6 IIRC. The i7 is 4.4 out of the box (turbo), so it's not inconceivable most samples would be able to full time that and a hair more on all 4 cores at or near stock turbo voltages.

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Processors/Intel-Core-i7-4790K-Devils-Canyon-Review-and-Overclocking/Overclocking-Experience was the review I was thinking of, but even they managed to get 4.7ghz on 1.36v. I concede the point. I'd still take the extra cores and PCIE lanes if I could get around 4.4 or 4.5ghz on the Haswell-E. I was only able to get my 2600k to 4.4ghz at acceptable temps and voltages. I refuse to go over 1.35v even if Asus was posting guides how to oc at 1.4v on the Hard Forums. As always, your mileage may vary.

 

[mkenyon]

I'm not sure. I went through a few of the DC reviews and all of them managed at least 4.6 IIRC. The i7 is 4.4 out of the box (turbo), so it's not inconceivable most samples would be able to full time that and a hair more on all 4 cores at or near stock turbo voltages.

For background info, a lot of Sandy chips were able to get around 4.8-5.0 pretty easily. Ivy was able to do the same, once delidded.

Devil's Canyon, unless you really hit the bin lotto, seems to be around 4.5-4.7. I think people were hoping for 5+ GHz, so the relatively tame clocks people were getting with the actual consumer product were a bit of a letdown.

 

[mnannola]

I will never own any of these. Gimme whatever i5 is around $200 in a year or so Intel.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

I'm using corsair H100.
Here's a good thread for more info on Xeon 5660 http://www.overclock.net/t/1461359/official-xeon-x5660-x58-full-review-discussion-comparison-to-x79-high-end-cpus-and-xeon-l5639-benchmarks-inside-longest-post-ever

This is certainly relevant to my interests. My Gigabyte X58A-UD3R would be so happy if I didn't retire it yet. I wonder how Westmere compares to Haswell-E on a clock-for-clock basis in terms of IPC improvements though.

 

[mkenyon]

Lots of 6-core socket 1366's on eBay for cheap right now. X5650's are ~$70! Grab 2 + a $140 dual socket MB for less than a single 5820! Hell, 4GB Registered ECC DDR3 is also cheap compared to unbuffered DDR3 ($20/4GB), so grab 24GB (6x 4GB) sticks for $120 and have a monster 12C system for ~$400, or just slightly more than the CPU of a newer 6-core system...

Yeah, it turbo's max at 3GHz, you need a PS with dual 12V AUX power connectors, you're `stuck' with PCIe-2.0 and you've got to find a case that fits EATX (just got a Corsair 730T myself, which really is huge!), but bang-for-the-buck I don't think it can be beat!

Or...grab a standard x58 motherboard and overclock the crap out of the X5650 if you really care about single threaded throughput. You should be able to get at least 4GHz out of one, if not better.

Except the sad (and awesome) truth is a $70 Pentium Anniversary Edition is going to run circles around it in games.

I'm using corsair H100.
Here's a good thread for more info on Xeon 5660 http://www.overclock.net/t/1461359/official-xeon-x5660-x58-full-review-discussion-comparison-to-x79-high-end-cpus-and-xeon-l5639-benchmarks-inside-longest-post-ever

Talk about a loaded comparison. The 2011 proc is garbage.

 

[CreepingFear]

I will never own any of these. Gimme whatever i5 is around $200 in a year or so Intel.

If I'm realistic, I probably won't be able to afford the E series either when I'm due for an upgrade, but one can dream, right?

 

[Genio88]

Aw dammit I knew this'd happen a few months after I bought my 4770k. Would probably have gotten a 6core.

Same for me, but i wouldn't regret too much, cause i bought the i7 4770k new and boxed for just 240 euro on Ebay, and i guess it will be great for gaming till the i7 eight core will be out at a cheaper price.

 

[mkenyon]

Same for me, but i wouldn't regret too much, cause i bought the i7 4770k new and boxed for just 240 euro on Ebay, and i guess it will be great for gaming till the i7 eight core will be out at a cheaper price.

Fear not, there's probably not going to be a significant difference between the two in games.

The enthusiast platform (X79/X99) is intended for production, and 3-4 way SLI/Crossfire setups. There haven't been any real benefits to using the enthusiast platform in gaming since its inception with 1366 vs.1156.

 

[rokkerkory]

Good grief PC gaming is not cheap =/

 

[CreepingFear]

Fear not, there's probably not going to be a significant difference between the two in games.

The enthusiast platform (X79/X99) is intended for production, and 3-4 way SLI/Crossfire setups. There haven't been any real benefits to using the enthusiast platform in gaming since its inception with 1366 vs.1156.

Hypothetically speaking, if you were a full time Twitch streamer, would you steam/game on one E platform or buy two of the cheaper mainstream Devil Canyon setups? A dedicated streaming pc and one dedicated gaming pc.

 

[Grief.exe]

Good grief PC gaming is not cheap =/

This is the top end, not really necessary for gaming applications.

 

[The Llama]

Hypothetically speaking, if you were a full time Twitch streamer, would you steam/game on one E platform or buy two of the cheaper mainstream Devil Canyon setups? A dedicated streaming pc and one dedicated gaming pc.

You'd want a dedicated streaming pc, definitely.

 

[pinsomniac]

Question: I actually run a stock 2500K as well. Don't recall my mobo offhand, but pretty sure it was a lower-end/budget model.

Whenever I eventually need a performance boost, am I better off for the price upgrading my motherboard + cooling or just replacing the entire thing (cpu + mobo + ddr4 + maybe cooling, if necessary)?

A motherboard upgrade sounds odd, but I'm getting the impression that like it might actually be worth it on a 2500K...

 

[Syf]

Sigh.. I still love you, 3770K. But the time for a new build is coming.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Except the sad (and awesome) truth is a $70 Pentium Anniversary Edition is going to run circles around it in games.

Talk about a loaded comparison. The 2011 proc is garbage.

Well I can get a Xeon X5660 for $100 on eBay, the full Haswell-E upgrade would probably run me $1500 to $2000.

So the question is, we know the Haswell-E will be superior, but will be it be $2000 superior?

The other problem for me is that the Haswell-E won't suddenly make it possible for me to play games at 4K, I need a stupid GPU which literally doesn't exist for that. Even Maxwell probably won't be able to do it, and my current machine still handles 1080p just fine. So really what exactly I would be spending $2000 on, I don't actually know.

 

[Ziffles]

http://videocardz.com/51380/intel-haswell-e-i7-5960x-i7-5930k-i7-5820k-pricing-revealed
Intel Core i7 5960X 8C/16HT – 40-lane PCI-Express support (x16 + x16 + x8) — $999

Damn that's a lot more than I was hoping for, still I need it for work so:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7jJnwEeiU0

 

[420bits]

3930k OC @ 4ghz here, won't be buying this because it will only make me dirtpoor for close to no gain, I will however wait with anticipation for a new gpu, my gtx 580 is so tired

 

[scoobs]

Gonna wait out the new (newer than the 8 series coming) nvidia cards before I upgrade.. hopefully by that time ddr4 and 8 core CPUs have dropped in price to something a bit more reasonable.

 

[mkenyon]

Hypothetically speaking, if you were a full time Twitch streamer, would you steam/game on one E platform or buy two of the cheaper mainstream Devil Canyon setups? A dedicated streaming pc and one dedicated gaming pc.

I helped build the setup for a full time Twitch streamer. Having a dedicated system that does just the streaming component is absolutely necessary. Due to budget restraints, it's a 2600 (non-K) that I salvaged out of a work build. If money were no object, I'd probably put a 5820K in there for helpful video editing purposes.

Well I can get a Xeon X5660 for $100 on eBay, the full Haswell-E upgrade would probably run me $1500 to $2000.

So the question is, we know the Haswell-E will be superior, but will be it be $2000 superior?

The other problem for me is that the Haswell-E won't suddenly make it possible for me to play games at 4K, I need a stupid GPU which literally doesn't exist for that. Even Maxwell probably won't be able to do it, and my current machine still handles 1080p just fine. So really what exactly I would be spending $2000 on, I don't actually know.

The comparison in that link is using a total trash 2.whatever GHz Xeon. I'm not kidding when I say that the $70 Intel Pentium Anniversary Edition would run circles around either setup in games. I'm not sure about your math either.

$380 CPU + $220 RAM + $250 motherboard = $800, not $1500

Gonna wait out the new (newer than the 8 series coming) nvidia cards before I upgrade.. hopefully by that time ddr4 and 8 core CPUs have dropped in price to something a bit more reasonable.

The MSRP of these CPUs will stay that way until they're no longer available in stores. You might get it for a $50 discount here and there. But for comparison, the 980X, was still selling for $1000 well into the release of Sandy and Sandy-E.

 

[KKRT00]

Really thinking about 5820K @4ghz. 12 cores at 2ghz or 6 cores in 4ghz, is a lot of power, that should last me easily through this and next gen.
And i need better CPU for Star Citizen anyway

 

[JaseC]

I'd been hoping that Haswell-E would introduce 8c/16t CPUs into the desktop space... but I'm not paying a grand for one (assuming for the moment that this information is accurate). There's no pressing need for me move beyond my 2600K just yet, anyway.

 

[michaelius]

I'll wait until their iGPU improves and DDR4 ram is cheaper

Please tell me this is joke post.

 

[Painguy]

Still running my 4.9ghz i7 2600k. I doubt this will bottle neck me for a good while right?

 

[Durante]

The 5820K will be mine. Now to hope you can get it to 4 Ghz on air.

 

[JackDT]

Hypothetically speaking, if you were a full time Twitch streamer, would you steam/game on one E platform or buy two of the cheaper mainstream Devil Canyon setups? A dedicated streaming pc and one dedicated gaming pc.

If you stream only PC games I'd go with a single powerhouse PC. It's just easier and you can do things like 1080p60 which is still really annoying with most capture cards.

If you already have an older PC, or you stream console games, look into the dual setup.

 

[BPoole]

These are still too expensive for me. I'll probably just get one if the upper range i5s

 

[Seanspeed]

I hear a lot of people saying this isn't necessarily for gaming, but isn't it quite possible that many developers will take advantage of the console's large core count on the CPU side(since the raw power of individual cores is quite low), making PC ports of these games run much better on CPU's with larger core counts as well?

 

[XShadows69]

That 5820k is so enticing

 

[neurosisxeno]

I hear a lot of people saying this isn't necessarily for gaming, but isn't it quite possible that many developers will take advantage of the console's large core count on the CPU side(since the raw power of individual cores is quite low), making PC ports of these games run much better on CPU's with larger core counts as well?

They have a lot of very weak cores. The Jaguar Cores in the AMD APU's inside the new consoles are substantially weaker than anything Intel has put out in probably the last 4 years. The original Jaguar Cores were designed for laptops as a frame of reference. Honestly, per-thread performance is way more important than more threading, so you'll see much better overall performance out of something like an i7-920 than the new APU's in the PS4 and XOne.

 

[fedexpeon]

Nice, glad I waited to upgrade on my PC this year.
I guess a couple more months won't hurt me.

 

[Boss Mog]

Need to see the overclockability before we can say if it's any good because the 5820k is only 3.3GHz. Motherboards and DDR4 memory will be expensive too. My 2600K @ 4.6Ghz still tears through everything. I probably won't upgrade til Skylake at the earliest.

 

[michaelius]

The 5820K will be mine. Now to hope you can get it to 4 Ghz on air.

Why not ?

6 core Sandy-E and Ivy-E do it with no problems.

 

[CreepingFear]

I hear a lot of people saying this isn't necessarily for gaming, but isn't it quite possible that many developers will take advantage of the console's large core count on the CPU side(since the raw power of individual cores is quite low), making PC ports of these games run much better on CPU's with larger core counts as well?

Maybe, but a lot of people take the approach that we can't see what the future holds, so buy what you need now. Right now, they aren't taking advantage of more cores.

 

[Seanspeed]

They have a lot of very weak cores. The Jaguar Cores in the AMD APU's inside the new consoles are substantially weaker than anything Intel has put out in probably the last 4 years. The original Jaguar Cores were designed for laptops as a frame of reference. Honestly, per-thread performance is way more important than more threading, so you'll see much better overall performance out of something like an i7-920 than the new APU's in the PS4 and XOne.

Clearly. I'm not talking about comparison in overall capability, though. I'm talking about how since the individual cores of console CPU's are weak, devs will have to take advantage of what they have - and that is a lot of cores. So if a game is designed around taking advantage of a lot of cores, it stands to reason that if ported to PC, a CPU with a lot of cores would be ideal to have to get the best possible performance, right?

Kinda the same reason a lot of people are worried about vRAM at the moment.

 

[Henrar]

Look at the PCIE lane count for the cheapest one.

Bleh

That's still more than number of PCI lanes of 4770k (16)

 

[neurosisxeno]

Clearly. I'm not talking about comparison in overall capability, though. I'm talking about how since the individual cores of console CPU's are weak, devs will have to take advantage of what they have - and that is a lot of cores. So if a game is designed around taking advantage of a lot of cores, it stands to reason that if ported to PC, a CPU with a lot of cores would be ideal to have to get the best possible performance, right?

And if your cores are twice as strong (or even more) you can accomplish much more in a given time frame. The way games are programmed for PC vs. Consoles is fundamentaly different so the translation kind of falls apart. On consoles--with dedicated hardware layouts--it's a lot easier to multi-thread since you can program at a lower level (I use easier very liberally here since it's still pretty hard). When the games are ported over you never really know what you're getting yourself into. Are they using an i3? i5? Haswell-E? FX-8350? They are all very different hardware-wise so making your program heavily threaded while remaining completely hardware-agnostic is much more complicated.

Instead we see games built around the lowest common denominator, dual-cores. Most games use at least 2 cores these days, with quite a few using up to 4 and a handful using more than that. That's why for 99% of games an i5 is more than adequate. CPU-usage also doesn't really scale with resolution, so as we bumped up the resolution of our games we started seeing more stress on the GPU's anyway, leading to a bit of stagnation in the CPU department, combined with an increased focus on efficiency. Things like Mantle and DirectX12 will probably make multi-threading a bit easier by removing some CPU bottlenecks, but as the i5 and i7 show, having 4 very powerful cores (and in the latters case the ability to park threads) is just as good and usually better than having 8 weak cores (like the FX-8350).

 

[DieH@rd]

Why didn't op listed 2 cheapest CPUs [all quadcores]?

 

[cheezcake]

That's a big ass cache

 

[Addnan]

Good grief PC gaming is not cheap =/

Good thing this is not a gaming processor then eh.

 

[Seanspeed]

And if your cores are twice as strong (or even more) you can accomplish much more in a given time frame. The way games are programmed for PC vs. Consoles is fundamentaly different so the translation kind of falls apart. On consoles--with dedicated hardware layouts--it's a lot easier to multi-thread since you can program at a lower level (I use easier very liberally here since it's still pretty hard). When the games are ported over you never really know what you're getting yourself into. Are they using an i3? i5? Haswell-E? FX-8350? They are all very different hardware-wise so making your program heavily threaded while remaining completely hardware-agnostic is much more complicated.

Instead we see games built around the lowest common denominator, dual-cores. Most games use at least 2 cores these days, with quite a few using up to 4 and a handful using more than that. That's why for 99% of games an i5 is more than adequate. CPU-usage also doesn't really scale with resolution, so as we bumped up the resolution of our games we started seeing more stress on the GPU's anyway, leading to a bit of stagnation in the CPU department, combined with an increased focus on efficiency. Things like Mantle and DirectX12 will probably make multi-threading a bit easier by removing some CPU bottlenecks, but as the i5 and i7 show, having 4 very powerful cores (and in the latters case the ability to park threads) is just as good and usually better than having 8 weak cores (like the FX-8350).

So when a console game is ported to PC, the way the CPU is utilized is completely changed and unrelated?

Why didn't op listed 2 cheapest CPUs [all quadcores]?

Because this isn't about CPU's we already know about, but the ones we don't.

 

[Kaako]

I'll take a i7 5960X for $400 please. xp

 

[Durante]

I hear a lot of people saying this isn't necessarily for gaming, but isn't it quite possible that many developers will take advantage of the console's large core count on the CPU side(since the raw power of individual cores is quite low), making PC ports of these games run much better on CPU's with larger core counts as well?

I'd absolutely expect next-gen ports to be much better at multithreading than last-gen ports.

However, if you only need console-equivalent performance, an Intel quad core should still be easily good enough. These enthusiast-level CPUs get interesting if you e.g. want to run a port of a 30 FPS CPU-limited next gen console game at > 60 FPS (with additional CPU-intensive improved settings, such as draw distance).

 

[sirap]

Looks like I'll finally be upgrading this 920. Shame I'll have to fork out for ddr4, just upgraded to 32gbs of ddr3

 

[CaptainGyro]

I've had a 3570k for more than a year and I haven't had an urge to overclock it either. It's no big deal. That doesn't mean that I am never gonna overclock it

 

[Hesemonni]

True that. Haven't even felt the need to OC mine at all yet. Even liquid cooled for when I eventually do.

I'm in the same boat with Shockwave here. 2500k + 770 GTX and haven't really had any problems so far. I'm not even trying to run Dolphin, PXSX2 or likes, so I haven't found anything so far which would've required the overclock. Maybe I'll do o complete rebuild when 900-series from NVidia hits.

 

[EatChildren]

Things I want: Intel Core i7 5960X 8C/16HT
Things I will not pay US$999+ for: Intel Core i7 5960X 8C/16HT