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  1. #1

    Ivy Bridge vs Sandy Bridge - How much is the wait worth?

    I'm ready to build a new mid-level system (i5-2500K, etc, USD 1250 or so), but I know the Ivy Bridge chips and motherboards are coming out in a month or two, and I'm not sure that I want to wait.

    My guess is that the i5-2500K and MB I'd get now would cost about USD 100 less than their Ivy Bridge counterparts, but I'm not sure how much more I'd get in terms of performance and features.

    So, my question to the forum - How much is waiting for the Ivy Bridge chips and MBs worth (in terms of whatever)?

    Thanks!

    -- Van

  2. #2
    Not sure where you're getting the idea that IB parts are going to cost more than SB. The 2500k equivalent (3570k) will be competitively priced where the 2500k was. Not to mention that IB is cross compatible with SB motherboards, so obviously there's going to be no increase there.

    Either way, IB is a rather disappointing die shrink according to early benchmarks, and you'll see a 7%~ increase in performance at best. If you wanna build now, go for it IMO.
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  3. #3
    I disagree with glo, the benchmarks I've seen show a 5-15% increase between SB and IB, which is rather significant and worth waiting for in my opinion, especially considering this is a tick (which are supposed to be a small upgrade by definition) in Intel's Tick Tock model.

    And like glo said, you won't save $100 by buying a 2500K and mobo now, the leaked price of the 3570K (the 2500K equivalent) is $225, and most reputable sites are reporting an April 29 release date.
    Last edited by noteworthynerd; 2012-04-01 at 03:25 AM.

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by noteworthynerd View Post
    I disagree with glo, the benchmarks I've seen show a 5-15% increase between SB and IB, which is rather significant and worth waiting for in my opinion, especially considering this is a tick (which are supposed to be a small upgrade by definition) in Intel's Tick Tock model.

    And like glo said, you won't save $100 by buying a 2500K and mobo now, the leaked price of the 3570K (the 2500K equivalent) is $225, and most reputable sites are reporting an April 29 release date.
    You're linking the wrong processor. Of course the i7 is going to do better since it's clocked higher.

    EDIT: Here's the only 3D/gaming benchmarks I know of

    http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/461...k/index10.html

    I don't see how that's worth waiting for.
    Last edited by glo; 2012-04-01 at 03:58 AM.
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  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by glo View Post
    You're linking the wrong processor. Of course the i7 is going to do better since it's clocked higher.

    EDIT: Here's the only 3D/gaming benchmarks I know of

    http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/461...k/index10.html

    I don't see how that's worth waiting for.
    He didn't link the wrong processor, he linked a comparison between equivalent CPU's and honestly I would expect the same performance difference from 2500k to 3570k. I don't think that's too far fetched of an expectation.

    If we assume the price point is fairly similar it's definitely worth waiting 30 days, assuming it gets released then. I'm not sure how you can say getting a newer generation, less power and less heat CPU with a 5-15% isn't worth it.

    If you already had the i5-2500k then yeah there would be little to no reason switching.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Notarget View Post
    He didn't link the wrong processor, he linked a comparison between equivalent CPU's and honestly I would expect the same performance difference from 2500k to 3570k. I don't think that's too far fetched of an expectation.

    If we assume the price point is fairly similar it's definitely worth waiting 30 days, assuming it gets released then. I'm not sure how you can say getting a newer generation, less power and less heat CPU with a 5-15% isn't worth it.

    If you already had the i5-2500k then yeah there would be little to no reason switching.
    Yeah, he did. You're not looking at the clocks on the chips. The main reason that i7 is beating the 2500/2600k is because of its clocks. That's what happens at stock speeds. If you were to compare directly the 2500k and 3570k at identical clocks, the data suggests that it would be at -absolute best- a few percentage points.

    Further, the release is going to be mainly a paper release according to sources. So is a few percent really worth potentially months? Look how long it took stores to get stock of AMD's 7xxx cards after their paper release.
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  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by glo View Post
    I don't see how that's worth waiting for.
    More important thing than few % on benchmarks is the die shrink and lower TDP. In case you missed it Intel upped the maximum clock multiplier which is one sure sign of much higher OC potential. I wouldn't be surprised if people pushed i5-3570K past 5GHz and closer to 5.5GHz on high end air coolers just as trivially as they do 4.5GHz today with i5-2500K. That is quite significant for tweakers.

    If pushing the OC limits is not important for OP, then there's no real reason to wait.
    Never going to log into this garbage forum again as long as calling obvious troll obvious troll is the easiest way to get banned.
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  8. #8
    Okay, I have a decent understanding of the tradeoffs between grabbing an i5-2500K now versus waiting for the i5-3570K.
    What about the current Z68 boards versus the upcoming Z77 boards? It seems like the Z77 motherboards will arrive sometime in April, so maybe combine an I5-2500k with a Z77 board, maybe? Whaddy'all think?

    Also, pushing the OC limits isn't that important for me. I'd like to OC a bit, but I intend to keep the system for a year or three, so I'm more interested in long-term performance.
    Last edited by Vandexander; 2012-04-01 at 07:39 AM.

  9. #9
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    At this point there's no reason to dive into Sandy Bridge unless you only have one PC and its dying...

    Ivy Bridge is quite an average "Tick," but what can you do...you have three choices: buy Sandy Bridge now, buy Ivy Bridge in a couple of weeks, buy Haswell in 1H13. People who upgraded to Sandy Bridge in Spring 2011 were best off, at least the people who got B3 boards right away instead of the true early adopters in January/February who had to deal with RMAs.

    WRT IB OCing:
    I have my doubts 5.5GHz will be common on air. I figure it'll be as common as getting SB to 5.2GHz on air...so basically non-existent. What I do think is people will hit ~5.1GHz as easily as they do 4.8GHz, which still requires some effort and is borderline for most air cooling solutions. Obviously if you own obnoxiously loud >3000RPM fans and live in nicely climate controlled room, your OC headroom might be a bit higher than average.

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by Vandexander View Post
    Okay, I have a decent understanding of the tradeoffs between grabbing an i5-2500K now versus waiting for the i5-3570K.
    What about the current Z68 boards versus the upcoming Z77 boards? It seems like the Z77 motherboards will arrive sometime in April, so maybe combine an I5-2500k with a Z77 board, maybe? Whaddy'all think?

    Also, pushing the OC limits isn't that important for me. I'd like to OC a bit, but I intend to keep the system for a year or three, so I'm more interested in long-term performance.
    Three years is century when it comes to computers Personally I would wait if I could (again assuming it will be released April). I'd hate buying something right now and then feel bummed I didn't wait after we see some real numbers/deals. If a month is just too long then yeah go for it, i5-2500k will be great and last you quite a bit.

    Z77, Z75, H77 comes with more SATA III connectors (not really a big deal unless you have multiple SSD), front USB 3.0 header, Processor Graphics Support on all of them, maybe other small things but that's about it.

  11. #11
    Z77 also has the ssd caching from the Z68 boards with a clip to attach a miniature SSD to the motherboard.

  12. #12
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    When it comes to games I don't think your going to see a difference and if that's all you plan on doing then it won't hurt to get a sandy bridge now if you can't wait. There are other features that is coming for the Ivy Bridge as well that people might want like the fact that its more efficient and it has some features like quick sync video and fast start technology and it has a few more connectors. Like notarget said if you already have a 2500k it's probably not worth upgrading at least not yet. If you have an older CPU and you want to upgrade and you can wait a month then it's probably worth the wait but also expect those suckers to be sold out the first day or two.

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by Butler Log View Post
    Z77 also has the ssd caching from the Z68 boards with a clip to attach a miniature SSD to the motherboard.
    I don't think the mSATA interface will be on most boards.

  14. #14
    i been looking at this aswell from what i can see on websites it is worth waiting one of the links beow

    http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...d=1828&subcat=
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  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by glo View Post
    You're linking the wrong processor. Of course the i7 is going to do better since it's clocked higher.
    Like Notarget said, I didn't link the wrong processor, I linked an apples to apples comparison of a Sandy Bridge CPU and its Ivy Bridge equivalent. The 2600K has a stock speed of 3.4GHz, the 3770K has a stock speed of 3.5GHz. That's the same difference (.1GHz) as the 2500K (3.3GHz) and the 3570K (3.4GHz).

    Regardless, like vesseblah said, a die shrink and a lower TDP should mean better overclocking potential, which alone makes it worth waiting for, IMO.
    Last edited by noteworthynerd; 2012-04-02 at 01:34 PM.

  16. #16
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    It's "only" another months until IB hits the shelves. Well worth waiting for imo.

  17. #17
    Two questions

    1. Is Ivy bridge the tick or the tock in the intel development cycle?
    2. Will the price of Sandy Bridge stuff come down?

  18. #18
    I'm surprised that so many people say to wait on this. I think it really depends on what you need to get done. I can run BF3 @ 60FPS and this is on a STOCK i5 2500k (about 3.3GHz), nvedia 550Ti, and 8 gig of ram. I built this computer to be a gaming rig but unlike most people that look for good numbers and such why would you need any more than that initial 60 FPS? Assuming you upgrade every two years you should be in a good enough spot to be hitting good benchmarks for standard usage.

    A couple of things most people overlook. Multi-threading is only useful if you run more than 4 applications at once. Unless you have about 5GHz having a full 16gig ram is useless. Having 8gig of ram is near useless too unless you at least hit around 3GHz (assuming 64bit). SLI/Crossfire is not necessary for gaming, in fact it can be a waste of cash unless your processor is very fast to make use of both to their fullest extent.

    You don't need 5.5GHz unless you are running a server.

    Please don't spread misinformation when you're ill-suited to judge what other people want or need. For people reading this post, it's a perfect example of the sorts of things not to say unless you've got evidence to prove otherwise ~Synthaxx
    Last edited by Chronalis; 2012-04-03 at 03:13 PM.
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  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by azuresky808 View Post
    I can run BF3 @ 60FPS and this is on a STOCK i5 2500k (about 3.3GHz), nvedia 550Ti, and 8 gig of ram.
    Not on true-ultra at 1080p you aren't.

  20. #20
    The Unstoppable Force DeltrusDisc's Avatar
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    lol. NO GTX 550 Ti will do even high on BF3 I bet at 1080P 60fps.

    Maybe he's running 1280x1024.
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