Next-Gen Intel Chips and RAM Speed

[Widepanic]

Hello! When are the next Intel chips supposed to be coming out? Would it be worth waiting for either the Ivy Bridge-E or the new 'Haswell'? Also, do any of you think that the Haswell will be a significant performance boost from the i3/5/7?

Second Question regarding RAM speed.

I'll be building a gaming PC in the next couple weeks. What is the advantage of having faster RAM? I consistently see people having DDR3-1600 RAM But I also see that you can purchase up to DDR3-2133 to put in builds. Is it worth the extra price that you will pay for the higher speeds? Also, I keep hearing about dual and quad channel RAM. What is better? How can you tell when shopping for motherboards and processors which is supported and which should be used? I just want to make sure I am doing my build right and that I am optimizing everything as much as I can.

[yurano]

Hello! When are the next Intel chips supposed to be coming out? Would it be worth waiting for either the Ivy Bridge-E or the new 'Haswell'? Also, do any of you think that the Haswell will be a significant performance boost from the i3/5/7?

Second Question regarding RAM speed.

I'll be building a gaming PC in the next couple weeks. What is the advantage of having faster RAM? I consistently see people having DDR3-1600 RAM But I also see that you can purchase up to DDR3-2133 to put in builds. Is it worth the extra price that you will pay for the higher speeds? Also, I keep hearing about dual and quad channel RAM. What is better? How can you tell when shopping for motherboards and processors which is supported and which should be used? I just want to make sure I am doing my build right and that I am optimizing everything as much as I can.

Ivy Bridge-E is already out. i7-3970X http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...6877&Tpk=3970x

Haswell will have approximately 5-10% performance increase over Ivy Bridge. The only other notable characteristics of Haswell for desktops are 1) New chipset and 2) Potential for solder affixed IHS instead of thermal paste

No significant improvements for Ivy Bridge above 1600 Mhz. Ivy Bridge is dual channel so you should use sticks in multiples of 2. I read that 4 sticks puts additional stress on the memory controller but it only matters in heavy duty RAM overclocking.

CPUs are labeled by their socket. You can google the CPU ID number and you'll get an Intel Ark article about it. For example, the i5-3570K is socket 1155. You want to make sure the motherboard is of the correct socket.

The next step is to determine which chipset you would like. Core 2nd Generation chipsets have identifiers of <letter>6<number> and 3rd generation is <letter>7<number>. A 'Z' designation refers to overclock capable, 'H' designation refers to mainstream and 'B' designation refers to enterprise (business). If you have a K unlocked CPU, go with Z. If you don't have a K unlocked CPU, go with H. The second number in the chipset designation refers to the performance class. In short, always go with 7 as the second number. So in a i5-3570K build you should go with a Z77 chipset. Caveat, server motherboards such as Sandy Bridge-E or Ivy Bridge-E are socket 2011 and have X79 chipsets.

Finally, you'd pick a motherboard with your preferred features and brand. Here, you'd be looking for several things:
1) Form Factor - ATX, micro ATX, mini ITX
2) Build Quality
3) Connectors - SATA/USB/Firewire
4) Wireless Chipset
5) Onboard Audio Chipset
6) Fan Headers
7) SLI/Crossfire Support
8) Additional Features (eg. ASUS's Fan Xpert 2, ASUS USB Charger+)

[Nab]

The i7 3970X is not IB-E.

[Widepanic]

Yeah I was about to say that. If you click the link it still says Sandy Bridge-E in the description. I heard rumors that the Ivy Bridge-E will have an 8-core version. Makes me kind of drool Another question, would it be better to try to go quad channel memory instead of dual channel? Is quad channel faster? Also you are telling me that there is no benefit getting ram faster than DDR3-1600?

[Nab]

Yeah I was about to say that. If you click the link it still says Sandy Bridge-E in the description. I heard rumors that the Ivy Bridge-E will have an 8-core version. Makes me kind of drool Another question, would it be better to try to go quad channel memory instead of dual channel? Is quad channel faster? Also you are telling me that there is no benefit getting ram faster than DDR3-1600?

It depends on the socket, for LGA 2011 you should go with Quad channel. For LGA 1155 you should go with Dual channel. There is barely a difference between 1600 and 2133 RAM, you won't see it atleast in daily use.

[vesseblah]

Also you are telling me that there is no benefit getting ram faster than DDR3-1600?

Speed difference between 1600MHz and 2133MHz RAM in games is around 1-2% and you'll never notice it. That's why it's not recommended buying faster with Intel processor. In mainstream use when you have AMD processor with built-in graphics the GPU part will benefit from faster RAM significantly and 1866MHz or even 2133MHz is not overdoing it. Intel's built-in GPU benefits 1600Mhz max.

On applications that use whole RAM at full speed all the time, like for example some big 3D rendering job (talking about millions of polygons, not thousands) the difference is in 3-4% range and you might actually feel the difference.