no quad core westmere? no lynnfield upgrades?

G

grenadier

Limp Gawd
Joined
May 5, 2002
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I was planning to upgrade my lga 775 q9450 / asus p5q deluxe setup to a socket 1156 i5 750 / asus P7P55D pro setup this week, but idf this week left me confused. I'm a filmmaker who does a lot of HD work so I'm always looking for the fastest (affordable) setup available. Nehalem systems were too expensive when they were released (pricey x58's + ddr3) so I decided to wait for lynnfield and when lynnfield was released the benchmarks were fast so I planned my i5 750 upgrade and all was well... until idf when low and behold:

There's no quad core 32nm / westmere chip!

Gulftown (six core westmer) looks PERFECT for what I do, but all of the idf roadmaps list gulftown as an 'extreme' part so I'm guessing they won't be available for under $1000 anytime soon. My question is - should I suck it up and go ahead with my planned i5 750 build even though there's no upgrade path until sandy bridge in 2011, should I go for an i7 860 that has slightly more staying power (8 threads), or should I go x58 and cross my fingers that intel brings out an affordable gulftown chip?

Thanks!
 
There will probably be more moderately-priced Gulftown chips at some point, so I think you'd be better off with an i7 CPU. In any case, you might benefit from the additional memory bandwidth, and you'll probably also have a better chance of being able to support Sandy Bridge chips when they come out (we don't know what sockets they'll use, but I think the likelihood of there being LGA1366 Sandy Bridge CPUs is at least as much as if not more than the likelihood of LGA1156 chips).
 
I would presume they would make cheaper, simpler versions of the hex-core Westmere to replace the lower Core i7s. It wouldn't make much sense to have a whole processor family at the $1000 price point or higher.

Why wait for a 6 core chip?.. just get dual i7's http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813182176

then later upgrade to dual gulftowns if you can afford it.

8>6
12>8
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I thought overclocking on dual-socket motherboards was negligible...
 
@boostage - that motherboard is pricey, the xeon chips are even pricier, the new case I would need also wouldn't be free... not to mention lack of esata, firewire, etc.. plus four cores overclocked to ~4ghz beats eight cores running at ~2ghz any day. A dual xeon setup is definitely not an option.

@zero82z - the x58's extra memory bandwith doesn't give much if any boost in any of the encoding benchmarks I've looked at and as far as sandy bridge drop-in compatibility... there is none. sandy bridge is an entirely new 1155 socket - totally new architecture requiring a totally new socket & totally new mainboards. it looks to me like intel is going to get rid of 775 / 1156 / 1366 by standardizing all their platforms on the new socket. a two year platform life from 1366 and a year and a half from 1156 is probably all us intel folks are going to get.

any other suggestions about my build? going to probably jump tonight...
 
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I would go with an i7 920 right now and upgrade to a Westmere LGA1366 if you feel the need later on. I doubt Lynnfield will have anything on 32nm that will give a performance boost over the Lynnfields already here, whereas on LGA1366 Intel has already confirmed the Gulftown processors. It just keeps the options open.
 
sandy bridge is 1155 vs. the current 1156 socket so they're not compatible...

to be clear I like the idea of the gulftown chips, but paying more than two or three hundred for a processor is out of the question for me... it doesn't look like gulftown chips will come down from the stratosphere price wise before sandy bridge hits so I don't think they're really an option for me.
 
sandy bridge is 1155 vs. the current 1156 socket so they're not compatible...
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Honestly? That sounds completely counterintuitive to me. Why would Intel go to all the trouble of producing and licensing a whole new socket interface for a selection of CPUs if it's only going to be 1 pin difference? 1156-1366 is reasonable, I would presume there's a need for those 200 extra pins in Bloomfield, and having 200 less in Lynnfield would probably reduce costs and such. However 1 pin difference? That would just piss off mobo manufacturers and consumers for no good reason. I, too, would like to see your source for this.
 
Zero82z said:
There will probably be more moderately-priced Gulftown chips at some point, so I think you'd be better off with an i7 CPU. In any case, you might benefit from the additional memory bandwidth, and you'll probably also have a better chance of being able to support Sandy Bridge chips when they come out (we don't know what sockets they'll use, but I think the likelihood of there being LGA1366 Sandy Bridge CPUs is at least as much as if not more than the likelihood of LGA1156 chips).
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My plan was to go P55 + i7 860, not worry about $1k six core Gulftowns, and then upgrade again in a bit over a year when Sandy Bridge is out.
 
Mr. Pedantic said:
Honestly? That sounds completely counterintuitive to me. Why would Intel go to all the trouble of producing and licensing a whole new socket interface for a selection of CPUs if it's only going to be 1 pin difference? 1156-1366 is reasonable, I would presume there's a need for those 200 extra pins in Bloomfield, and having 200 less in Lynnfield would probably reduce costs and such. However 1 pin difference? That would just piss off mobo manufacturers and consumers for no good reason. I, too, would like to see your source for this.
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deff said:
I don't think Intel would go through all the trouble just to release a socket that's one pin less.
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I can confirm what he is saying. I have seen it stated a few times as well. Everyone is going to need a new motherboard in early 2011 for s1155.
 
I've seen it stated too - but not from an official, as in trustworthy, source. Besides, it's not like you MUST upgrade to Sandy Bridge right away.
 
Intel is refining their socket strategy. I tend to think they may "change" sockets more on the consumer boards and go new socket every other generation on the enthusiast side. Unlike the 775 days where you could count on new chips every cycle to drop in, these days it's back to the old ways and unless they SAY specifically that a future chip will work on current sockets, you are better off assuming they won't.

Don't think it's the right thing to do, and I think it unecessarily throws more mobo's into the "recycling" systems, but that's the way they are playing the game these days.
 
silentcoercion said:
I thought this was HardOCP... did I make a wrong turn somewhere?
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If you're truly [H]ard, you have all your previous computers still with you and wired together to be a one frickin' mean supercomputer anyway, therefore you don't need drop-in upgrades ;)

Besides, by the time a new CPU generation comes out the old motherboards aren't [H]ard anymore, so again drop-in upgrades don't matter ;)
 
I thought this was HardOCP... did I make a wrong turn somewhere?
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If you want to fork out the $$ for the guy to upgrade to a Gulftown LGA1366 when the time comes, I'm sure he'd be more than happy to stick it in his mobo for you... :)

Intel is refining their socket strategy. I tend to think they may "change" sockets more on the consumer boards and go new socket every other generation on the enthusiast side. Unlike the 775 days where you could count on new chips every cycle to drop in, these days it's back to the old ways and unless they SAY specifically that a future chip will work on current sockets, you are better off assuming they won't.

Don't think it's the right thing to do, and I think it unecessarily throws more mobo's into the "recycling" systems, but that's the way they are playing the game these days.
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:(

AMD's compatibility for AM2+/AM3 is much better.

I can confirm what he is saying. I have seen it stated a few times as well. Everyone is going to need a new motherboard in early 2011 for s1155.
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This kind of makes me really glad I got a Bloomfield...
 
LGA1366, 1156, 1155, 775...

Everyone remember that Intel isn't only in the business of making CPUs. They make chipsets too! Every time they introduce a new "architecture" that is supposed to be evolutionary they need to introduce it with a new chipset as well. Processor upgrades are more speed oriented, with tweaks here and there... But integrating components, say a memory controller like in the nehalem architecture, can't be achieved on an older socket like the LGA775.
 
I don't think people are complaining that they are changing the 775 socket as it has been around for a long time. They just want there to be say 2-3 sockets that they can throw a new CPU in and its supported for say 5 years so you don't have to keep upgrading motherboards.
 
Everyone remember that Intel isn't only in the business of making CPUs. They make chipsets too! Every time they introduce a new "architecture" that is supposed to be evolutionary they need to introduce it with a new chipset as well. Processor upgrades are more speed oriented, with tweaks here and there... But integrating components, say a memory controller like in the nehalem architecture, can't be achieved on an older socket like the LGA775.
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I'm sure it wouldn't cost them the earth to have one redundant plate in every chip and one redundant pin in every socket they licensed to the motherboard manufacturers. Yet that's exactly what it seems they're trying to avoid, by making people choose a completely different socket.
 
From what I gather through the years of building/owning computers, there are redundant pins, though you'd really have to look carefully into the engineering docs to figure out which are which. But what I'm saying is that a pin layout for one CPU/Chipset architecture may not be optimal for a new CPU. Morever, sticking to the same socket, would limit the tech... We certainly wouldn't want to have another Pentium 4 (the cpu that would never die) debacle. I owned 4-5 different pentium 4 (ouch I know...).

Sandy bridge tech aims to integrate a GPU into the main die, rather than what's on the lynnfield. It may be a coincidence that the Sandy Bridge architecture works on an LGA1155, while the Lynnfield works on 1156, but that doesn't mean the pins on the socket do the same thing.

I'm pretty sure Intel is further integrating functions into the main CPU die for IP (intellectual property) reasons. That is, to protect their footing in the market. They're basically locking other players out from sharing the platform. Notice that Nvidia/ATI hasn't produced any chipsets for the i7, but yet they've basically yielded to Intel by allowing both crossfire and SLI to work. These are survival decisions by ATI and Nvidia (more so Nvidia, because crossfire wasn't as restricting).
 
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Overall it's impossible to know for sure what CPU will work with what chipset, and in case of Sandy Bridge, even on what socket until Intel releases the definite data on that stuff.

For me, I originally wanted to be able to do a drop-in upgrade for my next CPU on this P55 board. But come to think of, as I'm planning on keeping this board and CPU at least 2 years, hopefully 3, it'll already be quite good to upgrade the motherboard as well to gain the newest USB and PCI-E technologies and other possible advancements.
 
Flexion said:
Sandy bridge tech aims to integrate a GPU into the main die, rather than what's on the lynnfield. It may be a coincidence that the Sandy Bridge architecture works on an LGA1155, while the Lynnfield works on 1156, but that doesn't mean the pins on the socket do the same thing.
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Actually lynnfield has nothing on the CPU, theres no GPU on lynnfield. I think you mean clarkdale, which has a separate die for the GPU/PCI-E/mem-controller/QPI portion.

AFAIK the s1155 rumors started with a leaked image of a testing socket for s1155 that was quickly pulled from the public site and has never been acknowledged elsewhere. Its likely an engineering thing that that'll never be used in an official chip. If there is a socket 1155, it'll be a simple removal of a pin to prevent using sandy in the old sockets (probably for power delivery differences) and still allow s1156 chips to work fine in the new boards. Thats not for sure by any stretch, but it seems most likely.
 
Sandy bridge is an entirely new architecture that needs new chipsets to work properly. Maybe changing the number of pins only slightly to 1155 allows for a similarly oriented socket making things easier for motherboard makers, heatsink makers, and oem's while making it clear that the new sandy bridge chips WILL NOT work in 1156 motherboards.

As far as my upgrade decision goes I'm sticking with socket 1156 - the p55 motherboard crop in addition to being cheaper looks more stable, feature packed, lower power, and generally just better designed than the x58 boards that are available now. The question now for a lot of us enthusiasts seems to be 750 vs. 860 - should we spend the extra ~$100 for multi-threading?
 
grenadier said:
As far as my upgrade decision goes I'm sticking with socket 1156 - the p55 motherboard crop in addition to being cheaper looks more stable, feature packed, lower power, and generally just better designed than the x58 boards that are available now. The question now for a lot of us enthusiasts seems to be 750 vs. 860 - should we spend the extra ~$100 for multi-threading?
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The question is if and how much the apps you use are sped up by HT.
If it is enough to justify the 860's premium, then go for it. Otherwise, just penny pinch this upgrade cycle.
 
Why not just go with the i7-860? If you use multithreaded apps then the hyperthreading will help, if not then the i5 would be fine.
 
My i5 750 is at 3.6 (21x172) with turbo mode and all power saving features on. p95 gives ~70C right now with the stock hsf so until I get a better cooler...

Definitely would've gotten better performance in certain apps from the 860, but the i5 750 was ~$100 cheaper and on top of that newegg had a $30 combo discount for purchasing the i5 750 and asus p7p55d pro together. This should last me until sandy bridge unless someone has a gulftown engineering sample they want to mail me :)
 
I like my 4ghz i7 860 idle temps of 25c on air...not looking for a 6 core $1000 extreme cpu on a 1366. This is not turbo mode, just straight up 4 ghz, even at idle.
 
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