Ivy Bridge and a motherboard with a PLX chip for dual PCIe 3.0 x16, and know that your overclocks would've been better on Sandy Bridge, but without PCIe3.
Sandy Bridge-E, will give you dual 3.0 x16, but Sandy Bridge clocks faster and is an all-round better performer.
Some games are using more threads, and I think that trend will only continue to increase. Whether or not that makes OC'ing worth it for you is another question. I think that having the option is always a good thing to extend the potential lifespan of a build.
thanks shwaip, you know me and typos. So you believe games are going more towards using cpu power and not towards using more gpu power. I assumed games would eventually completely run from the gpu, and the cpu would just compute pie all day. I think I've seen maybe two games that use more than two cores.
Thrax. dual 16x does not matter as long as: When I put an x4 card in the PCIE slot it doesn't kick my 16x down to 8x. example: GPU and Revodrive 3 (x4)
Sandy Bridge or Sandy Bridge E? Or, what Socket?
I guess bottom line is I haven't run across anything that needs more than quad 4GHz, which any CPU we would be talking about, hits easily.
Z77 only has enough bandwidth for ONE x16 card. If you install ANY other PCIe device, you will go to x8, because you'll run out of lanes. SNB-E is needed to avoid this.
Z77 only has enough bandwidth for ONE x16 card. If you install ANY other PCIe device, you will go to x8, because you'll run out of lanes. SNB-E is needed to avoid this.
noted. what other improvements did SNB-E bring to the table?
Everything is awkward if you want to buy Intel. Here's the most concise way I can put it:
1) Sandy Bridge+Z77 is the best overclocker, and the best performer. However, it doesn't have PCIe3. Maybe that doesn't matter much right now, but it might matter later, and that's not something people probably want to get left out of the cold on. It also only offers dual x8 to SLI/CF users, which does have an impact these days. It has USB3, and SATA3.
2) Ivy Bridge+Z77 is the newest platform. It has PCIe3, USB3, SATA3. But if you have CrossFire/SLI, it'll also only give you dual x8. However, Ivy Bridge is no faster than Sandy Bridge clock for clock, and it has inferior overclocking. This means Ivy Bridge is slower than a Sandy Bridge platform.
3) Sandy Bridge-E+x79 is the most comprehensive platform for enthusiasts. Six cores, triple channel RAM, PCIe3, dual x16 slots, SATA3... but no USB3. It's also twice the price of Sandy Bridge (or more), and the performance isn't any better. Feature-wise, SNB-E+x79 is a clear win, but on price it's the loseriest loser that ever lost a loss.
I'd wait for Haswell. Anyone on a well-clocked Nehalem or Bloomfield (1st-gen LGA1366) and an x58 board has no need of an upgrade at this time. And, if we're being perfectly honest, Nehalem/Bloomfield+x58 was the last platform that made any damn sense.
Long story short:
1 GPU user: Sandy Bridge+z77. It's a no-brainer. 2 GPU user: SNB-E+x79 is your best choice, but it's a total ripoff. Then your choice is SNB vs. IVB. What's more important? CPU performance or PCIe3.
SSD's really aren't the slowest, it is the SATA interface that is slow. Can't wait for an upgrade in that dept. Nand controller straight to PCI-e ftw
Why not just make cost efficient bootable PCIE SSD's and leave the SATA to mechanical drives?
Current PCIe SSD's are still a PCI-e "RAID" controller with SATA SSD's attached to it. After all, the SSD controller outputs SATA bus signals. I am talking a PCI-e interface port of some kind right out the back of the SSD. Whole new architecture/protocol Then you RAID from there, etc.
Comments
Sandy Bridge-E, will give you dual 3.0 x16, but Sandy Bridge clocks faster and is an all-round better performer.
Unless I'm wrong that games use quad core cpu's to their potential
also, don't need dual x16. I won't be doing XF or SLi anytime soon again
to make this useful:
Some games are using more threads, and I think that trend will only continue to increase. Whether or not that makes OC'ing worth it for you is another question. I think that having the option is always a good thing to extend the potential lifespan of a build.
So you believe games are going more towards using cpu power and not towards using more gpu power. I assumed games would eventually completely run from the gpu, and the cpu would just compute pie all day. I think I've seen maybe two games that use more than two cores.
Thrax. dual 16x does not matter as long as: When I put an x4 card in the PCIE slot it doesn't kick my 16x down to 8x. example: GPU and Revodrive 3 (x4)
Sandy Bridge or Sandy Bridge E? Or, what Socket?
I guess bottom line is I haven't run across anything that needs more than quad 4GHz, which any CPU we would be talking about, hits easily.
I already run triple-channel RAM so that is a plus, however meh it might be
but, I see ONE SNB-E CPU on newegg, socket 2011.
so I'm guessing SND-E doesn't come in 1155 or support 2500/2600k CPUs either?
1) Sandy Bridge+Z77 is the best overclocker, and the best performer. However, it doesn't have PCIe3. Maybe that doesn't matter much right now, but it might matter later, and that's not something people probably want to get left out of the cold on. It also only offers dual x8 to SLI/CF users, which does have an impact these days. It has USB3, and SATA3.
2) Ivy Bridge+Z77 is the newest platform. It has PCIe3, USB3, SATA3. But if you have CrossFire/SLI, it'll also only give you dual x8. However, Ivy Bridge is no faster than Sandy Bridge clock for clock, and it has inferior overclocking. This means Ivy Bridge is slower than a Sandy Bridge platform.
3) Sandy Bridge-E+x79 is the most comprehensive platform for enthusiasts. Six cores, triple channel RAM, PCIe3, dual x16 slots, SATA3... but no USB3. It's also twice the price of Sandy Bridge (or more), and the performance isn't any better. Feature-wise, SNB-E+x79 is a clear win, but on price it's the loseriest loser that ever lost a loss.
I'd wait for Haswell. Anyone on a well-clocked Nehalem or Bloomfield (1st-gen LGA1366) and an x58 board has no need of an upgrade at this time. And, if we're being perfectly honest, Nehalem/Bloomfield+x58 was the last platform that made any damn sense.
Long story short:
1 GPU user: Sandy Bridge+z77. It's a no-brainer.
2 GPU user: SNB-E+x79 is your best choice, but it's a total ripoff. Then your choice is SNB vs. IVB. What's more important? CPU performance or PCIe3.
thanks for the breakdown Thrax
No matter how fast it is, it will eventually seem slow, live with it and save your money. my 2p worth.
285/275 vs. 550/520. Even a SSD is still the slowest component of a PC
:P