First Haswell performance benchmarks hit the web

[PGHammer]

I'm still on a q9400, but if i do an upgrade this year, it will probably be hanswell ... i'm waiting to see the the price points.

I'm on a Q6600 (which my mom will get when I upgrade to i5-3570K) - unless you run niche applications that make heavy usage of hyperthreading, I would stick to Ivy Bridge, not Haswell.

1, First off, Haswell will require a new motherboard, new chipset, and a different CPU socket than Sandy Bridge/Ivy Bridge - all of which are pricey on launch. (The only reason that wasn't the case for Ivy Bridge is that it used the same socket, and, by and large, the same chipsets as Sandy Bridge; further what new chipsets that WERE launched simultaneously with Ivy also supportewd Sandy.)

2. Simultaneously, Haswell's launch WILL lead to price cuts - not just as those that DO upgrade sell existing hardware, but as existing hardware (CPUs and motherboards) take it on the chin price-wise. (Look at what happened to Z68 motherboards when Z77 launched - immediate price cuts of thirty percent, at minimum.)

3. Going by the initial benchmarks, Haswell will target the high end of portable computing and servers more so than general computing - especially given the high prices of Haswell at launch and price cuts hitting Ivy.

Save your money - stick to Ivy Bridge.

[Livin in a box]

Not much of an increase. Should I stick with getting a 3770K for my new build then?

I tend to agree with what PGHammer has said above me (if no one else posts before I do :p)

For most people, Ivy Bridge will likely not be bottlenecking most people for a while, and that includes gamers. I myself am on Sandy Bridge and I don't intend to upgrade at least until next year at the earliest, when (I believe, correct me if I'm wrong) DDR4 RAM will be officially supported by Skylake.

You will also save a decent amount of money as well that you can use to spend on other components of your PC.

[spaceelf]

3. Going by the initial benchmarks, Haswell will target the high end of portable computing and servers more so than general computing - especially given the high prices of Haswell at launch and price cuts hitting Ivy.

Save your money - stick to Ivy Bridge.

http://en.wikipedia....croarchitecture)

Now that I've read that, there's no way in hell I'd pick Ivy over Haswell. I don't know about the processors but the motherboards should be considerably cheaper.

[tnt118]

I only do a build every 5 years or so so I'm not entirely in the loop, but wouldn't haswell be more future proof in terms of chipset for upgrades down the road?

[spaceelf]

I only do a build every 5 years or so so I'm not entirely in the loop, but wouldn't haswell be more future proof in terms of chipset for upgrades down the road?

See my post.

Yes.

[MFH]

I don't know about the processors but the motherboards should be considerably cheaper.

Where do you get that idea from?

[spaceelf]

Where do you get that idea from?

The voltage regulator is on the processor, the PCH is 32nm instead of 65nm.

[MFH]

Shrinking does NOT imply that it's getting cheaper...

[spaceelf]

Shrinking does NOT imply that it's getting cheaper...

No, we shoudl all still be using 90nm because it's so horribly cost effective.

[MFH]

No, we shoudl all still be using 90nm because it's so horribly cost effective.

I think you don't get my point: just because the may be shrinking the PCH - note that that's not even confirmed! - that doesn't mean that your hardware will get cheaper! Matter of fact: Building a 22nm fab is horribly expensive (see Rock's Law) and Intel has to re-finance the fab...

[Mockingbird]

The bigger question is what is AMD going to do?

AMD keep releasing eight-cores processors with horrible per-core performance. I would rather buy a quad-core processor with decent per-core performance.

[spaceelf]

I think you don't get my point: just because the may be shrinking the PCH - note that that's not even confirmed! - that doesn't mean that your hardware will get cheaper! Matter of fact: Building a 22nm fab is horribly expensive (see Rock's Law) and Intel has to re-finance the fab...

It said 32nm, and they're already past that (note Haswell is 22nm)

at any rate, expensive motherboards are what annoys me about Intel systems so I hope it is true.

The bigger question is what is AMD going to do?

AMD keep releasing eight-cores processors with horrible per-core performance. I would rather buy a quad-core processor with decent per-core performance.

Temash, Kabini, and Kaveri are all due for release this year, and should be interesting. I don't know if they'll be able to compete or not beyond the tablets but I definately hope so.

[MFH]

It said 32nm

My bad. But still: unconfirmed; doesn't imply sinking prices...

[Buio]

http://www.tomshardw...mance,3461.html

The review unfortunately says nothing about power consumption, heat or overclocking, but it does look like Haswell is another solid incremental upgrade over the previous generation. Software recompiled to take advantage of the new AVX2 and TSX instructions should see much larger gains.

According to the information there, no TSX in the unlocked K-models. Which means Intel are crippling the performance models deliberately.