Any point in buying an older generation cpu?

Headscratcher999 · Jan 27, 2014

Hi everyone. Long time reader 1st time asker!
I am looking to buy or make myself a Desktop computer. I'll be using it as a 24/7 machine for gaming, general use, video encoding, music editing etc etc so it needs to be fairly good but I don't need it to do the job in a split second (diminishing returns not worth it etc). Basically I know what parts I want, I just can't decide on the CPU/generation to go with. So you know my thoughts I'm looking at 1 of the following - i5 2500k, i5 3570k, i7 2600k/2700k, i7 3770k or ofc the latest Haswell offering i7 4770k. I'm after the 'k' (unlocked series) as I see it as a sort of 'future proofing' (and forgive me but they're also mouth watering!). Equally I'm after a mobo that is brilliant for OC'ing and has SLI/Xfire. My question is should I go for the Haswell i7 (with hyperthreading etc and this is the new gen design etc) or should I go to sandy or ivy which are brilliant brilliant performance AND price, but they're essentially 'dead end' chips (end of the line with no upgrade paths due to socket) etc.
I'm not really fussed about the hyper threading as I can wait (the extra 10 mins?) for video encoding to be completed etc. Another thought is that I hear and understand that when it comes to overclocking that Sandy Bridge is the best (due to the highest heat resilience) and the newer the cpu (ivy + haswell) the worse the overclocking gets (small architecture thingys so the heat gets trapped easier)...
Now I won't be seriously overclocking them, I'd be after 4.2ghz not 5ghz as I don't really want to muck about with voltages etc, all I want to fiddle with is the multipliers. I'm a wee bit of a noob when it comes to this. Maybe my question should've been how far can you safely overclock an i7 4770k?
Sorry if this question is all over the place. Any information on any of my thoughts would be very greatful.

Shneiky · Jan 27, 2014

Not all chips are designed equal! All chips have different limits for their OC.

Well, what I did is, I waited for Haswell to go out and I grabbed a 2700k for 200 euro. For comparison, a Haswell i7 4770k is around 320/330 at the moment and the Ivy's are 315. I already had the motherboard, it was 1/3 off for 10% less performance than Hass.

It all comes down to price. You could also pick a Z77 motherboard, which there are plenty (since P67 and Z67 are almost impossible to find now) and throw a 2600/2700K in it. If you find any 2600/2700K for around 200 and pair it with a Z77 motherboard - well you got a bang for your buck. If you don't find any Sandy's - go for Haswell.

Haswell I5 4670k is 200 bucks and is only few % slower than the 2600/2700 at stock when you consider 80% of the stuff. Heavy 3D rendering or encoding/trans-coding pulls the Sandy ahead. It is not really worth it to got for 2500k now, since it won't be that cheaper compared to new I5s.

You can get a Haswell I5 now, and drop in a Broadwell I7 later if you don't feel like going directly to I7 or later realize you need more power. Or do whatever you like, since I don't know do you plan on upgrading and etc.

Lmeow · Jan 27, 2014

A few things to answer your question generally.

Newer is generally better. The i7 4770K is on the LGA 1150 socket, which has newer chipsets - such as the Z87 chipset on socket LGA 1150 - available than say the i7 3770K or i7 2600K, which use older chipsets. These newer chipsets include features such as more USB 3.0 ports and SATA III ports, as well as PCI-E 3.0 support for Ivy-Bridge and Haswell.

More newer ports are always nicer. However, as far as PCI-E 3.0 goes, it is only really useful if you use faster cards which require higher bandwidth. This is a disadvantage only really applicable to Sandy Bridge IIRC, because only SB has PCI-E 2.0, and at 8x/8x, you may face bandwidth bottlenecking with cards such as the GTX 780 Ti in SLI. For all other cards, and most multiple card setups you should be fine however.

Unless you can obtain a used older CPU and motherboard combo for a lot less than a i7 4770K + Z87 motherboard, I would stick with Haswell.

As far as overclocking goes, while a i5 2500K can achieve a higher clock rate than say a i5 4670K, don't forget that Haswell is faster than Sandy Bridge, and that at the same clock speed, the i5 4670K will be faster - so a slightly higher clocked i5 2500K will most likely be slower than a slightly lower clocked i5 4670K. Whether or not there is a huge difference depends on the difference in the overclock.

Shneiky · Jan 27, 2014

As raw performance goes (at least for 3D rendering)
4.0 GHz Haswell = 4.2/4.3 GHz Ivy = 4.5 GHz Sandy

This is more or less my estimation. Since some features are IPC dependent, while others are more sensible to clock.

SemNomezinho · Jan 27, 2014

CPUs for hyperthreading = s.b -e/i.b -e/ haswell -e.
But, if you cannot spend a big amount with this, get the newest...

DeathAndPain · Jan 27, 2014

Headscratcher999 :

Are they really? Overclocking Intel CPUs is not free. You pay money for the additional performance and do not even have the guarantee that it is stable. See here for a detailed list of overclocking disadvantages.

Besides, you talk about a 24/7 machine. For such a rig, power consumption is (hopefully) a topic. Modern CPUs, especially Intel ones, contain all sorts of power saving features. Trouble is that most of them need to be/are automatically disabled when overclocking. Your electricity bill will reflect that.

And if you talk about "future proofing", you cannot be serious about investing in an obsolete CPU production of which has long been halted, can you?

Headscratcher999 :

What do you plan on doing with the latter? Do you already own a graphics card whose life you want to extend by buying a second one for low money? Other than that, there is no point in doing SLI/Xfire when you are always better off buying one card with the performance level of your desire (and purse).

Headscratcher999 :

Haswell is dead end just the same, seeing that its successor will require new mainboards and DDR4 RAM modules. So if you can actually get an Ivy for a considerably lower price, you may consider going for it. However, typically Ivys are hardly cheaper than Haswells, seeing that Intel never lower prices of their legacy CPUs, and remember that a major feature of Haswell were the greatly improved power consumption. A 24/7 Haswell system will have a considerably lower yearly electricity cost than a 24/7 Ivy system. Unless you overclock, that is, because then all that is disabled, and you are running full steam all night.

Same gos for Sandy, except that Sandy is even more obsolete, meaning slower. I am also not sure (and cba to research) whether Sandy already had USB 3.0. Buying obsolete hardware may well result in you also getting obsolete technology standards on other ends, like USB, SATA, and PCI-E levels.

Headscratcher999 :

Then why are you so keen on doing crappy overclocking with all is disadvantages? Especially when you overclock, say, a Sandy to a level that Haswell can beat on stock speed.

Headscratcher999 :

First of all, smaller architecture means lss voltage required for the same clock speed, so higher clock speeds are basically easier to achieve. That being said, it is true that Haswell reportedly has less overclocking leeway than Ivy. However, if you keep in mind that a Haswell is already 5-10% faster than Ivy on stock speed, you need to overclock Ivy already just to match Haswell's base computing speed, so for real overclocking leeway you need to compare a Haswell at stock speed to an already-overclocked Ivy and see how much further you can overclock both beginning from there!

Same principle for Sandy, only that it is even slower at stock speed.

Oh, and talking about future-proofing: If you run AVX2-enabled code, which hardly exists today but may be included in future software, Haswell is a whopping 70% faster than Ivy.

Shneiky · Jan 27, 2014

Don't mind what DeathAndPain says. It is more about the thrill and the pride of running an OC than the electric bill.... You know - tech enthusiast thingies.

P.S you can OC with some of the power features enabled. Just need the right motherboard. And also you can use Multy Core Turbo, which is present on some motherboards. It basically is max turbo (the 1 core active turbo freq. ) across all cores at full load, forever (or as long as temps allow). It is a form of OC in the end.

DeathAndPain · Jan 27, 2014

True, Shneiky and I had differing opinions before. The difference is that I do not consider myself as infallible as he obviously does. If you want to believe the well-reasoned argumentation he just gave, go ahead. May the judgment be with you.

Shneiky · Jan 27, 2014

It is not about argumentation, it is about his wishes. And this forum is made to help people get their wishes come true. It is about happiness in the end. Hell, I would love to get a Pentium D or C2D or a C2Q and OC the hell out of it just for the sake of it. It is about happiness in the end.

Now on the argumentation point of view. Sandy is not obsolete by any imaginable matter. True - it is not the best, and there are cases (multy GPU set up and so on) that are far more capable on Ivy or Hass based systems. But as power comes to consideration - well tough luck.

You know what I remember? I remember the massive gains from Pentium I to Pentium II. I remember how awesome was to get a Dual Core back in the days. And then year after, to get blow away by C2D with the massive 30% increase for the same clocks. I remember the first 6 core I7 1336. That was a beast. I remember the first LGA 1156 which were quite the failure. Not a reason to upgrade from C2D or specially C2Q. I remember when Sandy came with the LGA 1155 and gave 25% increase over the LGA 1156, and trading blows with 1136. That is a reason to upgrade. Today's 10% are not a reason. I will pick a Sandy for 1/2 or 2/3 of the price of Ivy/Hasswell any day. (Except the latest ITX build I did. The integrated video was worth it). They still pack quite the punch, even by modern standards. Want to fight for 10W? Go ahead. I will shut off the light in the corridor for 10 mins and it will be the same.

DeathAndPain · Jan 27, 2014

Shneiky :

Okay, then let us split tasks: You tell people something that makes them happy, I tell people the depressing facts of technological truths so they can make their hardware decisions.

Shneiky · Jan 27, 2014

Well, my problem is that your facts are cherry picked facts that serve your cause.

And not "The truth, the full truth and only the truth"

DeathAndPain · Jan 27, 2014

Again, with regards to the numerous reasons and explanations you have given to support your cause, which are... wait, exactly what were they? Anyway, with regard to those, may the judgment be with the audience.

Shneiky · Jan 27, 2014

I7 2700k vs I7 3770k vs I7 4770k

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ivy-bridge-benchmark-core-i7-3770k,3181-16.html

3D Max results:

2:47 vs 2:39 vs 2:37 or in seconds 167 vs 159 vs 157 or in percentage 100% vs 105% vs 106%

Comparable holds true for the Adobe CS6 bench.

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http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Impact-of-PCI-E-Speed-on-Gaming-Performance-518/

4K Metron Running on SLI Titan. You can see the difference between PCIe 2.0x8 SLI vs PCIe 3.0x16 SLI is 1.5 frames out of 46. And in some cases the PCIe 2.0 performed even better.

-----------

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i7-4770k-haswell-review,3521-18.html

To make a note. Since Sandy does not have that same heat issues that Haswell has, by putting on the same cooler ( my test was with a Hyper 212 Evo ) the Haswell runs 7-10 C hotter. At 52C (that is how much my I7 ducks at at full load for hours) it draws around 71W (+/- 1W, my instruments are not that precise) at 3.6 GHz (infinite turbo) , while at 85C (stock cooler) at 3.5 GHz (true stock) it is around 84W. While the Haswell at stock frequencies with the same 212 cooler was taking 64 (+/-1).

A Sandy at a descent temperature, makes up a bit for Haswells energy efficiency, because the Haswell runs hotter, which increases resistance and makes the chip draw more power. Haswell is still more efficient though, just not as much as everyone is sprouting around. It is amazingly efficient, but in the 2.0 - 2.5 GHz area. That is laptops. Sorry, but I need my computational power for work. I prefer my 3.6 GHz.

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Enough arguments for you?

DeathAndPain · Jan 27, 2014

I am pleased. They are perfectly in line with what I initially pointed out.

Reynod · Jan 27, 2014

Would you like to tone down your discussion a notch DP... as someoene who as overclocked just about everything I own, with great results, I don't tend to agree with you ... along with a lot of other people.

Whilst I respect your views, overclocking is fun and the gains particularly after the advent of the core2 line are significant.

I just wanted to chime in here in case the OP thinks your view is a majority one ... it isn't.

Shneiky · Jan 27, 2014

Exactly opposite. It proves my point that the "all mighty" 10% increase from Sandy to Haswell is not a reason to upgrade or a reason NOT TO buy a Sandy even at 2/3 of the price. It is valuable technology.

DeathAndPain · Jan 27, 2014

Okay, if you think that concerning computer technology truth lies with the greater number of people believing a thing, go ahead.

I never said that overclocking cannot be done. I just pointed out that it has its drawbacks, and I pointed them out in detail behind my link. It is particularly important to realize that for Intel CPUs, overclocking is not free (meaning that the overclocking idea of getting free additional performance is defeated).

If it is fun for you, enjoy. I advise those that want to make a rational decision. This decision may even be in favor of overclocking. My mission is to make sure all implications are known and heeded.

Besides, I have overclocked myself in former times, times when overclocking did mean free additional performance.

Shneiky · Jan 27, 2014

Technologies lies in numbers. I have given you numbers that prove you wrong. We have given you numbers that prove you wrong. Deal with it already. Stop clinging to single digit percentages for double the price.

DeathAndPain · Jan 27, 2014

Shneiky :

You have never done such a thing, but this leads nowhere. You believe that your stuff is right, so be it. This discussion is going full circle; I will no longer participate in it. Bottom line is that I can only repeat myself: May the judgement be with the audience.

WhiteSnake91 · Jan 27, 2014

If you want to save some money get a 2600k+z77 mobo or maybe some xeon cheap.

If I had of known a little more when I built my system I would of got the xeon or even 2600k for the same price as the i5...I think having the 8 threads would be nice.

2600k or cheaper 2500k+z77 mobo would be cheaper than ivy/haswell. Not new of course, shop around for a decent used one.

To each their own but I don't care much for sli/crossfire. I'd rather have 1 strong card rather than getting one now and planning on years down the line adding another for cheaper when a single strong one at that point in time would be better anyway

Headscratcher999 · Jan 27, 2014

Thanks for the responses guys. Nice information for me to try and soak up. All valid reasons of why and why not to grab new/old hardware.
Price is always an issue unless your blessed with lots money (imo and I am not blessed!) which is why I would consider grabbing sandy/ivy as they clearly do the job.

I'll try to respond to all of you, sorry if I miss anyone or anything -

Shneiky (and others), I like what you suggested (and depending on the info I gather from here I might do the same) which is to grab an i7 2600k/2700k as the price and performance sounds brilliant.
With regards to the new Haswell, is there an upgrade path from it? Could I grab, again like you suggested, an i5 4*** for now, and then later on if I needed to upgrade, I could plonk in a new Broadwell i7 5***? I ask as DeathandPain said the broadwells will need new mainboards and DDR4 RAM modules (correct me if I miss-read/miss understood).

Death&Pain - I am after SLI/Xfire as say I can grab a gtx 770 now, down the road (even though there will be other single cards that can outperform 2 of these in SLI/Xfire) I will be able to grab another 770, and get roughly the same performance (less but near enough as to what I need it) as an up-to-date card, for 1/2 the price or so. It saves a massive output of cash, well, it spreads it. I don't game on anything higher than 1080, the new GTX 770/780 or R2 280x/290x are lovely but I hear that would be major overkill unless I wish to link it up to my 51inch plasma or grab screens up to 4k which again my budget wouldn't allow and to be honest I'm happy with 1080. That should still pack a punch shouldn't it?
The reason why I'm not fussed about hyperthread but I am fussed about overclocking (seem contradictory yes), but like I said I don't mind waiting for encoding to be done (so I don't mind not have HT) but a few more fps when gaming from OC would be very nice. Point noted about the AVX2, sounds that Haswell kicks a*se at that!!

Lmeow (and others) - I agree that Haswell has all the new up-to-date tech and USB 3.0 etc. Again, this would be lovely but my pockets + the performance I am after is a thing I've got to figure out! Also point noted regarding Haswell stock speed and older gens needing to be OC to match Haswells base speed (or less overclocking to match the older gen's OC).

I think that if Haswell can be upgraded to Broadwell without a new motherboard, then it'd be worth going with Haswell. If not I think I'll be going for a bang for buck with Sandy/Ivy.
Just so you know I'm currently on my Acer Aspire 8930g T5800 core 2 duo so any upgrade will be heavenly.

Also just to note that I wouldn't mind buying an already built machine, but I am interested in building it myself too. It will be fun, same with the overclocking (yes I will read up on it 1st!). I will also be able to handpick the hardware I want and all in all it will be a learning experience and again, fun.

System spec I'm looking for is

*insert cpu + mobo*
SSD (64/128gb) for the boot/windows and 1-3 Tb for storage
8/16gb ram, (does the speed REALLY matter?)
decent graphics,
500+w psu, (am still researching)
Might do a water cooling unit like the Thermaltake Water 2.0 Extreme, or go with something like Enermax ETS-T40 as an air/fan cooler (even if I don't NEED it I don't see any harm (price depending) on keeping the system as cool as can be as it helps keep the system in good shape, (still reading reviews etc).
etc etc.
Does this sound on par?

Thanks again guys, its nice to put this down on paper and get it all out of my head!

WhiteSnake91 · Jan 27, 2014

I don't know why anybody thought Sandy Bridge can't/didn't come with usb 3.0 but as long as the motherboard supports it, as any z77 overclocking motherboard would, you'll be fine.

After reading this topic I think I'm going to get a 2600k used

. The 3000 hd graphics aren't the best but I love having built in backup graphics as a last resort should your gpu die

the pci 2.0/3.0 debate is pointless to me, I can never justify anything more than a $300 gpu and even hard for me to then. Basically, pci 2.0 is fine except for SLI of the upmost powerful card like 780ti, even then, it's not THAT much of a loss.

logainofhades · Jan 27, 2014

Sandy chips are definitely still quite capable. My file server with an i5 2400 @ 3.5ghz still does just fine doing the same things as my 3570k does now. Only thing really holding back that system, on gaming performance, as the GPU is only an HD 4870 still. It still plays games, WoW/D3/and occasionally Skyrim, while playing Netflix, just fine. I need nothing more than that. Only major performance difference really between the two systems is I can run on ultra due to my HD 7970 in my gaming rig vs the HD 4870 file server. I saw some increase when I changed to a 3570k, but nothing earth shattering. Only reason I made the switch was the i5 2400 and P67 extreme4 was used as an emergency repair for the file server. Getting an 1156 motherboard to replace the one in there on same day was pretty much impossible and Microcenter had plenty of 3570k and Z77 extreme4's in stock.

DeathAndPain · Jan 28, 2014

Headscratcher999 :

That is the case as far as current Broadwell information goes. Broadwell will not come before 2015, so not everything may be set in stone yet, but all sources I read so far agree that Broadwell will require new mainboards.

Headscratcher999 :

It is the resolution, not the screen size, that counts, and plasma screens typically combine hugh screen sizes with rather low resolutions (which is why the plasma technology is losing to LCD and slowly vanishing from the market). For that reason I doubt that your plasma beats your monitor in terms of resolution (although I agree that 51" is really huge).

Headscratcher999 :

The graphics card is perfectly fine. Personally, I am still gaming with a 7770 and am happy with it.

Headscratcher999 :

Really? Remember that future and even some current games support HT (e.g. BF4 is reported to support HT when a lot of players are in the game). Those comparably-older games that do not support HT (including most current games) are designed to run on way older and/or crappier stuff, so the question is on which level you are gaining your fps. If your fps go up from 85 to 93, do you really think you will be able to see a difference? (Remember conventional movies are all 24 fps and still appear fluent.)

I mean, here in this forum I read statements like "the AMD FX-6300 is a very capable gaming processor", although the FX-6300 is to an i7-4771 what a moped is to a Hayabusa. If people are satisfied with the fps a FX-6300 can come up with (in current games), do you really think you could possibly have the faintest problem with an i7-4771? The 4771, however, will not only perform awesome today but also keep up better with future games that do support HT.

Headscratcher999 :

That much is true (and such AVX-enabled code is the only case when Haswell runs hotter than Ivy, unlike the widespread misconception that this would be a general disadvantage of Haswell compared to Ivy when in reality the contrary is true). Then again, it must be mentioned that reports have it that the AVX2 instruction set is mainly designed for encryption tasks, so the question is how relevant/how much used it will be in future software. Which is why I added it as a side remark and not as a key point.

Headscratcher999 :

Just make sure to sum up all overclocking-related costs, including such an expensive CPU cooler, the higher price for a Z87 mainboard, and the higher price for a K-type CPU. You may also want to factor in higher long-term electricity costs when running overclocked (which always means that the power-saving features of your CPU are disabled). Then consider if you could not spend that additional money to greater effect elsewhere.

Headscratcher999 · Jan 28, 2014

Thanks again for all your responses.

It all comes down to price/performance. I'm looking at grabbing an i7 2nd/3rd/4th gen. If I can grab a Haswell for the same price as a sandy or ivy, then I will ofc choose the Haswell but I doubt I'll get lucky enough to find such a deal. It seems that I'm realistically looking at Ivy or Sandy.

What would be a cracking mobo to get for 1 of these? I'm after SLI and/or crossfire (compatible with both would be nice), usb 3.0 would be good, you know, a mobo that can OC well and easily and is all singing all dancing! (if there is one that does it all!).
Any awesome boards that stick out in anyones mind?
Whitesnake you suggests a Z77 mobo... am I right in thinking that the 'Z' represents lots of features? (where as lower down the alphabet, apart from 'h' the boards offer less?) and can you recommenced a certain one?

DeathandPain - does the 7770 do max settings on most modern day games? I know that crysis 3, metro ll, far cry 3 etc really push cards so maybe those require $$$$ cards.

Any decent UK shops that offer good deals on hardware? I heard of a few good US places, but in the UK I'm a bit stumped so I am looking on E-bay etc (am researching the sellers!)

Any point in buying an older generation cpu?

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