How long until?

hlftopdog

Distinguished
Jun 13, 2003
56
0
18,630
I'm currently looking at building a new machine using Intels Core 2 Duo E6850. However, I keep seeing mentions to intels next line of processors and don't want to spend nearly £1,500 if the next step up in terms of processors is less than 3 months away.

Does anyone here have more information on when Intel will be releasing the next batch of processors (45nm I believe?) and will they be worth waiting for instead of plunging for the E6850 now?
 

plguzman

Distinguished
Nov 14, 2006
337
0
18,780
Well, remember that Nehalem is expected to be launched in Q3 2008, and it will be a COMPLETELY different hardware platform, so in my case, I'm getting a Q6600 now and will upgrade to Nehalem next year. I'll basically skip Penryn.
 
Same plan as Guz... Running the Q~ship now. The vague~ish plan is Nehalem for my next build. Not fanboi~speak: Simply best enthusiast-level performance for the (enthusiast) amount of money I decide to spend. Right now, Intel have a year~ish lead in outright performance, so that's where my money went. And it'll go past Sunnyvale straight to the folks in Santa Clara again unless AMD make up the gap by the time I decide to put new guts in my case.
 

hlftopdog

Distinguished
Jun 13, 2003
56
0
18,630
Hadn't read anything about Nehalem so that's interesting to know. A year is defo too long to wait so will go for this one now for sure, I've got the price down to £1,200 now too! (e6850,4gb 800mhz ddr, 8800gtx, 22"!)
 

plguzman

Distinguished
Nov 14, 2006
337
0
18,780


Also FSX, and Lost Planet, etc etc.

The true is, we don't know that for sure. But common sense tells me that the new games will take advantage of the multicore processing. Why not using more cores if they are available?.
 

agentsmith957

Distinguished
Sep 26, 2006
91
0
18,630
Well technically, the step-up that youre referring to (45nm shrink of conroe/kentsfield) is due out one month from tomorrow. We will see the 1st desktop chip out of this lineup, with the rest to come in Jan 08. Maybe its worth the wait for you till Jan? You'll also have the benefit of possibly seeing the next gen nVidia chipsets for Intel that way, if you arent sold on the X38 bandwagon.

EDIT: Just so you arent confused, Nehalem, which is due out H2'08, is different from the 45nm shrink (Penryn) to the current architecture we have now. Penryn will only show a slight performance increase, whereas Nehalem utilizes a completely new architecture.
 

hlftopdog

Distinguished
Jun 13, 2003
56
0
18,630
I was going for E6850 as on the article linked here it seems to outperform the Q6600 in all but a couple of the tests.

Having said that, if it is going to be beneficial later on it's something I maybe need to consider a little longer...
 

plguzman

Distinguished
Nov 14, 2006
337
0
18,780


That benchmarks are made taking into consideration stock speeds, and the old Q6600 steps. If you take a look at a recent review like this one you will see that the new G0 stepping performs (when overclocked) as fast as a E6850, and much better in games that uses the 4 cores.
 

mtyermom

Distinguished
Jun 1, 2007
956
0
18,980
I'm waiting for my next build until Penryn has been out for a couple months (Maybe March or April of '08). Going to ride out this old P4 system through the rest of this year. Further down the road I will look to the update/shrink of Nehalem for the next build. Is there a name on the roadmap for the update of Nehalem? (I'm assuming H2 2009)
 

hlftopdog

Distinguished
Jun 13, 2003
56
0
18,630


Looking at those charts, the only performance gain does come once it's overclockd a fair way. I'm not experienced in overclocking - but looks like it might be worth learning a bit more about it

Thanks for the advice and info :)