Z68 or should I wait for LGA 2011

[mrwaffles]

So after asking around different communities it seems as though my Core 2 Quad Q8400 @ 2.9ghz is slowing down my two GTX 460se's in SLI. I've been getting terrible frame rates in Brink, and not as many frames as my compadre's i7 set up with a single GTX 470 in Battlefield Bad Company 2.

I want to upgrade to a new processor/motherboard set up, but I cannot decide if I should go with a socket lga 1155 or hold out until lga 2011. Will they make medium range lga 2011 CPUs with good over clock potential?

I think what it really comes down to is Deus Ex 3. Since the release date is August 28th maybe I should spend now and get the LGA 1155? What do you professional think?

Also I wanted to add I am strictly a gamer. Only raw power per dollar matters to me.

 

[RetiredChief]

IvyBridge
I've heard about a 20% in processor performance - But that is JUST a "quess"
Think it will allow for quad channel memory. That memory will probably be expensive, and I do not think it will be a big performance gain for most programs. There is little diff between daul channel and tri-channel currently. (again this is program/application specific).
Hopefully it will improve on native support for SATA III and USB 3.

I faced the same question, my solution - I went ahead and bought the I5-2500K and a Z68 MB. I'm not a gamer so can not give insight to overall performance gain you would see in REAL life, scr**&(^* general bench marks, Other than for the game you play.

 

[Leaps-from-Shadows]

There will be three (3) initial SNB-E CPUs for LGA 2011.

3.3GHz, 6C 12T, 15MB L3, fully unlocked (Extreme Edition)
3.2GHz, 6C 12T, 12MB L3, fully unlocked
3.6GHz, 4C 8T, 10MB L3, limited unlocked

You can always get an LGA 1155 board now and upgrade to IVB when it comes out sometime in 2012. However, that will only be the dual-channel version of IVB. There may also be LGA 1356 and LGA 2011 versions available eventually, with triple-channel and quad-channel memory respectively.

 

[mrwaffles]

I'm still kinda new. What do you mean when you say dual-channel? Are we talking RAM here? I thought all these chipsets required DDR3.

 

[RetiredChief]

Yes, the new MBs do require DDR3, but many use them in daul channel mode. ie P/H55&57, P/H67, Z68 all use DDR3 in daul channel mode. You will notice that they all have 4 Ram slots. max ram = 16, or 32 Gigs (32 if Bios allows for 8 gig sticks).

The x58 is DDR3 and uses it in Tri-channel mode. I think most have 6 slots, for 24/48 Gig max.

 

[mrwaffles]

I cannot get this Q8400 to go over 3.0, even with an H50. It runs cool as a cucumber. We're talking never going over 40c, but it refuses to clock over 3.0 and remain stable.

Why would a board require DDR3 but only run it in dual channel mode? That confuses me.

 

[Leaps-from-Shadows]

The fact that the memory is DDR3 has no bearing on the number of channels. They are not linked in any way.

You can have DDR3 in single-channel, dual-channel, triple-channel, quad-channel, or even octo-channel if you had a board and CPU that supported that many channels.

 

[mrwaffles]

Thanks for the information. I don't suppose you guys think LGA 2011 will make it out before August 28th?