Questions about Sandy Bridge and Waiting

[helpme3948]

I'm getting ready to buy the parts for my first computer build soon, but I'm wondering some things about Sandy Bridge. My main uses for this build are gaming and Dolphin (GC/Wii emulator) along with a bit of "design" category work (Photoshop type stuff, audio and video editing, etc). The CPU would primarily help with Dolphin.

1) Will SB CPUs actually be available on Jan 5th?

2) If I can get an i5 760 for ~$180 (including tax) at Microcenter, will SB be that much of a better deal?

3) Will the motherboard/chipset cost be very different and will there be better features worth waiting for?

Let's assume my GPU would be a 6870 or something around there.

 

[shineon2010]

1. Who knows, new products are always delayed
2. That's a great deal and when SB comes out it will pricey and demand-ful
3.There's always a cost difference when new motherboard/chipsets are released

If gaming is your primary purpose why SB? i5 750/760 would be ideal for what your doing.

A. cheaper/available now, especially this weekend best time to buy.
B. Overkill, a new system with SB will be costly, just hinting.

 

[vindictive]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3871/the-sandy-bridge-preview-three-wins-in-a-row
read.. SB owns.

 

[jasongom]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3871/the-sandy-bridge-preview-three-wins-in-a-row
read.. SB owns.

hmm i read that article...and from what im reading the cpu performance wont be to dramatic...well 15-20% at lower wattage and temps is pretty dramatic...but my point is that SANDY BRIDGE was primarily focused on onboard/die watever GPU...

it focused on GPU...so gaming performance gains are probably minimal...

Im not picking SB unless it shows me SIGNIFICANT gaming advanage and good longterm investment...

also when did the core i7s start dropping in price? june july? sept?

 

[vindictive]

... why wouldn't you? it cost the same as the i5 760 and performs better, sounds ignorant.

and its not focused on the on die gpu..
thats why the mobo's p67 don't/can't even use the cpu's graphics.
h67 will use the cpu's graphics and I think only have room for 1 graphics card.

 

[Mutt x]

I have been wondering the same thing Helpme.

With the deep discounts on the i5-760 and the phase out pricing of the old sockets it makes me wonder how good a value SB will be. Will a SB system start out with prices similar to an i5-760 build or need another 6 months to bring the costs down enough to be a similar value.

BTW the i5-760 is $175 at newegg for the next couple of days.

 

[vindictive]

^ 10-20% performance increase over the i5 760 for the model that cost under $200..
i5 2400 = less than $200

 

[helpme3948]

SB won't make a big difference in PC gaming, but Dolphin (which I mentioned in the OP) can use as much CPU power as you throw at it. It needs clock rates and performance per clock (and Intel's architecture is much better than AMD's for Dolphin) and only use two threads itself (and everything else is normally offloaded to the other cores). Sandy Bridge's improvements would in no way be wasted if I get it...(Yes, I'd prefer playing my Nintendo games on PC at 1080p with AA on.)

BTW, Microcenter has an i7-950 for $200, but with the added costs of x58 and triple channel ram, I'm sure it'll be pretty close to the price of SB (if not more expensive) which will be better than it anyway.

I've been doing a lot of googling about this topic. I read the other day that since the new 1155 motherboards won't have much new technology to them, their prices shouldn't be much different from 1156. If that's true, SB is even more of a no-brainer for me.

Also, shineon2010, I heard Intel is known for sticking to their release dates. On top of that, the chips are already being made and distributed. I was just wondering whether it was a hard or soft launch kind of thing. Since NDAs don't lift until Jan 9th, that looks to me like the day they'll be coming out. There's no reason for them to wait much longer than that. Anyway, I've made up my mind to wait. Thanks for the replies everyone.

 

[helpme3948]

Best answer selected by helpme3948.

 

[vindictive]

"Without Hyper Threading, the Core i5 2400 equals the performance of the Core i7 880. Turn HT on, and this Sandy Bridge part that may end up costing ~$200 is nearly as fast as the $999 Core i7 980X"

You mentioned photoshop in the OP.

and good decision to wait. I'm not someone just telling other people to wait, I hate waiting, but I put off my build to wait for SB release as well so I'm right there with you!

 

[helpme3948]

^^^

I should mention (in case someone else reads this before SB comes out), the i5 2400 isn't supposed to have Hyper Threading in the final version of the chip. Also, in Anandtech's early version of the chip, the i5 2400 did not have Turbo Boost while the final one will. I think the Turbo Boost would help most of the tests (apart from very well threaded ones) more than the lack of HT would affect the few situations in which it would be useful.

 

[vindictive]

^even without HT on, its still pretty amazing considering its supposed to cost under $200

 

[helpme3948]

^even without HT on, its still pretty amazing considering its supposed to cost under $200

Definitely! Makes me wonder what the 2500 and 2600 will be like...

 

[vindictive]

ill be gettin the 2500k

 

[Maziar]

This topic has been closed by Maziar