ivy bridge or snb-e

[Wazup52]

So I'm about a month away from a very long awaited build, this build will be my baby for several gens. And I'm seeking advice about the cpu choice. So far I've got my eyes set on a 3930k but the more reviews I read and watch I can't help think mmm ivy bridge because its new. Now with this build its a bit of a multitasker I would use it for video editing and rendering, gaming & over-clocking in winter (its water cooled) and I wanna get into folding@home.
I'm just basically needing reassurance that the 3930k is a beast and is best suited for me. if I clocked the 3930k to 3.5 permanently to match base on the 3770k performance should technically be the same right?

 

[Josh Weston]

I think it depends on the kind of rendering you do, and the urgency of the renders. Is it part of your job to get stuff rendered as soon as possible, or do you do so much rendering that the faster the CPU is, the more money you make etc. etc.
The 3930k has 6 cores and 12 threads which, at rendering, beats down upon the 3770k.
Gaming would be overkill for both CPU choices, but performance would be extremely similar.

So, if rendering is critical to you/your business/your job or you just can't live knowing that it could be done faster, go with the 3930k.
However, if the rendering is more of an off hobby that you don't mind waiting extra time for, i'd advise going for the cheaper 3770k.

 

[Master&Puppet]

Well you've got to probably the right CPU for you but the logic isn't entirely all there. I'll do a quick explanation so you know what's going on and make your decision:

1. The performance of a single CPU core is attributed to it's generation (or architecture). Sandy-bridge is very powerful, Ivy Bridge is about 5% more powerful than that. So a single IB core vs a single SB core - IB wins.

2. CPUs come in different configurations. In Intel's world these are labelled i3, i5 and i7.
i3 - a dual core CPU with hyperthreading.
i5 - a quad-core CPU with out hyperthreading.
i7 - a quad-core OR hex-core with hyper-threading. Whilst the 3770K and 3930K are both i7s the 3930K is significantly faster when multi-tasking because it has 2 more cores but the 3770K will be faster working on 4 threads.

(Hyper-threading: usually a core only works on one thread at a time. This means that if it is waiting for something else before it can work it will sit at idle and wait. Hyper-threading allows it to work on a separate thread instead of waiting. The result is ~10-30% extra performance but only if the program you are using is capable of scheduling more threads than your PC has cores. Engineering, video editing, music production are all good examples of programs which can do this. Games are not - many games still only use 2, the most modern released are using 4 and only exceptionally more).

It depends on how much time you will be spending video-editing vs gaming. If you spend more time gaming then get the 3770K and spend the rest of the money on a better GPU. If you spend more time video-editing and it holds you back from doing other things then get the 3930K but this may sacrifice the quality of your GPU for gaming depending on your budget.

 

[Wazup52]

thank you both for ur replies.
I'm still new to the way Intel works sadly i've come from amd fanboy status.
and well rendering is only rare at the moment because I can't do much of it on my current rig. Illogical as It may seem for someone whom its just a hobby for to get this kind of power I'd like to know if I took it somewhere I'd have the power if needed. The GPU won't be sacrificed this is the biggest overkill rig ever I plan on starting with 1 GTX680OC'd and eventually getting a second depending on how it goes.
Thanks again
Tom

 

[Master&Puppet]

Cool, well I also do video editing. Usually short 10-15min videos in 1080p on my i5 3570K which take about 1 hour to produce (I have gpu acceleration too).

I typically leave it to produce over night or whilst I'm at work/other wise out of the house which gives me 7-14 hours a day, 7 days a week. That's 50-100 hours a week which is what, potentially 12-25 hours of 1080p film a week? My point is that unless you are working to deadlines or producing multiple videos a day which require you to hang around and wait then the timescales are easily manageable and you don't need anything overly powerful.