Ivy Bridge vs Sandy Bridge-E

[daDonn]

Since about October last year I've had the intent to build myself a new desktop rig; I'm currently suffering with a Phenom 9950, 4GB RAM and an old 8800GTX.

Back then I knew that Sandy Bridge-E's release was imminent, and I also "knew" that Ivy Bridge would only be a couple of months longer. I had it in mind to wait for the two to launch, have a look at the performance difference between them, then come to a decision as to which part to go with. My concern is that a similar situation to the launch of regular Sandy Bridge will result, where a chip like the 2600k actually out-performed the previous king-of-the-hill Intel chips whilst only costing a fraction of the price.

Since then of course, Ivy Bridge has been delayed. And again. And again. My quandary is thus - Should I wait (yet more time) until May/June (which is the current ETA for Ivy Bridge) and then a couple months longer to wait for stock to arrive in Australia - or, should I just take the plunge and get myself kitted out with Sandy Bridge-E?

I'm currently hinting towards just getting myself the latter part, as I'm hoping the extra cores of the -E part would help video rendering more than the improved architecture of Ivy Bridge. And also because I'm impatient - I'm forced to use a laptop for most things now, as my ASUS G73Jh actually games better than my aging desktop :/.

My main focus isn't so much on the gaming, of course - but on video rendering (as I have a YouTube channel).

To close, any help here would be greatly appreciated! I understand I'm living with the age-old technophile's dilemma - which is that any time I get something new, the improved model is inevitably just around the corner and costs half the price.

 

[Azurite]

`You should wait and see what IB have to offer.

 

[CaptRex635]

Hey! You should wait till the Ivy Bridge Processors come out. I hear that there are going to be many different ones that will be released!

Since you are focused on video editing, unless Ivy Bridge is some type of miracle, the way to go for you is a Sandy Bridge-E 2011 processor, just like Tom said in one of his videos!

Hopefully this helped!

 

[BKCXb]

whatever benifit Ivy bridge brings over sandy bridge, Ivy bridge-E will bring to sandy bridge-E , so the question reall is what platform do you really need?

1155 will always have half the avalible memory bandwith of 2011( simple math, quad or dual channel memory?)

 

[Excalabur50]

If you render alot I would say get yourself a 3930k and be done with waiting it will perform amply for you.

 

[SieB]

Ivy Bridge isn't going to give a massive performance boost, it's just a die shrink. The top model i7, the 3770k will be around 10-20% faster in "some" applications.

The main performance gain from Ivy is the IGP which is around 50% better than the current one on SB, but what Ivy has that SB-E doesn't is quicksync and because of the more powerful IGP quicksync on Ivy will be a hell of a lot faster than on SB, so for rendering videos fast Ivy may be good enough. Maybe not as fast as a 3930 but the 3770k will be a lot cheaper and will still be faster than a SB-E 3820k.

Personally i'd save some money and go with the Ivy and a 3770k, it may not be as fast as the 3930 but it's a lot cheaper and for the most part you wouldn't notice the difference when gaming, it would only be when doing stuff like rendering. Wait for benches and to see how fast quicksync is with the 3770k before you make your mind up though.  

 

[tinytomlogan]

I love the fact people are putting IB and SB-E on the same shelf..... IB is a die shrink!!! in other words its smaller SB........

 

[ObscureParadox]

I love the fact people are putting IB and SB-E on the same shelf..... IB is a die shrink!!! in other words its smaller SB........

Was thinking the same thing, they're completely different, sure Ivy bridge will be slightly faster than sandy bridge, but it will not be as big a difference as say the jump from gulftown to sandy bridge because that was the jump between two completely different architectures. At the end of the day you need more cores, so Sandy bridge-e is what's best for you, you then have the option to upgrade to ivy bridge-e if you want in the future.

 

[killablade]

Afaik the delay of the release of Ivy Bridge desktop processors hasn't really been confirmed by Intel. There was some PR guy from Intel who said IB MOBILE CPU's have been delayed, but sources later said it would only be for a few weeks, not months. Thus, it is not certain that IB desktop cpu's have also been delayed. We will have to wait and see what happens on April 8th. Z77 mobo's I beleive are already confirmed to launch at that date. To me, it would make sense that Intel release at least a couple of IB chips at the same time, though I wouldn't mind waiting say till the end of april to get my hands on an i7-3770k.

Sources:

http://vr-zone.com/articles/intel-confirms-notebook-ivy-bridge-delay/15039.html

http://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickmoorhead/2012/02/27/intel-ivy-bridge-everyone-please-calm-down/

 

[JMMP]

You can not compare different sockets and technology! (well i open a topic nemed " Sandy bridge vs Ivy bridge 2700k vs 3770k " and they have different technology,...... but they have the same socket!!!

) You can but..... in my opinion it's not a fair comparison!

The socket 1155 IB it´s in the medium/high End class and the 2011 SB-e It´s high End class socket!

 

[BeholdtheMightySpoon]

I just recivied my 3930k last week and it destroys my i5 2500k. Just buy one you won't regret it

 

[daDonn]

I love the fact people are putting IB and SB-E on the same shelf..... IB is a die shrink!!! in other words its smaller SB........

My gut feeling is that the extra cores will be more advantageous to me with video editing than the improved graphics and higher clock tolerance in IB, but the results I'm linking below do make me second-guess this :/.

They also make me think that the rumours of the delay may just be slightly exaggerated, if Anand has a sample to test. One wonders how he dodged an NDA, though.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5626/ivy-bridge-preview-core-i7-3770k/1

 

[BKCXb]

I think waiting on the latest and greatest technology is a fools game!

If something is out now, that fits your needs, and is better than anything out there, with a good upgrade path,if you can afford it, buying anything else is foolish.

Waiting weeks or months to get the newest stuff ,complete with all the bugs, than weeks or months, waiting to for drivers and work-arounds to flood fourms, is all just wasted time, worring weather your getting "the best", or spending "too much", all a waste......

If you can afford SB-E your not spending "too much", buying it if you can't afford it is.

If you buy "the best" you have "the best" (until something better comes along and it always does!!!), you can enjoy it and never wonder what could of been if you would have bought it.

Sandy bridge -E now, if its more than you need, than don't upgrade it to Ivy bridge -E at the end of the year. In 3 years it will be your surfing the web computer, anyway, cause Intel will have in their labs the replacement for Ivy bridge and Ivy bridge-E!

How many threads on this fourm, with titles like "sandy bridge-E, too much performance for me!!! PLESE HELP ME TAME IT DOWN!!!" or " just got my 20011 system running, looking to trade it for a netbook"???????????? It just doesn't happen!

 

[SieB]

My gut feeling is that the extra cores will be more advantageous to me with video editing than the improved graphics and higher clock tolerance in IB, but the results I'm linking below do make me second-guess this :/.

They also make me think that the rumours of the delay may just be slightly exaggerated, if Anand has a sample to test. One wonders how he dodged an NDA, though.

http://www.anandtech...core-i7-3770k/1

There is no delay like someone above pointed out, it's only for the mobile chips.

Anandtech is one of the most trust worthy sites there is, their benches are 100% legit. They had Sandy Bridge benches about a month before it was released.

most of everything has been known about Ivy for months though, it was due for release October last year but Intel delayed it, the only things we didn't now for certain was actual performance. Everything else like an estimated 10%+ performance increase 77w tdp and a 50% better IGP was already known.

If you can afford SB-E your not spending "too much", buying it if you can't afford it is.

If you buy "the best" you have "the best" (until something better comes along and it always does!!!), you can enjoy it and never wonder what could of been if you would have bought it.

Sandy bridge -E now, if its more than you need, than don't upgrade it to Ivy bridge -E at the end of the year. In 3 years it will be your surfing the web computer, anyway, cause Intel will have in their labs the replacement for Ivy bridge and Ivy bridge-E!

How many threads on this fourm, with titles like "sandy bridge-E, too much performance for me!!! PLESE HELP ME TAME IT DOWN!!!" or " just got my 20011 system running, looking to trade it for a netbook"???????????? It just doesn't happen!

But the point is unless you actually use it your money is wasted because you will never see that performance and if you put SB up against SB-E you wouldn't notice the difference.

If you do things with your PC that make use of such a powerful CPU and you can afford it fair enough, but if you bought it just because it's the most powerful and you don't do anything on your PC that makes use of it then enjoy your few hundred pounds of wasted money because you could have saved it and bought SB/IB and you wouldn't even know the difference. It's like having a Formula 1 car to drive around in, although it's faster than anything else on the road you are never going to drive it fast enough to beat a boy racer in his Honda Civic.

 

[JMMP]

There is no delay like someone above pointed out, it's only for the mobile chips.

Anandtech is one of the most trust worthy sites there is, their benches are 100% legit. They had Sandy Bridge benches about a month before it was released.

most of everything has been known about Ivy for months though, it was due for release October last year but Intel delayed it, the only things we didn't now for certain was actual performance. Everything else like an estimated 10%+ performance increase 77w tdp and a 50% better IGP was already known.

But the point is unless you actually use it your money is wasted because you will never see that performance and if you put SB up against SB-E you wouldn't notice the difference.

If you do things with your PC that make use of such a powerful CPU and you can afford it fair enough, but if you bought it just because it's the most powerful and you don't do anything on your PC that makes use of it then enjoy your few hundred pounds of wasted money because you could have saved it and bought SB/IB and you wouldn't even know the difference. It's like having a Formula 1 car to drive around in, although it's faster than anything else on the road you are never going to drive it fast enough to beat a boy racer in his Honda Civic.

I totally agree with you!!

 

[BKCXb]

There is no delay like someone above pointed out, it's only for the mobile chips.

Anandtech is one of the most trust worthy sites there is, their benches are 100% legit. They had Sandy Bridge benches about a month before it was released.

most of everything has been known about Ivy for months though, it was due for release October last year but Intel delayed it, the only things we didn't now for certain was actual performance. Everything else like an estimated 10%+ performance increase 77w tdp and a 50% better IGP was already known.

But the point is unless you actually use it your money is wasted because you will never see that performance and if you put SB up against SB-E you wouldn't notice the difference.

If you do things with your PC that make use of such a powerful CPU and you can afford it fair enough, but if you bought it just because it's the most powerful and you don't do anything on your PC that makes use of it then enjoy your few hundred pounds of wasted money because you could have saved it and bought SB/IB and you wouldn't even know the difference. It's like having a Formula 1 car to drive around in, although it's faster than anything else on the road you are never going to drive it fast enough to beat a boy racer in his Honda Civic.

personally I think even if you don't use it all, as long as you could afford it in the first place it's not a waste.

lets say in a few years 128 bit operrating system comes out or a killer game, with the minimum requirements of 6 cores and quad channel memory. Everything sold as of right now( except SB-E) will require an upgrade which will cost twice as much(new machine now + new machine in the future).

Even if your not using it all now, it will still be kicking long after most of the people waiting for IB now, have already dumped their IB machines, for whatever is next.

Sure your ageing SB-E will be running at 100% trying to keep up with the newest stuff, but their is a clear upgrade path, to extend it's lifespan, allowing you to maybe skip 4 or 5 generations of the "latest,greatest,must have" products.

I think the call that "long term investment" .... " long term value" or something like that.

Some people just like to do it(nothing wrong with it), but for me I think buying a new machine every time something better comes out is foolish! IB (or even SB) would be perfect for me because I'm still rocking a pentium 4 machine. When I bought it, I just got what I could afford, today it's maxed out, but it still does everthing I ask of it(except run SLI with my second card, though it was never designed to).

Now I need another machine, and I don't want to repace it in a few years. So I decided the only way to go is SB-E. At the present time the only way to get quad channel memory and 40 PCI-E lanes is with SB-E, for only few hundred dollars premium over SB(or IB) and thats whats important to me. Each person has to make up their own mind what is important to them.

In a few months when I'm ready to buy it , I can care less about the hype that AMD will be releasing piledriver, or a few more months IB-E will be released! It's a game that manufatures play to get you to buy new stuff contantly, and I'm not playing it!

When my SB-E machine can't keep up anymore and all you guys are running 16 core, 128 gigs of 8 channel DDR5, I will be able to scoop up on an 8 core IB-E CPU, online for $89.

 

[Master&Puppet]

I don't know BKCXb, I would rarely consider buying the hottest product an investment!

An SB-E build (without gpu) costs about 1.5 times the cost of a i7 or i5 build. Given the tick tock nature of intel's processors they will have a life of 2 years so you are looking at keeping it for 3. I admit that BF3 is the first game to use 6 cores and there will be a shift in the market over the next 1,2,3 years towards more cores but the truth is that games will still be running well above 60 fps with a 4 core processor for a while to come. There is little point in paying the extra money to run a game at 140fps when it will run at 120fps on a 4 core.

SB-E is basically an i7 with 2 extra cores. 50% performance increase IF those cores are used for twice the price - that's the premium you pay for the top of the range. For the next year or so the difference between 4/6 cores will be negligable and yet in 12-18 months when you think SB-E will be coming into it's own, Haswell will be released and comfortably outperform SB-E core for core (the anandtech IvyB benches already suggest this) but still have hyper-threading to deal with multi-thread instances.

There is no doubt that we are at a bridge with more threads increasingly being used by games but we are a long while away from 4 thread processors failing to meet the specifications for gaming at max settings and by the time that happens SB-E will be long gone.

Personally I'm going to get the 3770k which has the best of both worlds and will probably be fine for 18-24 months. Also having bought the SB-E now I bet you won't be able to resist getting whatever the next xx-e is in the future

Having said that, if you make use of the 6/12 cores/threads (such as the OP with vid rendering) or are just a plain enthusiast then there is nothing better than SB-E (for the next 6 months or so, damn intel!)

M&P

 

[JMMP]

I don't know BKCXb, I would rarely consider buying the hottest product an investment!

An SB-E build (without gpu) costs about 1.5 times the cost of a i7 or i5 build. Given the tick tock nature of intel's processors they will have a life of 2 years so you are looking at keeping it for 3. I admit that BF3 is the first game to use 6 cores and there will be a shift in the market over the next 1,2,3 years towards more cores but the truth is that games will still be running well above 60 fps with a 4 core process for a while to come. There is little point in paying the extra money to run a game at 140fps when it will run at 120fps on a 4 core.

SB-E is basically an i7 with 2 extra cores. 50% performance increase IF those cores are used for twice the price - that's the premium you pay for the top of the range. For the next year or so the difference between 4/6 cores will be negligable and yet in 12-18 months when you think SB-E will be coming into it's own, Haswell will be released and comfortably outperform SB-E core for core (the anandtech IvyB benches already suggest this) but still have hyper-threading to deal with multi-thread instances.

There is no doubt that we are at a bridge with more threads increasingly being used by games but we are a long while away from 4 thread processors failing to meet the specifications for gaming at max settings and by the time that happens SB-E will be long gone.

Personally I'm going to get the 3770k which has the best of both worlds and will probably be fine for 18-24 months. Also having bought the SB-E now I bet you won't be able to resist getting whatever the next xx-e is in the future

Having said that, if you make use of the 6/12 cores/threads (such as the OP with vid rendering) or are just a plain enthusiast then there is nothing better than SB-E (for the next 6 months or so, damn intel!)

M&P

i´m with you bro!!! high five!!!

 

[BKCXb]

I don't know BKCXb, I would rarely consider buying the hottest product an investment!

An SB-E build (without gpu) costs about 1.5 times the cost of a i7 or i5 build. Given the tick tock nature of intel's processors they will have a life of 2 years so you are looking at keeping it for 3. I admit that BF3 is the first game to use 6 cores and there will be a shift in the market over the next 1,2,3 years towards more cores but the truth is that games will still be running well above 60 fps with a 4 core processor for a while to come. There is little point in paying the extra money to run a game at 140fps when it will run at 120fps on a 4 core.

SB-E is basically an i7 with 2 extra cores. 50% performance increase IF those cores are used for twice the price - that's the premium you pay for the top of the range. For the next year or so the difference between 4/6 cores will be negligable and yet in 12-18 months when you think SB-E will be coming into it's own, Haswell will be released and comfortably outperform SB-E core for core (the anandtech IvyB benches already suggest this) but still have hyper-threading to deal with multi-thread instances.

There is no doubt that we are at a bridge with more threads increasingly being used by games but we are a long while away from 4 thread processors failing to meet the specifications for gaming at max settings and by the time that happens SB-E will be long gone.

Personally I'm going to get the 3770k which has the best of both worlds and will probably be fine for 18-24 months. Also having bought the SB-E now I bet you won't be able to resist getting whatever the next xx-e is in the future

Having said that, if you make use of the 6/12 cores/threads (such as the OP with vid rendering) or are just a plain enthusiast then there is nothing better than SB-E (for the next 6 months or so, damn intel!)

M&P

personally I am an enthusiast, and all modern games out,run pretty good on my P4, so I really wasn't discussing my view with gaming in mind. If I was gonna build a mostly gamming machine I would buy a 2500K really cheap in a few months(which is still overkill),but it is the first unlocked CPU intel makes(overclocking goodness)

My main point is that SB-E has more memory bandwidth(twice as much as SB), more avaliable RAM(up to 64 gigs for ram cacheing), and 40 lanes of 3.0 PCI-E(more PCI-E bandwidth).

As of right now even the 3960X can use the bandwidth of the 2011/x79 platform, and there is no video cards out that can use the PCI-E bandwidth. Even though IB has improved over SB it still can't touch 2011 in thoose areas.

Even though SB-E can't use all of this platforms bandwith(PCI-E or memory) future CPUs may. Like you said SB-E is like 1.5x 2600Ks(really its 2 2600Ks but Intel hacked off 2 core to keep the TDP under 130W, but they are in there!) , 2x the memory controllers, and 2.5 the PCI-E lanes all gen 3(so it's really more)So it looks like the formula looks something like this:

What ever you do to a 1155 platform = 1.5x(2x watching the TDP) on the CPU for 2011

= 2x on the memory bandwith for 2011

= 2.5x PCI-E bandwidth for 2011(counts for nothing if running one video card)

Every thing Intel did to improve IB over SB will do more in IB-E. 22nm die shrink would let you get 12 cores in the massive 2011 socket, It would also keep the TDP in the range where this would be possiable. The improvments to IB memory bandwidth(nothing to holla about) will raise in IB-E also, but 12 cores may be able to use it. IB is the first mainstream CPU to get gen 3 support(still 16 lanes though) SB-E already has it, so what do you think will happen with IB-E(even more bandwith).

When Nvidia releases Kepler I'm sure It will walk all over 7970S and TOM will have to quad SLI them!!! but even with the 7970s the CPU is the bottleneck, not the 2011 platform. Although it's not garranteed, I think spending the money on 2011 now is a good investment, because whatever comes next, 2011 will still hold its own against it. If Intel can double it and shove it into a 2011 socket a year later, I'm sure they will! The platform will be ready!

2011 is a new socket! how long you think intel is gonna keep 1155?? If the next "big thing" needs a socket change you think Intel will go "nah!, we better find a way to make it work so everyone doesn't have to buy a new system" NO! they will change that socket in a heartbeat!! Even if Intel droops the 2011 socket next year, I will still be able to enjoy it for several years, because It was overkill for me in the first place.

 

[daDonn]

My philosophy when building myself a system is to purchase the best hardware that I can reasonably afford, and at the moment that includes SB-E.

My current system is around 6 years old now (yes, SIX!!), using an 8800 GTX and I would still be using my old Q6700 if it hadn't have died on me. As it stands I've had to sacrifice my second 8800 GTX (I used to run SLI) because I've been relegated to using my old HTPC motherboard (which doesn't support SLI) and Phenom CPU.

Certainly, I could get close-to-similar performance out of a regular Sandy Bridge system, but as I have a few additional uses for my machine (such as software compiling, video editing) I feel the better multi-threaded power of the 2011 should suit me more.

Yep, I've pretty much talked myself into getting the 3930k by now I think - let's see if it'll also last me another six years

. If the desktop platform is still around then, I suppose.