Sick of Sandy

otacon

New member
Hi fellas!

I've got the upgrade itch real bad lately, and I need you to convince me one way or the other. I'm really unsure what to do. On the one hand, It feels like a bad time to upgrade, but on the other hand, I'm still running a 2500k damn it! It's been almost 5 years since my last upgrade from Conroe E6600 to Sandy.

One and a half years ago I built my first water cooled system. The mobo, CPU and memory I took from my Sandy build, only the GPU was upgraded to a 780 GTX OC. It was a great experience, and I learned a lot, but I'm kinda sick of the platform and have some ideas around a new liquid build that I want to try out.

I know I want to go with X99 for the looks and the +2 cores (I'm a dev). What I'm not sure about is the following:
  1. Might it be better to wait for Broadwell-E? It feels kinda silly to upgrade to Haswell-E 1.5 years after it's release. I guess Broadwell will not change much and it's still kinda far away; who knows really? On the other hand, the motherboard I'd like to get is the Rampage V Extreme. It is already quite an old board and possibly not as future proof anymore? Maybe ASUS will release a Rampage VI Extreme along with Broadwell-E? My main annoyance with the R5E is that it sports only a single M.2 slot and it's not PCIe 3.0 (I know you can get an adapter, but that might look off).
  2. With Haswell, I'd pick a 5820K. Broadwell-E might bring an 8 core at a lower price point than the current 5960X though?

Thanks in advance!
 
Hi fellas!

I've got the upgrade itch real bad lately, and I need you to convince me one way or the other. I'm really unsure what to do. On the one hand, It feels like a bad time to upgrade, but on the other hand, I'm still running a 2500k damn it! It's been almost 5 years since my last upgrade from Conroe E6600 to Sandy.

One and a half years ago I built my first water cooled system. The mobo, CPU and memory I took from my Sandy build, only the GPU was upgraded to a 780 GTX OC. It was a great experience, and I learned a lot, but I'm kinda sick of the platform and have some ideas around a new liquid build that I want to try out.

I know I want to go with X99 for the looks and the +2 cores (I'm a dev). What I'm not sure about is the following:
  1. Might it be better to wait for Broadwell-E? It feels kinda silly to upgrade to Haswell-E 1.5 years after it's release. I guess Broadwell will not change much and it's still kinda far away; who knows really? On the other hand, the motherboard I'd like to get is the Rampage V Extreme. It is already quite an old board and possibly not as future proof anymore? Maybe ASUS will release a Rampage VI Extreme along with Broadwell-E? My main annoyance with the R5E is that it sports only a single M.2 slot and it's not PCIe 3.0 (I know you can get an adapter, but that might look off).
  2. With Haswell, I'd pick a 5820K. Broadwell-E might bring an 8 core at a lower price point than the current 5960X though?

Thanks in advance!

If you go X99 now then then Broadwell-E will fit into the socket 2011-3 mobos no problem, A few vendors have already released a new bios supporting Broadwell-E in existing mobos and from a productivity standpoint X99 is brilliant :)
 
Without a doubt wait for Broadwell-E if you can. There should be some new boards out soon enough. Who knows you might even get dual M.2 like you wanted.
 
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Ok guys, you're not making this any easier for me :D

If there's going to be a Rampage VI Extreme, then that would definitely make it worth the wait. If not though, I guess I could sell a 5820K pretty easily?

On the other hand, there might be a Samsung 950 Pro 1TB M.2 soon, and I think that SSD prices are generaly falling right now. Other manufactures are also releasing more M.2 drives.

Hmm
 
TBH you can pretty much any processor easily. It just depends on how much of a loss you are willing to make.

Doesnt seem likely that there will be a Rampage VI Extreme so early. Maybe an updated black edition or something?
 
Doesnt seem likely that there will be a Rampage VI Extreme so early. Maybe an updated black edition or something?
o_O Good point. I checked and the Rampage IV release dates where approximately 2 years apart. First they relased the red and two years after came the black edition. I'm pretty certain I want the red, so there'd really be no point in waiting then.

Additionally, my wish for a second M.2 slot might not be very realistic, as the RV5 is already quite packed and I don't imagine they even have room for one more slot. Bummer..
 
o_O Good point. I checked and the Rampage IV release dates where approximately 2 years apart. First they relased the red and two years after came the black edition. I'm pretty certain I want the red, so there'd really be no point in waiting then.

Additionally, my wish for a second M.2 slot might not be very realistic, as the RV5 is already quite packed and I don't imagine they even have room for one more slot. Bummer..

There is always Pci-e for your fast ssd desires, and some of them are starting to look quite nice.
 
There is always Pci-e for your fast ssd desires, and some of them are starting to look quite nice.

True, they might eventually look descent enough; though still probably never as sexy as when directly plugged in to the mobo.

Also, Skylake-E isn't that far away, so the R6E will probably be released on the new socket.
 
I wouldn't expect a huge influx of new motherboards when Broadwell E comes out. X58 was never replaced with anything better (like for example Z68-Z77) so I can't see why there would need to be a whole load of new X99 boards just for Broadwell E. Asus have already released their Rampage and Sabertooth so I doubt they will bother with anything else. Maybe they will do a Rampage Black, but even if they do it will be eye wateringly expensive and pretty much pointless over their normal Rampage, as is tradition (unless of course you are trying to break world records or will pay the extra £200 just for an all black board).

I also would not expect Broadwell E to be cheap or offer better value than Haswell E. In fact, it could be the opposite and they might start charging Skylake prices for E chips. I don't expect the 10 core to be the same price as the 5960x as people seem to be thinking. I think it will simply be on a ratio of price (so add 20% or whatever the difference is between 8 and 10) so will probably cost about a grand or more.

I also don't expect the 6 core to be cheaper than the 5820k because tbh if they did do that they would undercut Skylake and make it pointless. If anything (now that Intel know 100% they're in the clear) they will rinse out the prices for as long as they can, with only the prospect of Zen making them look over their shoulder.

And if Zen is rubbish? I would start expecting Intel to pull a Titan and start naming their chips and charging stupid money for them.

If Zen is good then when it does land it is going to take a massive cut of Intel's revenue so expect them to pull the smack down for as long as they can.
 
Thanks for your insight! I'm pretty much convinced by now that there is no point in waiting for something better than the Rampage V Extreme, and there probably won't be until Skylake-E, which is too far away for me.

I also found out that the M.2 slot on the R5E actually is PCIe 3.0 x4, not PCIe 2.0. Turns out that the website I got my info from had a typo.

So I figure the best route to take for me is to get a 5820K now and then maybe in the last days of X99, do one more upgrade to whatever Broadwell-E chip has the best price-to-performance ratio at that time.

If Zen is good then when it does land it is going to take a massive cut of Intel's revenue so expect them to pull the smack down for as long as they can.
Yeah, not bloody likely. Zen is just another marketing bubble is what I am guessing. Dark times ahead for us.
 
Hmm I'm quite positive about Zen. At least they haven't made any wild claims about it (yet).

One thing of note, though, AMD have already proven they will take the pee with the best of them (see also : Fury range stupid prices) so if any one was expecting a cheap lunch out of Zen they can forget it.
 
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