Haswell Worth It?

[Kaboki 437]

I don't know. As I shop for components for my Haswell build, there's a real feeling that this may be the last time I assemble a PC system in my life. Intel doesn't even bother to keep its more expensive "enthusiast" platform current, and each new CPU overclocks worse than the one before. This is not the result of a "faulty" design or Intel taking shortcuts to save money. It's a very conscious strategy where every bit of extra frequency headroom is transformed into power savings instead as they optimize the core for <20W CULV. Extra frequency headroom = wasted power, in Intel's eyes.

 

Yes, that maybe...but neither of us is Nostradamus ^_^  so I think the future is blurry and unexpected things has happened before..atleast I keep my hopes up. It's gone 13 years since I first heard the "death" of desktops was coming, well now thirteen years later I still get to buy powerful desktops... B) But in a FSX perspective hoping for 10Ghz chips, is certainly not gonna happen, but I still beleive the CPU's are going to get more powerful as time passes by..

[CryogenicPilot 1]

I don't think Intel is purposefully hamstringing enthusiasts. I think enthusiasts have become spoiled over the years and now both Intel and enthusiasts are hitting a physical wall of how fast they can push their silicon. The improvements made over the years have always been to allow faster STOCK performance, so you don't have to OC in the first place. That's where the research into lower TPD (and heat) comes from and also because of the general trend of consumer electronics to be mobile (tablets, laptops, ultrabooks, etc).

 

People around the world are on the go and want the power of a high-end desktop in a mobile form factor.

 

Why do you think Nvidia is investing heavily in Shield (Cloud gaming)?

 

I am not making judgments either way, but I think there will always be "enthusiasts" hardware, but it's going to be a much smaller niche market than ever before... Because remember, OEM is where the bulk of Intel and other hardware manufactures make their money, not the high-end enthusiast market. Normal businesses don't need work stations with CPUs overclocked to 5.0 GHZ with GTX Titans in them. That is truly a niche market (gamers) compared to the mainstream that wants everything on the go and to last longer on a single charge. They may be willing to compromise (quality of apps, games), but that doesn't mean Intel and other hardware producers are just going to automatically stop producing enthusiasts hardware. They are just going to charge an arm and a leg for it and make incremental increases versus the massive generational gains we used to see in years past  ^_^

[Tabs 2,790]

I think that's exactly right CryogenicPilot - we're a tiny tiny minority at this point and it would make no business sense for Intel to focus on people like us. Even within the enthusiast/gaming scene virtually any  game that's big right now doesn't require huge CPU overclocks to get good performance - all they require is a good GPU.

[TechguyMaxC 516]

I don't think Intel is purposefully hamstringing enthusiasts. I think enthusiasts have become spoiled over the years and now both Intel and enthusiasts are hitting a physical wall of how fast they can push their silicon. The improvements made over the years have always been to allow faster STOCK performance, so you don't have to OC in the first place. That's where the research into lower TPD (and heat) comes from and also because of the general trend of consumer electronics to be mobile (tablets, laptops, ultrabooks, etc).

 

I'm sorry but that is precisely what they are doing. The high temperatures that limit overclocking on Ivy Bridge and Haswell are caused by one thing and only one thing: a switch in manufacturing to using thermal paste instead of flux-less solder to transfer heat away from the silicon into the heat spreader. This has been known for over a year and was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt when the first person removed the heat spreader from an Ivy Bridge chip and discovered pathetic gray goop acting as thermal paste, a material whose thermal conductivity rating has been measured to be approximately 1/20th that of flux-less solder. End users can restore their chip's overclocking capability to expected levels (I.E. the same as the preceding chips, Sandy Bridge since both chips come from the same micro-architecture) by replacing the stock thermal paste with a superior thermal interface material that has a higher thermal conductivity rating. The best choices utilize liquid metal (usually some solution of Gallium) which has a thermal conductivity rating close to flux-less solder.

 

This is a deliberate move on Intel's part to protect their margins by cutting costs while also attempting to push enthusiast buyers into the insanely overpriced Extreme lineup, one which increases core count to scale performance on the desktop where generally performance scales much better with clock speed than core count at the 4 core level. Intel is aware of this restriction and they chose to keep going down this road with Haswell. Then they tried to sweep it under the rug by launching on a Saturday so the tech media won't be alerting the general public to this under-handed behavior since no one pays attention to the news on weekends.

 

If I had an alternative to Intel I would switch in a heartbeat. Too bad AMD's CPU's are so far behind the performance curve on the desktop. Maybe in five years we'll have competition again.

I think that's exactly right CryogenicPilot - we're a tiny tiny minority at this point and it would make no business sense for Intel to focus on people like us. Even within the enthusiast/gaming scene virtually any game that's big right now doesn't require huge CPU overclocks to get good performance - all they require is a good GPU.

 

They don't have to "focus on enthusiasts" to deliver the level of performance we expect from our desktop processors. This isn't an accident, and it's not an unintentional side-effect of the evolution of CPU micro-architecture design. They made a deliberate change in their manufacturing that had this effect, then after they were made aware of the issue they kept the change with their next generation products!

[Tabs 2,790]

I think that fits very well with my "it makes no business sense for them to focus on people like us" statement actually. 99% of computer users have no idea what overclocking is and don't need it because they're not trying run a 7 year old graphics engine (with 7 years of addons piled on) that relies on largely single-threaded brute force CPU power. Even the Extreme edition chips aren't meant for us - 6 core isn't going to give appreciably more performance in FSX vs. a quad, at least not enough in my view to justify the massive difference in expense.

[jjcruz78 0]

I have to agree with you Ryan, it is sad to see things been that way but  .... We are a small of a group. The future will become brighter, when maybe a different sim platform allow us more usage of the GPU.

[Dan F 6]

Can't wait to see some de-lidded Haswell results. Watching some OC'ing vids online makes it seem like this CPU can crank out some immense heat. I'm personally keeping an eye on IB-E and praying that it will be LGA2011. If they do it right, this might be the "last" of the top line enthusiast CPUs.

 

From that point on its faster RAM for the new CPU and a full WC loop for all of it and "I'm done" with chasing the hardware rabbit. Will be a relief when there isn't a bigger better CPU out there.

[TechguyMaxC 516]

I think that fits very well with my "it makes no business sense for them to focus on people like us" statement actually. 99% of computer users have no idea what overclocking is and don't need it because they're not trying run a 7 year old graphics engine (with 7 years of addons piled on) that relies on largely single-threaded brute force CPU power. Even the Extreme edition chips aren't meant for us - 6 core isn't going to give appreciably more performance in FSX vs. a quad, at least not enough in my view to justify the massive difference in expense.

 

Your argument ignores the following facts:

 

-Intel was already designing their chips and manufacturing them in a way that made them highly overclockable due to the desirable thermal properties enabled by the soldering of the chips to the heat spreader. Since the days of the Pentium 4, in fact.

 

-They then marketed their chips to enthusiasts as having these capabilities.

 

-In fact, they went so far as to create an entirely new category of overclockable chips in their unlocked "K" series. In other words: they saw a business opportunity to make more money by reaching out to enthusiasts and they took it.

 

-The research and development necessary to produce chips with heat spreaders attached via flux-less solder had been performed and paid for long ago, all they needed to do was continue to manufacture chips the same way they had been for a decade. In other words: it would have cost them absolutely nothing to continue business as normal.

 

-Intel still sells chips which use this method of heat spreader attachment, the Extreme line as well as the Xeon line.

 

Does this shed enough light on the matter to clear things up for those of you that had differing opinions?

 

 

[CryogenicPilot 1]

Does this shed enough light on the matter to clear things up for those of you that had differing opinions?

 

No, it's more like some anonymous guy on the internet trying to force everybody to agree with him because he doesn't want a discussion, but a forum to preach his beliefs without disagreement and or confirmed evidence to back up his theories.

 

Of course, Intel switched to a more cost effective method of thermal construction, but that's probably due more to the global recession than some grand conspiracy to cheat enthusiasts out of higher overclocks. As we have been discussing, enthusiasts are and always have been the minority. I'm fine with that because there will always be enthusiast level hardware, but it probably will not bring the leaps and bounds of improvements generations of the past used to bring. 

[TechguyMaxC 516]

Everything I have stated is based on years of personal research of the PC industry. All of the facts I listed are public information which anyone here may research for themselves. I won't bother responding to your remarks about me as they're just ad hominem.

[CyberMike 18]

Hmm, I've read two days ago that a Haswell tester overclocked it to 7Ghz!

Now that would make it worth to replace my old Core2. I wonder about the heat as somebody previously pointed out.

[goates 576]

Intel has won the desktop CPU wars (at least for now), and is focusing on the biggest threat to their business, ARM. Just about every tablet and smartphone on the market uses an ARM CPU (hundreds of millions of devices), which is providing ARM more money to bring out newer and more powerful models. Even Microsoft, one of Intel's strongest allies, has ported Windows to run on ARM CPUs. If Intel ignores this and doesn't do something about it, there is the real possibility that down the road, ARM could become the new CPU standard for personal computers. ARM is also looking to get into servers, which is not unlike how Intel used their cheaper x86 processors to knock out many of the high end workstation and server CPUs over the past 10-15 years (they even effectively killed their own Itanium line with the cheaper x64 models). To fight this Intel needs to focus on power usage, which is what Haswell is all about, far more than performance (and overclocking is even less critical). They certainly aren't going to get too hung up on a small market like flight simming, especially an unsupported sim like FSX.

 

 

 

-The research and development necessary to produce chips with heat spreaders attached via flux-less solder had been performed and paid for long ago, all they needed to do was continue to manufacture chips the same way they had been for a decade. In other words: it would have cost them absolutely nothing to continue business as normal.

 

That may be so (the R&D costs being paid off), but it still doesn't mean it is cheaper to manufacture than their new method. They could very well have determined that the new way is cheaper and good enough for just about everyone except the minority that like to overclock.

[Mo45 32]

^{Major Problems with Coollaboratory Liquid Pro Thermal Compound DEAD CPU.}

^{http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18063812} 

[ant_1984 20]

I think for anyone buying now its a tough decision between ivy and haswell.

 

I like that z87 boards have so many native sata 6gb ports for my SSD's to take advantage of and I also want to take advantage of some higher speed ram which FSX laps up along with high clockspeed. I also want pcie3.0 for when I upgrade my 680.

 

What is concerning me about Haswell is that when overclocking you might have to sacrifice that ram speed to attain the clock speed. I want as much of both as possible.

 

My current rig is by no means slow but that is going to become my wifes/back up box.

 

Right now im tossing up between grabbing either a 3770k or 4770k and an Asrock Extreme 6 to go along with one of these or maybe an Asus Sabretooth. Not 100% on the motherboard yet but ill be pairing it up with some 2400mhz ram and keeping my gtx 680 for now. I think I may be leaning a little more towards haswell because its a new socket, more native sata 6gb etc, but im not sure.

 

Man I picked an expensive hobby. I love pc building & tech stuff. Wish I could find a way to make a career out of it.

[TechguyMaxC 516]

Hmm, I've read two days ago that a Haswell tester overclocked it to 7Ghz!

Now that would make it worth to replace my old Core2. I wonder about the heat as somebody previously pointed out.

 

The chip you reference was overclocked using Liquid Nitrogen.