Haswell-e, Broadwell, Devil's Canyon Oh My!

S

ScArE2100

Limp Gawd
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Jan 22, 2004
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Hello, [H]. It's been a long time.

I've been itching lately to build a new high end gaming PC, but have kept naively telling myself to wait until DDR4. Well, DDR 4 is taking forever and my i5 2300 is feeling old all of the sudden.

I am willing to throw down some solid change, but I'm not sure if I should give up on DDR and buy now, wait until September (theoretically) and do a new DDR4 build or hold out even longer for broadwell.

Like I said, my initial holdout has been around DDR4 but lately I've been reading people saying it will almost certainly not be any major performance increase.

Can someone link me something that helps break down the distinction between these three platforms so I can make a good decision about how long I should wait and what I should be buying?

Thanks!
 
It won't make a difference initially, but like with ddr3 it eventually does.

It's never a good idea to wait for the next set of memory to upgrade. I personally upgrade with sockets.
 
I am willing to throw down some solid change, but I'm not sure if I should give up on DDR and buy now, wait until September (theoretically) and do a new DDR4 build or hold out even longer for broadwell.

Like I said, my initial holdout has been around DDR4 but lately I've been reading people saying it will almost certainly not be any major performance increase.
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I thought broadwell will not have ddr4. I mean isn't socketed broadwell on lga1150?
 
Devils canyon is a minor revision to mainstream haswell.

Haswell-e will be a high end platform using haswell technology. Being a high end platform it will have support for shedloads of ram and PCIe. It will also use DDR4 meaning that if you buy shedloads of ram you should be able to carry it across to new systems for a while. On the downside it's likely to be an expensive build with DDR4 initially carrying a premium over DDR3 and the CPUs and motherboards not cheap either.

However for gaming unless you are getting into rediculous (3+ card) SLI/crossfire setups or running games off ramdrives the utility of those things is questionable.

Broadwell is the die shrink of haswell, afaict the mainstream broadwell stuff will be using the same socket as haswell did and hence the same type of memory.

What motherboard chipset do you have? if your chipset supports overclocking i'd suggest picking up a used 2500K or whatever the 3xxx equivilent is and overclocking it.

Edit: got DDR3 and DDR4 transposed in my comment about ram prices.
 
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I wasn't implying broadwell had dd4. I'm asking should i wait for buy
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Get a Devils Canyon asap or wait 9 months for a Broadwell-H although you could pick up a used i7 2600K for less than $200 and have >90% of the performance of the new system.
 
Only reason to go with Haswell-E is if you need the PCI-E lanes or 6 cores. Otherwise, build a Devils Canyon now. And do yourself a favor and get an unlocked CPU so that you can keep it longer.
 
plugwash said:
Devils canyon is a minor revision to mainstream haswell.

Haswell-e will be a high end platform using haswell technology. Being a high end platform it will have support for shedloads of ram and PCIe. It will also use DDR4 meaning that if you buy shedloads of ram you should be able to carry it across to new systems for a while. On the downside it's likely to be an expensive build with DDR3 initially carrying a premium over DDR4 and the CPUs and motherboards not cheap either.

However for gaming unless you are getting into rediculous (3+ card) SLI/crossfire setups or running games off ramdrives the utility of those things is questionable.

Broadwell is the die shrink of haswell, afaict the mainstream broadwell stuff will be using the same socket as haswell did and hence the same type of memory.

What motherboard chipset do you have? if your chipset supports overclocking i'd suggest picking up a used 2500K or whatever the 3xxx equivilent is and overclocking it.
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This is very helpful. You rock! I have an asus p8z68-v le which means it's a z68. I'd consider overclocking, but the problem is, my system already runs way too hot, especially in the summer months. I have a corsair h80 cooler but it still runs at 60c under load :/ overclocking seems like bad news
 
I have a corsair h80 cooler but it still runs at 60c under load
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60C under load is not at all hot for an Intel CPU where the max temp is around 100C before throttling. If you had a stock cooler I would expect it to be hotter than 60C at stock frequencies under a light load..
 
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How long we need to wait for broadwell + DDR 4?
Will we see it in January 2015 or not?
 
Broadwell does not come with DDR4. It is DDR3 using the current 1150 socket and x9x chipset. Skylake will be the mainstream move to DDR4, in late 2015/early 2016. Haswell-E (socket 2011-3, chipset X99) will be the first platform to use DDR4, coming out at the end of 2014.
 
If it makes sense, I'll put it like this: if you wanted to upgrade 5 years ago, your options were X48 and X58, you could get a core2quad q9450 with DDR2 1066 (OC to 1300+ with the right mobo) or you could spend twice as much on an i7 920 with the same amount of DDR3 running at 1333 (OC it maybe to 1400). Or you could wait until P55 and get similar tech but dual channel.

5 years onwards, people are still playing modern games on their OC'd 920s, and they can cheaply upgrade their RAM and cary it over to newer systems. Barely anyone admits to running a P55 system, and people running Core2s are in desperate need of an upgrade if they want to use their machine for top-tier gaming, and that upgrade involves RAM as well.

Moral of the story? Go with an enthusiast platform like X99 (coming soon) and you will have an awesome system for a LONG time.
 
KazeoHin said:
If it makes sense, I'll put it like this: if you wanted to upgrade 5 years ago, your options were X48 and X58, you could get a core2quad q9450 with DDR2 1066 (OC to 1300+ with the right mobo) or you could spend twice as much on an i7 920 with the same amount of DDR3 running at 1333 (OC it maybe to 1400). Or you could wait until P55 and get similar tech but dual channel.

5 years onwards, people are still playing modern games on their OC'd 920s, and they can cheaply upgrade their RAM and cary it over to newer systems. Barely anyone admits to running a P55 system, and people running Core2s are in desperate need of an upgrade if they want to use their machine for top-tier gaming, and that upgrade involves RAM as well.

Moral of the story? Go with an enthusiast platform like X99 (coming soon) and you will have an awesome system for a LONG time.
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To build on that. I wasn't the earliest adopter but I've had my i7 920 since 2010 and just month swapped it out for a Xeon 5650 and got a very decent performance boost on the cheap. Its not a complete blanket statement but in general overall buying semi high end now rewards you down the road
 
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