Good time to buy an i7-3770k?

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levifig

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Jan 13, 2013
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Hey guys,

I've been eyeing a new system for a while and have it all wishlisted on NewEgg. I'm about to pull the trigger on "stage 1" (mobo, cpu, ram) and have noticed that the Intel processors have had coupons and sales for the better part of the last 2-3 months. The price is now back at $329, no coupons and I can't even get access to a combo deal with the mobo I want (Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UP5 TH) that saved me $20 that I saw yesterday when I was adding stuff to the cart…

So, bottom line: are prices going to drop soon or should I just suck it up and pull the trigger now? :)

Thanks
 
The Haswell stuff is supposed to launch in a few months (a lot of articles reference June).

Your call really on waiting.
I'd probably hold off and get the new gear when it comes out as it will also be on a new platform/socket.
 
beersykins said:
The Haswell stuff is supposed to launch in a few months (a lot of articles reference June).

Your call really on waiting.
I'd probably hold off and get the new gear when it comes out as it will also be on a new platform/socket.
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Good point! The only issue is I can't wait that long… :) I'm on a very old system and finally got around to having the availability (aka $$) to upgrade it! :p I'm reading more on Haswell and I think I rather upgrade to it in a year or so (prices will drop, platform will stabilize, etc).

It seems Intel CPU prices don't drop automatically when new ones come out so my questions still stands: are prices about to drop in the next few weeks? I don't care if they drop after Haswell is out, actually… That's just life! :) Thinking more from a short-term perspective!

Thanks for your feedback though… :)
 
I7 3770K has been $229 (retail box with heat sync) at Micro Center for as long as I can remember. They don't carry the GA-Z77X-UP5, but they do have the GA-Z77X-UP4 for $185 (don't really know what the difference is between the two). Hope this helps.
 
Mr_x264AVC said:
I7 3770K has been $229 (retail box with heat sync) at Micro Center for as long as I can remember. They don't carry the GA-Z77X-UP5, but they do have the GA-Z77X-UP4 for $185 (don't really know what the difference is between the two). Hope this helps.
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Wow!! $229? Not $329?? I've seen it pretty much everywhere at $329… $100 is a lot of "coin"!! :eek:

UPDATE: Confirmed $229 but… in-store pickup only and the closest store is about 3h away! :(
 
Yes. I just got $20 off coupons from Microcenter via e-mail and it made the deal even better.
 
levifig said:
Wow!! $229? Not $329?? I've seen it pretty much everywhere at $329… $100 is a lot of "coin"!! :eek:

UPDATE: Confirmed $229 but… in-store pickup only and the closest store is about 3h away! :(
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totally worth it. I got like 16gb crucial ram for like $75 too. microcenter is pretty solid
 
Now is probably the worst time to buy a 3770k with Haswell so close. Haswell equivalents will come in at the same price as their predecessors. Newegg and other companies may run promotions to clear out IB stock, but overall cost should be the same with Haswell vs Ivy Bridge. Maybe some initial price gouging on the motherboards, but that should be minimal, especially on mid-range boards.
 
Tsumi said:
Now is probably the worst time to buy a 3770k with Haswell so close. Haswell equivalents will come in at the same price as their predecessors. Newegg and other companies may run promotions to clear out IB stock, but overall cost should be the same with Haswell vs Ivy Bridge. Maybe some initial price gouging on the motherboards, but that should be minimal, especially on mid-range boards.
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Hmmm… My problem is that both my C2D 2.5Ghz/4GB RAM laptop and my X2 4600+/2GB RAM are not cutting it anymore (for a while)… :X Should I consider an interim solution (lower end i3 or something) for the next 2 months and then just re-use it as a server (which I was going to do with the X2 anyway)? :)
 
If you have a pressing need to buy a CPU before HWL releases, then it's as good a time as any. Both SB and IB are such strong performers that they will work just fine for the next couple of CPU releases for most people.

HWL is speculated to be about 10% faster clock for clock than IB, that may not translate into much of a difference in games since it's the GPU you'll need to focus on in that arena...and it certainly won't be felt in applications like your internet browser, spreadsheet maker, document editor, etc.

There's been a lot of crying out over LGA1155 nearing EOL but, as I already hinted at, it's not like current processors in the LGA1155 family are going to all of a sudden not be sufficient...hell, there are lots of [H] users still rocking C2D's and C2Q's and doing just fine. It all comes down to individual needs/wants, budget, and primary system use.
 
You'll just spend more in the end if you do an interim solution. If you really need it, then as said, just buy it now, and don't bother upgrading until after Broadwell. Haswell doesn't appear to give significant gains over Ivy Bridge anyways.
 
if you're not planning to use cpu's gpu then there is really no need to wait for Haswell in my opinion.
 
Tsumi said:
You'll just spend more in the end if you do an interim solution. If you really need it, then as said, just buy it now, and don't bother upgrading until after Broadwell. Haswell doesn't appear to give significant gains over Ivy Bridge anyways.
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i still prefer sandy over ivy, they oc much higher and run cooler.
 
TroyX said:
i still prefer sandy over ivy, they oc much higher and run cooler.
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Yea if you manually do the voltage otherwise its not so cool at high OCs. After 4.7 auto Oc cranks the volts up(For my cpu). Its the next thing im gonna be messing with.
 
Tsumi said:
You'll just spend more in the end if you do an interim solution. If you really need it, then as said, just buy it now, and don't bother upgrading until after Broadwell. Haswell doesn't appear to give significant gains over Ivy Bridge anyways.
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For a majority of us users, our computer applications and games, when run on SB, IB, or HWL, are going to be about on equal ground (give or take a little, obviously), so I wouldn't categorize SB/IB as an interim solution with HWL "right around the corner". All three are going to be strong enough processors to perpetuate a useable lifespan well into the BWL era, if not into the SKL/SKM eras, when a real need to upgrade is more prevalent. Maybe even beyond...who knows?
 
OP - I was in the same boot as you last week. I was on a build that I haven't upgraded in about 3 years, old 775 quad build. The Microcenter deal really pushed me to upgrade though since it is only 30 miins away from me. My Computer feels brand new again, and I am sure I can stay on the 3770K for at least 3 years to come. GPUs will be my only upgrade since I mainly game. The Q9550 lasted me very very long... past Nehalem and Sandy Bridge and probably could have gone strong for another year.
 
DejaWiz said:
For a majority of us users, our computer applications and games, when run on SB, IB, or HWL, are going to be about on equal ground (give or take a little, obviously), so I wouldn't categorize SB/IB as an interim solution with HWL "right around the corner". All three are going to be strong enough processors to perpetuate a useable lifespan well into the BWL era, if not into the SKL/SKM eras, when a real need to upgrade is more prevalent. Maybe even beyond...who knows?
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I was responding to his interim solution of using an i3.
 
Thanks guys! This makes a lot of sense… :)
It seems Haswell will be an improvement but not that significant to justify either 1) waiting or 2) building an interim solution. Besides, still I plan on using this build as a hackintosh as well, using existing, better supported chipsets will probably make my life easier.

Since I'm building this in stages, I don't mind waiting a bit longer on the GPU and use my existing Radeon 4850 HD for now and figuring out where to go next on that. I definitely need to go with Nvidia because, besides gaming, I do video and Nvidia (CUDA) does help with that… :)

Thanks for all the replies folks! I was feeling a bit uneasy about pulling the trigger now but this made me feel better about spending ~$700 now on new mobo, CPU and RAM… :)


Cheers and have a good weekend everyone! :D
 
I have been running 2500k @ 4.5GHz since it came out. I upgraded BIOS on my P67 Deluxe, bought 3770k at MC and sold 2500k for $135 two weeks ago. I do not really need such a powerful CPU but I learnt my lesson once. I should have bought i7-920 instead of Q9550 back in the day.
 
Iching said:
I have been running 2500k @ 4.5GHz since it came out. I upgraded BIOS on my P67 Deluxe, bought 3770k at MC and sold 2500k for $135 two weeks ago. I do not really need such a powerful CPU but I learnt my lesson once. I should have bought i7-920 instead of Q9550 back in the day.
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What differences do you notice with the 3770K?
 
levifig said:
Thanks guys! This makes a lot of sense… :)
It seems Haswell will be an improvement but not that significant to justify either 1) waiting or 2) building an interim solution. Besides, still I plan on using this build as a hackintosh as well, using existing, better supported chipsets will probably make my life easier.

Since I'm building this in stages, I don't mind waiting a bit longer on the GPU and use my existing Radeon 4850 HD for now and figuring out where to go next on that. I definitely need to go with Nvidia because, besides gaming, I do video and Nvidia (CUDA) does help with that… :)

Thanks for all the replies folks! I was feeling a bit uneasy about pulling the trigger now but this made me feel better about spending ~$700 now on new mobo, CPU and RAM… :)


Cheers and have a good weekend everyone! :D
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What mobo and cpu are you considering?
 
isnt he considering the 3770k, thats the title of the thread. And I think he wants a gigabyte board that he mentioned on the first post.


I am pretty happy with my 3770k and for $230 at MC its just too good of a deal. Haswell, even if a considerable upgrade (which doesnt seem to be) will come out at much higher prices.
 
yea I completely missed it.. I must be tired lol.. anyway yea MC is great, most of my pc came from there.
 
Alright, just ordered this:

CPU: Intel i7-3770k
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UP5 TH
Memory: G.SKILL Sniper 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 1866 (want 32GB–video production and VMs–but I'll wait a bit and just buy another pair of these)

Took advantage of a 10% discount if I signed up for V.me (Visa stuff) so I decided to pull the trigger. Again, thanks for the advice folks!

Haswell can wait a few years… ;)
 
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Nice choices. Should be blazing fast. Not that I would know, or anything...lol.
 
I have never had any slow downs with this proc, I upgraded because my quad (qx6700) was bottlenecking my card, got this and it solved the problem. Fast, very cool, cheap (if you do the MC deal), no complains what so ever. You will love it.
 
Congrats on your purchase.

now get a free Intel beanie hat here

:D

levifig said:
Alright, just ordered this:

CPU: Intel i7-3770k
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UP5 TH
Memory: G.SKILL Sniper 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 1866 (want 32GB–video production and VMs–but I'll wait a bit and just buy another pair of these)

Took advantage of a 10% discount if I signed up for V.me (Visa stuff) so I decided to pull the trigger. Again, thanks for the advice folks!

Haswell can wait a few years… ;)
Click to expand...
 
B!nd. said:
What differences do you notice with the 3770K?
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I do not do any extreme on my computer. I use it for work, games, movies, light editing of our materials for a vlog etc. BF3 does utilizes all cores a lot even though I play at 2560x1600 with 5870 in crossfire. I upgraded because I am skipping Haswell and 2500k has a great sale value at the moment.
 
I would upgrade.. Haswell has HD4900 ... Ivy has 4000... here's a performance bench http://www.techpowerup.com/179631/I...or-Clock-with-quot-Ivy-Bridge-quot-.html?cp=5
Notice that there is only a 2/3% performance difference.... and they aren't shooting for core performance... they are just trying to destroy AMD in the APU series.. There won't be a major upgrade in processors for another 4-5 years. In theory... Haswell will probably be a fail... for enthusiast.. and have low clock speeds w/ twerked voltage regulators.
 
IE GET the 3770k.. Haswell had PR rumors of being 15-30% faster per core.. but when the benchmarks actually came out... it was just a publicity stunt to get people excited... they all DO IT.. not just AMD FAILDRIVER
 
Iching said:
I do not do any extreme on my computer. I use it for work, games, movies, light editing of our materials for a vlog etc. BF3 does utilizes all cores a lot even though I play at 2560x1600 with 5870 in crossfire. I upgraded because I am skipping Haswell and 2500k has a great sale value at the moment.
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Umm.. BF3 uses up to 6 cores. And I promise you would see a difference with a good 6 core CPU like the SANDY-E.. if anything you have a GPU bottleneck. W/ Faster bandwidth pci-e cards the 7970 and 680 / titan you would see huge differences w/ 2-3+ card configurations.
 
thorian88 said:
IE GET the 3770k.. Haswell had PR rumors of being 15-30% faster per core.. but when the benchmarks actually came out... it was just a publicity stunt to get people excited... they all DO IT.. not just AMD FAILDRIVER
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you cant compare different i7 revision cpu's to the failure of a brand new architecture cpu from amd.

i bet you that amd takes over the cpu/gpu pc gaming performance when next-gen consoles are released, they are both build with AMD parts.

faildriver is just waiting for its time to come.
 
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thorian88 said:
Umm.. BF3 uses up to 6 cores. And I promise you would see a difference with a good 6 core CPU like the SANDY-E.. if anything you have a GPU bottleneck. W/ Faster bandwidth pci-e cards the 7970 and 680 / titan you would see huge differences w/ 2-3+ card configurations.
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Correct. You can send me some money for a pair of 7970s if you do not mind.:)
 
TroyX said:
you cant compare different i7 revision cpu's to the failure of a brand new architecture cpu from amd.

i bet you that amd takes over the cpu/gpu pc gaming performance when next-gen consoles are released, they are both build with AMD parts.

faildriver is just waiting for its time to come.
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It will not. AMD does not have the capacity to compete with Nvidia and Intel. If it makes another misstep it is a toast. Have you checked the share prices lately?
 
Iching said:
It will not. AMD does not have the capacity to compete with Nvidia and Intel. If it makes another misstep it is a toast. Have you checked the share prices lately?
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FWIW, their stock price has been in the dump since 2008, so nothing new there… I feel really bad for AMD: my current desktop machine was one I built in 2005 and it was an AMD X2 3800+ (overclocked to 2.4Ghz on a Thermalright XP-90C, aka a 4600+). Back then (and before that I had an Athlon 1800+), AMD was solid, performant and not really that much cheaper than Intel. The Intel Centrinos started the change to using what was, until then, considered "mobile CPU technology" (lower power, less heat, less Mhz, etc), which was something AMD started in the first place (hence the + in the names: my 3800+ was in fact 2Ghz stock, but comparable to a 3.8Ghz in theory). With this move (and the "Core" family of processors), Intel basically jumped ahead of AMD by what seemed 10 years… :X

All of that to say: AMD is in the gutter. Buying ATI was a huge mistake and will most likely lead both brands to bankruptcy. AMD's only hope will be Sony using it for the PS4, hoping Microsoft does the same for the Xbox and dreaming that Apple would take them on for their computer department! Having said that, I'm not sure we'll see consumer products from AMD for much longer (I so hope I'm wrong)…

Well, enough off-topic… :p
 
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