Should I wait for Broadwell, or go with Haswell?

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PatchRowcester

Limp Gawd
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Sep 2, 2012
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Hello folks,

I am planning to build a new gaming machine, and I was wondering if it would be a good idea for me to go with the latest and greatest Haswell processor (whichever that might be) or wait until Broadwell is released?

Any recommendations are appreciated.

I currently have a i7 2700k, but regardless of that, we (my wife and I) want a second gaming machine. So this one does not depend on the current machine - I am not looking to upgrade the existing.

Thanks.
 
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In the last road map I saw, Broadwell-E is schedule to be release in Q4 of 2015, so I'd say we're probably still a year away before seeing this 14nm refresh for the enthusiastic segment. If you already have the money, might as well invest in Haswell-E right now. They seem to overclock well too, all 3 chips managed to hit 4.5GHz in the recent [H] review. A solid investment that will last you for awhile IMO, if you're willing to spend on it. Only downside is that DDR4 are still expensive as they are new.
 
Is DDR4 a significant improvement over DDR3? Also, is there any point in going for 32GB of RAM over 16GB?

Thanks.
 
PatchRowcester said:
Is DDR4 a significant improvement over DDR3? Also, is there any point in going for 32GB of RAM over 16GB?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

I think this early on the only improvement I've seen is how hard it hits your wallet. If you're the kind of person that doesn't upgrade or change hardware in a couple of years it may be worth going with DDR4 and paying the premium.

I would think going with 16GB of DDR3 would be plenty. I have 16GB DDR3 in mine for 3 years and I haven't ran into any memory issues. But the only real intensive thing I do on mine is play games. I'm not doing any photo editing or video rendering that could use up that much memory. If you're doing things that are memory intensive then going with 32GB might be a better option.
 
From the reviews I've seen, there are no any signs that additional memory bandwidth actually translate to any noticeable differences in real world application, especially gaming. They only show up in benchmarks that specifically test the memory bandwidth.

Therefore there's no need to get the fastest DDR4 available IMO. And yeah, I agree that 16GB is plenty for gaming. You can find a decent 16GB set for about $300.
 
Thanks guys.

Now what about the processor? Would it be wise to wait for Broadwell or is it OK if I went with the latest Haswell?

Thanks.
 
I would just go with Haswell - if past history is any indication, broadwell should be a ~10% bump in performance with some TDP improvements as well. IMO, this isn't worth waiting for.
 
If your main focus is gaming, the processor really only seems to matter when it's a major weak link. The difference between the latest and greatest and Sandy Bridge (or earlier setups with huge overclocks) isn't that big in games.
I'd just go for whatever is out there now or you can get caught up in the waiting game.
 
I think I have already narrowed down on the build I want. I am going with the i7 4770k. Hopefully, I don't regret buying this when I am kind of close to the release of Broadwell!
 
PatchRowcester said:
I think I have already narrowed down on the build I want. I am going with the i7 4770k. Hopefully, I don't regret buying this when I am kind of close to the release of Broadwell!
Click to expand...

Why not go with a 4790k? Seems like the better choice for $5 more, just for the better temps and overclock potential.
 
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