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wait for nehelam?

J

jonneymendoza

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Sep 11, 2004
Messages
6,413
Is it worth waiting for nehalem or build a quad core system now?

i currently have a p4 northwood agp system and play mainly fps type games on my pc and have a 360 as well.

i was wondering how much improvement and the major changes from a core 2 to a nehalem has. i could wait till the end of the year to get a nehalem and just stick to gaming on my 360 but once i build a new pc, i want it to last at least 3 years playing the latest games (upgrading just the GPU once in a while) and running most apps like photoshop, that adobe vide editor and my IDE programing compiler and software.

when i spend £1000 on a pc i would like to get the best investment for it and if nehalem does appear to be the next big thing and i build a core 2 now, it wont look like a good investment
 
"at least 3 years playing the latest games"

*scratches head* I sure hope the gaming industry isn't that slow in upgrading their technology :)
 
Im in the same boat, doing the waiting game ;)
Since my rig is 5yrs old (athlon 2400+) i might as well wait for few more months even a full year. Was very close to grabbing a Q9450 but decided that will wait till Nehalem comes out as it promises some huge advantages against the yorkies/penryns. I am sure there will be more savvy people that will explain better why that is so (internal memory controller etc)
 
I would definitely wait for nahelam if I were you. Theres no point in upgrading to core2 right now since it has been out for 2 years and nahalam is less than 1 year away and it will be A LOT better than core2.
 
MisterSparkle said:
"at least 3 years playing the latest games"

*scratches head* I sure hope the gaming industry isn't that slow in upgrading their technology :)
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yes by upgrading only the gpu card mate its possible. i highly doubt that in less then 3 years, a nehalem will bottleneck a game. heck a quad core q6600 doesnt break a sweat for any game including crysis and thats been out for nearly two years.
 
radikal said:
Was very close to grabbing a Q9450 but decided that will wait till Nehalem comes out as it promises some huge advantages against the yorkies/penryns.
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You passed on something that isn't even out yet to wait for the next thing? LOL
 
Well, it's the old problem of being able to wait forever because something new will always come out. If you find your current PC intolerably slow and you want to upgrade now, then go ahead and do it, because even if Nehalem is ten times better than current processors, that doesn't mean that the current processors aren't sufficient for pretty much any task (especially gaming) already. But Nehalem will be better, unless something goes horribly wrong, and if you're fine with your current system then you might as well wait. Don't count on Nehalem being out when Intel say, of course; things slip all the time, and Nehalem is supposed to be a pretty big change.
 
If you want a new system now, then get it. I see no use in waiting for the next architecture to come out when it's more than likely going to be another 10 months before it's released. Even then, it's going to be expensive and possibly buggy. Plus, you have no clue what the performance is going to be like. Is it going to be like the Core2 architecture compared to Netburst or is it going to be like the Netburst architecture compared to the previous P3 architecture.

At this time we "know" nothing. I would say it will be more than a year before the next Intel architecture becomes affordable. Core2, while not horribly expensive, wasn't exactly cheap on release and don't get me started on the lack of motherboards and the price of the few motherboards which were out. Not to mention how buggy many of those motherboards were. Sure, Intel might do much better at launch this time around, but there is no guarantee.

My personal opinion is to buy a system now and enjoy it. It's not worth waiting another year spending all that time wanting a newer system when I could have something much better than my current system now. I would prefer to spend that year enjoying the new system.

Another thing to keep in mind is that just about every Core2 based CPU is going to blow away that P4. You could purchase a somewhat budget rig right now for not very much money and switch over a lot of the parts to a new rig a year or a year and a half down the road. You will have to buy a new motherboard, processor and RAM but pretty much everything else would swap right over.

I never buy a brand new architecture as soon as it comes out. It's usually not worth the price premium to me.I find much better value in waiting for the prices to drop and getting more for my money. Core2 systems are definitely at that point right now.

 
Just get something now like a quad or e8400 and upgrade 1.5-2 years from now when the Nehalem and all the motherboards for it have gone through 1-2 revisions and costs have gone down. Early adopters get screwed every new generation after about 1-2 months of acquiring their new shiny parts. Seriously can you wait 10+ months?
 
i dont have much of a choice has money is tight on me atm unless i build a realy cheap core 2 now. you do make a valid good point though as to why i should build one now if i can. your right, early adopters are always overpriced and buggy and this goes with nearly every single piece of technology weather its a component from a desktop pc to even mobile phones(cough cough Nokia N95 anyone?)
 
If my friend was on a budget and wanted a new system and did not know how to overclock a system.

I would recomend a AMD build, either 6000+, with a 8800tg and 4 gigs of ram.

This should not brake the bank at all and will do very well over for very little moo la.
 
I was in a simlar situation a few months ago (see sig), and as you can see I decided it just wasn't worth it to wait, even for 45nm. My old P4 just didn't do what I wanted it to anymore. Honestly, 3 years of gaming from a PC is not unreasonable with video card upgrades. Hell I did it with my P4 and never upgraded a damn thing. I plan on keeping this computer for at least 2 years, when we see a die shrink on nehalem (if not longer).
 
aethelwulf said:
I was in a simlar situation a few months ago (see sig), and as you can see I decided it just wasn't worth it to wait, even for 45nm. My old P4 just didn't do what I wanted it to anymore. Honestly, 3 years of gaming from a PC is not unreasonable with video card upgrades. Hell I did it with my P4 and never upgraded a damn thing. I plan on keeping this computer for at least 2 years, when we see a die shrink on nehalem (if not longer).
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yea exactly. just by upgrading the gpu you can make ur pc last for 3 years playing the latest games. im sure that the pentium D and a 8800GT can still play most of the games at high settings and how oldis a pentium D?
 
i'm gonna wait for nehalem, or see what the 4/20 price cuts are like.
 
If you're still comfortable with your current setup and is not bothered by it much, then you can wait. But, if your card is pretty slow and needs a bit of a boost then you can just upgrade the card for now. Of course since you have a AGP interface on your board, your best bet is to get a HD 3850 card, X1950Pro, 7900GS or 7800GS AGP cards. If you can afford to wait for the Nahelm to come out, you can then better decide if you want to build a good Dual Core, Quad Core or go for the Nahelm cpus. Plus, you have more options to decide on.
 
I'm waiting to see if DDR3 prices are going to go down since Nehalem is DDR3 only, I believe. If it wasn't for that, I wouldn't even have a hard time decided between a quad Nehelam and a Q9450
 
I can pretty much guarantee you that early nehalem chips will be extremely expensive "extreme editions" or will be server solutions with a different socket. The mainstream chips aren't even sheduled to come out until Q1 09 and will most likely get pushed back or supply will be kept artificially low to clear out Penryn stock. So we are talking Spring 09 possibly later. Get a core 2 duo now (Q6600 can be found for $200 and E8x00s overclock like crazy), enjoy it for for at least a year and probably a lot longer, and when Nehalem prices settle and the initial launch bugs are worked out, you will find a good deal on that too. I am so happy with my Q6600 that I'm thinking I might skip the intial 45nm Nehalem and wait for teh 32nm shrink, by then they should be relatively cheap and DDR3 prices should be reasonable.
 
I was asking myself the same question the past month but decided to just build a new PC now. Ill upgrade to the Nehalem's in a couple years when the kinks are worked out and the prices are down. Got to think about DDR3 and motherboard prices with it too... its going to be a pretty hefty price as an early adopter. (like it always is)

My E8400 should be able to hold me over awhile.... only thing I plan on upgrading before Nehalem is my graphics card.
 
QuickS said:
I would definitely wait for nahelam if I were you. Theres no point in upgrading to core2 right now since it has been out for 2 years and nahalam is less than 1 year away and it will be A LOT better than core2.
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According to your signature, you don't even have an Intel based machine? You're no one to comment!

I would consider the Q9450 a worthy upgrade while Nahalem is for a completely new machine.
 
I'm tempted to get a E8400 just to see if I can hit 4.5ghz with it even though I have Q6600. What can I say, i'm a CS:S whore and CS:S loves mhz.
 
These "should I wait" threads are getting really old. Especially when they're coming from members who have been around long enough and are fully capable of determining that on their own. :rolleyes:
 
RamonGTP said:
These "should I wait" threads are getting really old. Especially when they're coming from members who have been around long enough and are fully capable of determining that on their own. :rolleyes:
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I enjoy them as much as the "Is my PSU good enough" "Recommend a Good Power Supply" daily threads in the PSU section.
 
Normally I would say don't wait since technology is always changing.

But in this case, I don't think it would be wise to build a brand new system when a completely new architecture is less than 1 year away. It will be more expensive to build a system now and then upgrade in 1.5 years to new architecture. Might as well squeeze 1 more year out of your rig.

I'm in the same boat as you, and I'm waiting for Nehalem. That's my 2 cents.
 
since Core 2 cpus are not bandwidth limited or hungry, I doubt Nehlamemasdfamdma will bring a huge jump for desktop apps, unless they heavily changed the core which I doubt ? why fix it if it ain't broken! this is a move for server space imo
 
It all depends what you doing. If you think that your PC is not fast enough, then maybe you don't want to wait and get the best bang for the buck now.

I am all the way for Nehelem, but I will see how my current rig will handle the games. If is not gonna handle nicely, I will be forced to upgrade.
 
Digital Viper-X- said:
since Core 2 cpus are not bandwidth limited or hungry, I doubt Nehlamemasdfamdma will bring a huge jump for desktop apps, unless they heavily changed the core which I doubt ? why fix it if it ain't broken! this is a move for server space imo
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Nahalem is an entirely different architecture and will have an IMC (Integrated Memory Controller) similar to what AMD has been doing since the intro of the original Athlon64. So yes, the core will indeed be different. I read somewhere that the jump from C2D to Nahalem is going to be bigger than the P4>C2D transition. Not sure how accurate that is, just what I read.
 
Digital Viper-X- said:
since Core 2 cpus are not bandwidth limited or hungry, I doubt Nehlamemasdfamdma will bring a huge jump for desktop apps, unless they heavily changed the core which I doubt ? why fix it if it ain't broken! this is a move for server space imo
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First of all Intel is VERY bandwidth starved in 4 socket server blades and AMD is still killing Intel there because of the IMC and HT, which is why intel is finally moving to IMC and CSI. Second, IMC doesn't only give you more bandwidth, but also reduces latency, and also removes the need for a northbridge especially with the mainsteam Nehalems also including a PCIe controller on-die and eventually integrated graphics as well. This will lead to a nice cost reduction on the desktop and laptop. As to the "don't fix what ain't broken" comment, they aren't. They are improving the core 2 design further especially for floating point performance, adding a new generation of SMT, adding turbo modes, and a large shared cache. Leaked presentation slides from Sun (now pulled but you can find them somewhere) show up to 1.2X performance increase in single threaded workloads and up to 1.5-2x in multi-threaded at the same clock speed. Nehalem will be very good.
 
I'm in a similar spot - and waiting for Nehalem. I figure that while the Q6600 or new 45nm CPUs are great, socket 775 is well past mid-life. Nehalem brings a new socket and even if you go with a mid-range CPU to save $ when they first come out, you can upgrade the CPU and GPU post-build for 2-3 years. That is the plan I've followed with my sig system and by the time I build a Nehalem this system will be over 3 years old.

Edit: Just to comment on the mobo cost question... My thinking there is it's not really relavent within reason; if you invest an extra $100 or even $200 in a mobo over what the best current mobo with the older socket on it costs, it's ok. You keep the mobo and probably the memory for the life of the build so a little extra $ up front is fine. Same goes for case/PSU. That cost really gets spread out over the whole period. This is why I won't build a socket 775 at this point - I'd love to and it'd be much faster than what I have but I'm not spending $250 on a great mobo whose socket gimps me in a year.
 
shiznit said:
First of all Intel is VERY bandwidth starved in 4 socket server blades and AMD is still killing Intel there because of the IMC and HT, which is why intel is finally moving to IMC and CSI. Second, IMC doesn't only give you more bandwidth, but also reduces latency, and also removes the need for a northbridge especially with the mainsteam Nehalems also including a PCIe controller on-die and eventually integrated graphics as well. This will lead to a nice cost reduction on the desktop and laptop. As to the "don't fix what ain't broken" comment, they aren't. They are improving the core 2 design further especially for floating point performance, adding a new generation of SMT, adding turbo modes, and a large shared cache. Leaked presentation slides from Sun (now pulled but you can find them somewhere) show up to 1.2X performance increase in single threaded workloads and up to 1.5-2x in multi-threaded at the same clock speed. Nehalem will be very good.
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did you read what I wrote at all? I was referring to core 2s for desktops, I said this would benefit servers more. ^^ on a desktop I don't think it will help that much.
 
at the end of the day if i want my system to last 3 years i need ddr3, pci 2.0 and nehalem socket mobo. once i have those 3 vital things im confident that my pc can survive 3 years playing the newest games at its highest settings by just upgrading the GPU.

DDR3 wont be replaced so quickly, pci 2.0 just came out and i doubt that it will be replaced before 3 years and of course the enw socket thats not even out yet will survive a good 3-4 years if not more!

how long did socket 775 last?
 
775 is what's being used right now, so there is no way to tell how long it lasted yet.
 
yea bit once nehalem comes out 775 will be finished. its not as if intel will make a 775 socket version of nehalem
 
So if I have a 775 mobo I with a p4 in it, I should wait for a few months to buy the new 45mm die? Couldn't be just as happy buying a 2 core since most apps aren't threaded for quads yet?

Software isn't pushing hardware like it used to......
 
yea thats true mate but its hard to program multithreaeded apps that make use of more then one core let alone 4
 
Digital Viper-X- said:
did you read what I wrote at all? I was referring to core 2s for desktops, I said this would benefit servers more. ^^ on a desktop I don't think it will help that much.
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Did you read what I wrote? Eliminating the northbridge on the desktop will lead cheaper platforms and cost reduction.
 
I wonder if prices of DDR3 will come down to what DDR2 is now for system memory in a relative short time frame.
 
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