What makes sandy bridge so good anyways?

[GoldenTiger]

they could of kept the same socket for SB. but you know intel they want to mak as much money as posible so they put out a new cpu and socket. like i said before they havent tapped the full potential of all the i's sockets. this is all a money scheme to try and get as much as possible out of you. intel is notorious for doing this. just look at amd. they have not changed sockets at all for all their cpus. am2 and am3's are all compatible with all their current cpu's. intel you suck a big one. thats why i will not upgrade anytime soon as my q6600 at 3.2 is very much alive and well for daily use and some gaming. will keep all my money where it belongs, in my pocket, not intel socket. for god sake, how long have we been at less than 3.6gig on cpu. they cant even pass the magical number of 4gig. they have hit a wall for cpu for the time being. yes you can oc your cpu 4gig or more, but im talking about selling cpu's past 4gig and beyond. cpu's range is just 2gig to 3.6gig thats really not much when it comes to changing the sockets. i understand changing from 775 to all the i's sockets due to ddr3's advantage over ddr2's. so there this is my 2 cents worth. have a good one. and again you suck INTEL....

Uh, ok... someone doesn't understand chipsets breaking compatibility with older CPU's or vice versa (you can't just stick a new CPU onto an X58 chipset that is Sandy Bridge based for example even if they were socket-compatible). The different pin counts are to help stop people like you from trying to do so and then frying their components .

Yeah, I have nearly the same specs as you do on my desktop CPU (and I do no gaming on my desktop because I have an X800 GPU). I have not owned an Intel Desktop CPU (I'm typing on my Intel laptop at the moment) since my Pentium II 266. I was pretty set on the AMD Hexacores for my build next month, but Sandy Bridge has my attention because I don't want to build a "dead" platform (I would like to be able to swap out my CPU without chaging boards for my next-next machine)

Motherboard swapping comes with the territory most of the time nowadays... chipset revisions require new boards .

Core i7-950:

£234​

Asus P6X58D-E

£140​

Both subject to a discount of 5% if I buy before midnight today and free shipping.

Sandy Bridge all the way... it's not even a contest for speed, even with only dual-channel vs. triple-channel on the RAM. 5.3-5.4ghz on air with Prolimatech Megahalems from latest early results on XS... add in a nicer IPC giving about 10% more per clock, and you're zooming compared to a 3.7-4.0ghz i7 Nehalem/Bloomfield family CPU. These things are faster than 980x's (6-core) at most tests, even when they are heavily threaded.

-----

Planning on upgrading my 920 @ 3.72ghz to a 2500K or 2600K + Gigabyte P67A-UD5 @ 5ghz+... at or near launch. Frequency alone will give a nice ~40% boost if I reach 5.2ghz, and the extra IPC would be good for another ~14% vs. the 920 there. With my needs including encodes, modeling, content creation, and compute crunching, in addition to just gaming (which also sees a nice boost I gather...) it's an easy decision. I won't personally see a huge gaming boost other than some RTS since I run 2560x1600 with a GTX 580 (single @ 860c/4400m) necessarily, but if I go SLI again or get another new card once the 28nm generation launches, I sure will.

 

[boggsie]

By all accounts, I will see an increase in 15% clock for clock, vs. the next available alternative. It was an easy decision ... even though it means waiting a couple of more weeks.

Best regards,
-boggsie

 

[arachn1d]

What's IPC?

Is it hard/bad to overclock CPU's?

I want to get the most out of my SB CPU when it comes out. I'll be buying the 2600k.

 

[fullvietFX]

What's IPC?

Is it hard/bad to overclock CPU's?

I want to get the most out of my SB CPU when it comes out. I'll be buying the 2600k.

IPC = Instructions Per Cycle

No and depends.

 

[Forceman]

What's IPC?

Is it hard/bad to overclock CPU's?

I want to get the most out of my SB CPU when it comes out. I'll be buying the 2600k.

IPC is instructions per clock.

No point buying a K series chip unless you plan to overclock. Should be easy to overclock SB since it will be (mostly) multiplier only - with a K series chip, just up the multiplier and voltage (as necessary).

 

[arachn1d]

Cool, and I do that in the BIOS?

What are some "safe rules" to follow? If I OC CPU I also OC memory, right? Does mobo do that automatically?

 

[-Sn1PeR-]

Cool, and I do that in the BIOS?

What are some "safe rules" to follow? If I OC CPU I also OC memory, right? Does mobo do that automatically?

I think this is a little too broad of a question for this particular thread. The "safe" rules typically involve max vCore voltage and temperature. Doing multiplier overclocking should not effect your ram (unlike fsb overclocking). I would wait and see what results people are getting when the chip actually comes out (and what settings are being used). There should also be several good guides at that point in time.

 

[GoldenTiger]

What's IPC?

Is it hard/bad to overclock CPU's?

I want to get the most out of my SB CPU when it comes out. I'll be buying the 2600k.

IPC = Instructions Per Cycle, in other words, how much work is done per hz (and thus mhz, ghz, etc.).

Sandy Bridge is going to be very easy to overclock (on the "K" models) as the only things you'll need to worry about are CPU voltage and multiplier.

Cool, and I do that in the BIOS?

What are some "safe rules" to follow? If I OC CPU I also OC memory, right? Does mobo do that automatically?

Yes, it is done in the BIOS. On Sandy Bridge, since you're only adjusting the CPU multiplier and not the BCLK (Base Clock, which on this architecture doesn't go very far anyway), your memory/RAM speeds would stay the same regardless of the CPU multiplier. The basic procedure is to up the multiplier a couple of notches at a time until it crashes. Then, lower it a multiplier at a time until it's stable at that voltage. You up the voltage a step or two (or more) as needed to make higher multipliers stable.

Eventually, the voltage needed will be too high to cool, and/or too high to be worth using (excessive voltage can lower the lifespan of the chip significantly... overclocking normally takes it from 15 or so years to 8-10, but if you pump too much you can fry it very quickly, i.e. within months). At that point you decide what stable voltage/multiplier (clock speed in effect) is what you want for 24/7 use, and leave it at that. When settling a final overclock, make sure you run programs like I list below (Prime95/LinX). Many people like to Prime95 test a CPU overclock for 18+ hours to consider it stable. You'll find out what the "excessive" line is once Sandy Bridge chips are on the market .

As far as "safe rules", the things to bear in mind are mainly temperature, voltage, and stability. With a good cooler such as a Xigmatek S1283 on a budget (or a Prolimatech Megahalems if you have extra cash) you should be able to keep these chips pretty chilly. The TJMAX (max temp before it shuts itself off) on Sandy Bridge 2500K is around 98c. So, realistically, you'll want to keep much lower than that, preferably around 70-75c max under full loads when using programs to stress-test. Note that you'll need a Socket 1156 bracket for whatever heatsink you get to fit the 1155 mounting holes (which are identical).

Programs you can use to stress-test primarily include memtest86 (boot off a flash drive, only used for memory testing really)... prime95 for CPU testing, LinX for CPU thermals and stability testing, and you'll want SuperPi for quick testing of speed (1m and 32m test options). Finally, CPU-Z is a good program for ensuring your CPU is running at the speeds you set, checking multiplier, volts, etc. etc. just like GPU-Z is for video cards .

As Sniper said, it's a little broad a topic for this thread, so I packed my info in there pretty densely... but that should get you a running start at minimum .

 

[randomhero58]

Note that you'll need a Socket 1156 bracket for whatever heatsink you get to fit the 1155 mounting holes (which are identical).

Phew. Thank goodness, I think the Zaward HSF I got came with a 1156 bracket. (well, i'll find out when I find the box and look )

 

[R-Type]

Phew. Thank goodness, I think the Zaward HSF I got came with a 1156 bracket. (well, i'll find out when I find the box and look )

I had been concerned about this as well but it has thankfully been confirmed to be the same mounting scheme. Personally I have no problem buying new motherboards for procs but I hate having to replace heatsinks that are totally up to the challenge but lack the mounting hardware.