6 ms·

Should I wait for Zen or buy i7 now?

by akerro 10y ago

arca_vorago 10y ago
I decided to wait for Zen months ago. I sure hope its worth it. My plan is zen beast for vr gamedev/play (on linux, not windows) Cant VR without the computer to support it, and 90fps keeps the VR discomfort away.
- daveguy 10y ago
  Wait for Zen, but evaluate benchmarks. You can probably still get a cheaper Intel then even if amd doesn't live up to the hype (because at least amd will be closer).
theandrewbailey 10y ago
Depends on what you have and how urgently you need the greater speed. My main system is still running a i7-2600 from over 5 years ago. That GTX 680 I have in there is still plenty fast. The upgrade question is: how pretty do I want Star Citizen to be?
- akerro 10y ago
  I would like to build a PC that would compile stuff quickly... Android, Java, Spring/Hibernate, some Rust and JS recently. Currently takes a few minutes to build any of my projects on a laptop I have. I think more physical cores will boost it more?
  - rkalla 10y ago
    Generally speaking... "productivity" and media styles of workloads do better with more cores/high memory machines. Gaming typically does better with higher clock speeds (which means less cores in every case I've seen). If you want that in a laptop form factor though, I am not aware of Intel sticking massive-cored chips in the mobile form factor, so your choices will be limited to whatever the fastest i7 is you can pickup... unless you were thinking of building a desktop? UPDATE - Oh mutagen's point about SSD is absolutely spot on... the faster the storage the better _first_... then worry about the rest of that stuff I mentioned.
  - mutagen 10y ago
    First question, does that laptop have a SSD? Most developer machines do these days, that's the single biggest improvement to build times you can make. Then look at CPU, IO, memory utilization during builds to see where improvements can be had.
    - akerro 10y ago
      Yes, it comes with top fastest SSD and fast RAM.
      - theandrewbailey 10y ago
        Is that an NVME SSD or SATA SSD? NVME is about 4 times faster than SATA in terms of pure transfer bandwidth, though I'm not sure about random access speeds.
        akerro 10y ago
        Well. it was the fastest when I bought it 3 years ago, it's SATA. I'm not buying another one, it would be wast of money, better get proper CPU and mobo.
        bitL 10y ago
        NVMe makes sense only if you are either pushing bandwidth limits (e.g. processing large RAW 14-bit 4K/8K video on a scratch drive) or have hundreds of threads with concurrent I/O operations. In real world, you are barely going to notice any difference between SATA2 and SATA3 SSDs, not to mention M.2 PCIe ones.
        imtringued 10y ago
        With SATA2 you might as well just use a HDD. Of course I'm assuming you actually optimized how your data is layout on the storage medium to take advantage of the sequential read speed of your HDD, SSD or even RAM. Even my HDD usually reaches 160MB/s so a SATA2 connected SSD is only twice as fast at four to six times the cost. Yes SSDs are better at IOPS but an application that heavily depends on IOPS is often a result of poor design. http://media.bestofmicro.com/Q/0/378072/original/AS-SSD_Sequential.png http://media.bestofmicro.com/Q/0/378072/original/AS-SSD_Sequ...
- noir_lord 10y ago
  I'm still rocking an i5-2500 from the same generation. It is still completely fine for everything I ask of it even against the much newer machine at work, with the upgrade to an SSD a while back it basically felt like a new machine.
  - gsnedders 10y ago
    I upgraded from a i5-2400 to a second-hand i7-3770K around a year ago given they're socket compatible: the difference between them is larger than the difference between the i7-3770K and the i7-6700K, from what I saw looking at benchmarks when I did this. There's certainly workloads where there's a noticeable different in performance.
    - noir_lord 10y ago
      I have an i5-3570K in the work desktop, I really don't notice that much difference though the i7-3770K was/is a beast in comparison, for my workloads I just don't see much benefit in the i7's, I'll likely get another i5, all the ones I've had have been excellent on the $/perf scale going back 5 years or so.
RussianCow 10y ago
Nobody knows if Zen will actually live up to expectations yet, so I would wait until reviews and benchmarks come out, and base your decision on that. I made the mistake of ordering a Bulldozer CPU as soon as they came out.
mtgx 10y ago
Wait. It should be a good chip performance wise, and great value for the money, too. Also, the more we put pressure on Intel, the better it is for everyone in the long term.
- daveguy 10y ago
  This. Waiting will mean you have a choice of architectures and it is looking like this architecture may pull the Intel prices down too. Used to be Intel's top of the line desktop CPUs were all under $1k because of the amd competition. You can make a better price/power/performance decision with the new competition. At least I hope it is new competition. Unless you need more compute immediately I would wait. Intel's improvements price and performance wise have been lackluster the last couple of years since they are well ahead of AMD. Competition can only improve things.
SixSigma 10y ago
Always wait. Always buy now.
- akerro 10y ago
  t-thanks...
toast0 10y ago
i7 doesn't tell you anything useful for comparison with Zen. Ask more about if you should wait for Zen or buy Skylake. Or if you should wait for Zen or Kaby Lake or Cannonlake. i7 just says you're going to get the top of the performance (and price) list for a desktop/mobile processor.

Should I wait for Zen or buy i7 now?

by akerro 10y ago

Should I wait for Zen or buy i7 now?

I decided to wait for Zen months ago. I sure hope its worth it. My plan is zen beast for vr gamedev/play (on linux, not windows) Cant VR without the computer to support it, and 90fps keeps the VR discomfort away.

daveguy 10y ago
Wait for Zen, but evaluate benchmarks. You can probably still get a cheaper Intel then even if amd doesn't live up to the hype (because at least amd will be closer).

theandrewbailey 10y ago

Depends on what you have and how urgently you need the greater speed. My main system is still running a i7-2600 from over 5 years ago. That GTX 680 I have in there is still plenty fast. The upgrade question is: how pretty do I want Star Citizen to be?

akerro 10y ago
I would like to build a PC that would compile stuff quickly... Android, Java, Spring/Hibernate, some Rust and JS recently. Currently takes a few minutes to build any of my projects on a laptop I have. I think more physical cores will boost it more?
- rkalla 10y ago
  Generally speaking... "productivity" and media styles of workloads do better with more cores/high memory machines. Gaming typically does better with higher clock speeds (which means less cores in every case I've seen). If you want that in a laptop form factor though, I am not aware of Intel sticking massive-cored chips in the mobile form factor, so your choices will be limited to whatever the fastest i7 is you can pickup... unless you were thinking of building a desktop? UPDATE - Oh mutagen's point about SSD is absolutely spot on... the faster the storage the better _first_... then worry about the rest of that stuff I mentioned.
- mutagen 10y ago
  First question, does that laptop have a SSD? Most developer machines do these days, that's the single biggest improvement to build times you can make. Then look at CPU, IO, memory utilization during builds to see where improvements can be had.
  - akerro 10y ago
    Yes, it comes with top fastest SSD and fast RAM.
    - theandrewbailey 10y ago
      Is that an NVME SSD or SATA SSD? NVME is about 4 times faster than SATA in terms of pure transfer bandwidth, though I'm not sure about random access speeds.
      - akerro 10y ago
        Well. it was the fastest when I bought it 3 years ago, it's SATA. I'm not buying another one, it would be wast of money, better get proper CPU and mobo.
      - bitL 10y ago
        NVMe makes sense only if you are either pushing bandwidth limits (e.g. processing large RAW 14-bit 4K/8K video on a scratch drive) or have hundreds of threads with concurrent I/O operations. In real world, you are barely going to notice any difference between SATA2 and SATA3 SSDs, not to mention M.2 PCIe ones.
        imtringued 10y ago
        With SATA2 you might as well just use a HDD. Of course I'm assuming you actually optimized how your data is layout on the storage medium to take advantage of the sequential read speed of your HDD, SSD or even RAM. Even my HDD usually reaches 160MB/s so a SATA2 connected SSD is only twice as fast at four to six times the cost. Yes SSDs are better at IOPS but an application that heavily depends on IOPS is often a result of poor design. http://media.bestofmicro.com/Q/0/378072/original/AS-SSD_Sequential.png http://media.bestofmicro.com/Q/0/378072/original/AS-SSD_Sequ...
noir_lord 10y ago
I'm still rocking an i5-2500 from the same generation. It is still completely fine for everything I ask of it even against the much newer machine at work, with the upgrade to an SSD a while back it basically felt like a new machine.
- gsnedders 10y ago
  I upgraded from a i5-2400 to a second-hand i7-3770K around a year ago given they're socket compatible: the difference between them is larger than the difference between the i7-3770K and the i7-6700K, from what I saw looking at benchmarks when I did this. There's certainly workloads where there's a noticeable different in performance.
  - noir_lord 10y ago
    I have an i5-3570K in the work desktop, I really don't notice that much difference though the i7-3770K was/is a beast in comparison, for my workloads I just don't see much benefit in the i7's, I'll likely get another i5, all the ones I've had have been excellent on the $/perf scale going back 5 years or so.

RussianCow 10y ago

Nobody knows if Zen will actually live up to expectations yet, so I would wait until reviews and benchmarks come out, and base your decision on that. I made the mistake of ordering a Bulldozer CPU as soon as they came out.

mtgx 10y ago

Wait. It should be a good chip performance wise, and great value for the money, too. Also, the more we put pressure on Intel, the better it is for everyone in the long term.

daveguy 10y ago
This. Waiting will mean you have a choice of architectures and it is looking like this architecture may pull the Intel prices down too. Used to be Intel's top of the line desktop CPUs were all under $1k because of the amd competition. You can make a better price/power/performance decision with the new competition. At least I hope it is new competition. Unless you need more compute immediately I would wait. Intel's improvements price and performance wise have been lackluster the last couple of years since they are well ahead of AMD. Competition can only improve things.

SixSigma 10y ago

Always wait. Always buy now.

akerro 10y ago
t-thanks...

toast0 10y ago

i7 doesn't tell you anything useful for comparison with Zen. Ask more about if you should wait for Zen or buy Skylake. Or if you should wait for Zen or Kaby Lake or Cannonlake. i7 just says you're going to get the top of the performance (and price) list for a desktop/mobile processor.