New Intel X79 Chipset

[Prominence]

Today, Intel has release new CPU, socket, and chipset. As usual Intel is price jacking so it appeal to noobs.

* The new chipset allow 4 channel DDR3 memory which is nice, but would probably make developer lazy.
* It still doesn't have native support for USB 3.0.
* It still uses old 2 sata III and 4 sata configuration which is lame. If enthusiast wanted to improve performance of one of the slowest part, it would be read and write speed of non-volatile storage.

So, in the end it looks like another P67 with more memory slot. The new motherboard with this new chipset and new socket seems to cost around $350 to $400 for mid to high range motherboard.

Also they seems to replaced integrated graphics with more cores. So far I see only 2 processor release for this new socket and one to be release probably Q1 of 2011. I don't know how many new processors are going to be released under this socket, but given that very similar to sandy bridge and existing chipset, it be probably best to stick with socket 1155 and Z68 chipset and wait for 22nm shrink.

[smoth]

Could you perhaps better organize that data or break it into two cleaner paragraphs? it is hard to read as a blob.

[Coresair]

Basically this is an overpriced chipset/motherboards for an overpriced cpu. There is literally NO competition in the upper end of the cpu market, so intel can jack prices up as high as it wants for a non-noticable increase in speed over the last hexacore platform.

Unless you REALLY need every single drop of performance and memory bandwidth just go sandy bridge. Wait for ivy bridge imo...

[smoth]

thanks prom.

[SpliFF]

I see it as a fairly well balanced chipset, but not something you should be an early adopter of. I think having two SATA3 ports is plenty because it gives you the ability to RAID0 a couple of high-end SSDs as a system drive and then plug plenty of cheap storage into the remaining SATA2 ports for media (which is really the ONLY reason a home user needs more than 320GB). I like the idea of being able to run 64GB of RAM but I'll be damned if I can think of anything useful to do with it. I suppose a 32GB ram drive might be nice but I already get sufficient speed from my revodrive (2xSSD RAID0 on PCIE4x) and I'm hardly touching the 16GB RAM I have now.

One of my PCs is due for an upgrade and I'd see this as a good choice once a newer architecture knocks it off the "premium" price point. Maybe by that time AMD will have a competing chip and Intel will be forced to drop further.

On the other hand I can barely max out my 6-core Phenom II so maybe I'll just grab another as a bargain chip.

Anyway this post is just a way of saying before you get excited about new CPUs/chipsets try and find some tasks that'll actually max out the current ones. Right now for me the only task that comes close is compiling a gentoo system from scratch with --jobs=12. I guess compressing blu-ray disks to x264 would be another task but it's typically not something you do every day or need in a hurry.

My advice is if you want to spend more money spend it on a 30" screen and a nice amplifier for DTS/Dolby optical passthrough. Anything else provides minimal tangible or noticeable benefits.

[Prominence]

I think having two SATA3 ports is plenty

When people shop, they look for value, and with rapidly changing technology, there is always more value on products that can support the latest and future technologies.

Let's compare two situation where person A has two sata III and 4 sata II ports, and person B has 6 sata III ports. Person B has flexibility to upgrade to higher read and write speed later on, without buying new motherboard or RAID card and ends up saving money when needing an upgrade.

[BaNa]

I think having two SATA3 ports is plenty

When people shop, they look for value, and with rapidly changing technology, there is always more value on products that can support the latest and future technologies.

I would say that with tech changing as rapidly as it does, futureproofing wont work anyway and you might as well get something you are happy with now for a good price and upgrade everything when the time comes that you actually need the future things.

Look at intel and its chipsets, they changed tech 2 times since I got my i5. By the time I will need something better, I'm sure they will have changed 5 more times.

[Prominence]

I would say that with tech changing as rapidly as it does, futureproofing wont work anyway and you might as well get something you are happy with now for a good price and upgrade everything when the time comes that you actually need the future things.

Look at intel and its chipsets, they changed tech 2 times since I got my i5. By the time I will need something better, I'm sure they will have changed 5 more times.

Definitely not true for this case. Standards such as sata, USB, PCI-E last for years before they make revisions, so futureproofing the components that have these standards is better choice.