Haswell upgrade ROG Extreme or Formula

[Lt_Horn]

Hello, I've made a few posts about this in the past, but as more and more information is coming out my decisions have become somewhat more wishy-washy. My current rig is in my sig Q6600 etc and I want an upgrade badly. I have a few concerns that now keep cropping up, and they are as follows. (new rig will have water cooling loop.)

1) Haswell TIM and the failed heat dissipation. I know I can use a vice and drop temps between 10-20C but that obviously voids warranty.
2) ROG Extreme is 400 dollars a decent portion of which is going to a LCD OC display that I don’t really care about/the cable is too short to fit in my case and still look nice.
3) I hear the Formula is going to be even more expensive than the Extreme which is…unreasonable.
4) Haswell is not for gamers it has a worthless gpu on it that wastes space on die and reduces the overall potential of the new chipset. (I can only hope that the haswell refresh slated for next year is going to eliminate this and that intel will release an 1150 chip that doesn’t have an on die gpu.)

My end goal is pretty simple. Awesome gaming rig with a good OC hoping for 4.5. I’ll be doing a Ramdisk to install games to so I will stick with one of the above boards because they both come with Ramdisk software.

Am I asking for too much? Will I be disappointed on the 2k that I expect to drop? Any input is appreciated.

LT

 

[Knufire]

To address 2 and 3, getting a benchmarking quality board just for the RAMDisk software seems a bit meh...I'm sure you could get a MUCH cheaper board ($130 range) and get third party software and still save like $200.

To address 1 and 4, I find it funny that people consider conscious design choices to be mistakes...Intel is most likely going to continue using TIM under the IHS and going to continue putting GPUs on die...I don't see that changing for a long time.

Hell, even at stock, it's more than enough horsepower to max out today's games, not many chips hit 4.5GHz, but most can do 4.3. I seriously doubt you'd be disappointed. With WCing, 4.4-4.5GHz isn't guaranteed but very likely.

 

[Lt_Horn]

To address 2 and 3, getting a benchmarking quality board just for the RAMDisk software seems a bit meh...I'm sure you could get a MUCH cheaper board ($130 range) and get third party software and still save like $200.

To address 1 and 4, I find it funny that people consider conscious design choices to be mistakes...Intel is most likely going to continue using TIM under the IHS and going to continue putting GPUs on die...I don't see that changing for a long time.

Hell, even at stock, it's more than enough horsepower to max out today's games, not many chips hit 4.5GHz, but most can do 4.3. I seriously doubt you'd be disappointed. With WCing, 4.4-4.5GHz isn't guaranteed but very likely.

I want to stick with one of those two boards. there are other reasons that I have narrowed it down to those two I just didn't want to lay it all out.

I understand that it is a direction that the company is going to go, however I think that everyone on this forum would agree that for us it is a mistake.

The other option that I have is do the haswell upgrade now, and sometime late 2015 upgrade to Haswell-e. Currently that is the direction I am leaning. I'm just torn...

 

[Knufire]

For us means nothing to them..we're a very, very tiny part of their market share.

Don't see why you'd need to go to Haswell-E unless you need 6-8 cores...if the trend follows by the time Haswell-E comes out, we'd have quads with a newer core design anyway.

 

[Lt_Horn]

For us means nothing to them..we're a very, very tiny part of their market share.

Don't see why you'd need to go to Haswell-E unless you need 6-8 cores...if the trend follows by the time Haswell-E comes out, we'd have quads with a newer core design anyway.

Haswell-e is supposed to have 12 cores 24 threads. Yes we would have a newer core, but that doesn't mean it would be a better performer than has-e.

 

[Janus67]

It would if the application in question doesn't take advantage of more than 4 (assuming it stays as quad) cores.

Just curious what other reasons do you need a $300-400 board if you aren't going to be benchmarking with liquid nitrogen?

 

[Knufire]

General google searching shows nothing of that sort, looks like Haswell-E is going to top out at 8c/16t. Found some stuff that says it might have extra disabled cores, maybe those will be unlockable?

I'm sure there will be 12c/24t Haswell-E chips, but they'll be Xeons, locked and with a lower clock speed to maintain a reasonable TDP.

The new core will most definitely perform better than Haswell-E unless whatever you're using can utilize more than 8 threads...no different that the situation will be between Ivy Bridge-E and Haswell. This is assuming that the Haswell refresh (Broadwell?) is 4c/8t.

 

[EarthDog]

+1 to those saying pay $30 for ramdisk software, than a $250 Premium for a board you will not use the features you are paying for (unless the ramdisk software you can get for $30 is worth $250 to you of course).

The MPower MAX (and I think the regular, non MAX) has ramdisk software too and costs a shed load less.

 

[Janus67]

Asrock also offers ramdisk software as well. Would have to check the individual boards for availability though.

 

[Bobnova]

ASRock's Ramdisk software is pretty nice too, I liked it on the boards I reviewed. You didn't have to buy top end ASRock boards to get it, either. tp

I would not buy an extreme overclocking board if you aren't planning on doing extreme overclocking.

I don't think TIM instead of solder is a mistake, either. For one, it's an intentional decision, they know exactly how hot they run with TIM and the stock cooler. For the second, it's not like you have any other options if you want that level of horsepower, so Intel isn't going to lose money by using TIM.
Never forget that as a corporation Intel exists only to make a profit, nothing else. More profit = not a mistake.

 

[Lt_Horn]

General google searching shows nothing of that sort, looks like Haswell-E is going to top out at 8c/16t. Found some stuff that says it might have extra disabled cores, maybe those will be unlockable?

I'm sure there will be 12c/24t Haswell-E chips, but they'll be Xeons, locked and with a lower clock speed to maintain a reasonable TDP.

The new core will most definitely perform better than Haswell-E unless whatever you're using can utilize more than 8 threads...no different that the situation will be between Ivy Bridge-E and Haswell. This is assuming that the Haswell refresh (Broadwell?) is 4c/8t.

Yeah the 12/24 was xeon, I for whatever reason applied it to desktop even though I had read 8/16 as well. Maybe wishful thinking.

 

[blazenarrow]

I want to stick with one of those two boards. there are other reasons that I have narrowed it down to those two I just didn't want to lay it all out.

I understand that it is a direction that the company is going to go, however I think that everyone on this forum would agree that for us it is a mistake.

The other option that I have is do the haswell upgrade now, and sometime late 2015 upgrade to Haswell-e. Currently that is the direction I am leaning. I'm just torn...

LOL the world doesn't revolve around a group of enthusiasts.

 

[Lt_Horn]

ASRock's Ramdisk software is pretty nice too, I liked it on the boards I reviewed. You didn't have to buy top end ASRock boards to get it, either. tp

I would not buy an extreme overclocking board if you aren't planning on doing extreme overclocking.

I don't think TIM instead of solder is a mistake, either. For one, it's an intentional decision, they know exactly how hot they run with TIM and the stock cooler. For the second, it's not like you have any other options if you want that level of horsepower, so Intel isn't going to lose money by using TIM.
Never forget that as a corporation Intel exists only to make a profit, nothing else. More profit = not a mistake.

It doesn't matter which side of the table you sit on, their decision has obviously been made to turn a cold shoulder to the OC/Gaming crowd. I can’t really fault them in this when Intel’s chips perform so very much better than anything AMD can put out. The problem in the desktop chip industry right now is that there isn’t an equal competitor to Intel forcing them to keep innovating at a rapid pace. They can easily bide their time and just do incremental upgrades, lining their coffers for later battles.

I’m happy they are in it to make money, it’s capitalism at it’s finest.

I’m not bitching or moaning either, I understand and respect their choices. I just disagree with them since I’m selfish and want it my way as a consumer =]

 

[Lt_Horn]

LOL the world doesn't revolve around a group of enthusiasts.

Haha if only it did.

 

[Bobnova]

It doesn't matter which side of the table you sit on, their decision has obviously been made to turn a cold shoulder to the OC/Gaming crowd. I can’t really fault them in this when Intel’s chips perform so very much better than anything AMD can put out. The problem in the desktop chip industry right now is that there isn’t an equal competitor to Intel forcing them to keep innovating at a rapid pace. They can easily bide their time and just do incremental upgrades, lining their coffers for later battles.

I’m happy they are in it to make money, it’s capitalism at it’s finest.

I’m not bitching or moaning either, I understand and respect their choices. I just disagree with them since I’m selfish and want it my way as a consumer =]

I disagree on the gaming crowd. The gaming crowd doesn't OC much if at all. Haswell is glorious for them, performance is king after all.
The OCing crowd has unlocked CPUs, if that's a cold shoulder compared to the maximum 7% (more often 1-3%) BCLK based OC you'd get with a locked CPU, then sure. Sure looks like catering to me!

Haswell is extremely innovative, most people overlook (or don't know about) how difficult it is to get that powerful of voltage regulators onto silicon.

 

[Lt_Horn]

I disagree on the gaming crowd. The gaming crowd doesn't OC much if at all. Haswell is glorious for them, performance is king after all.
The OCing crowd has unlocked CPUs, if that's a cold shoulder compared to the maximum 7% (more often 1-3%) BCLK based OC you'd get with a locked CPU, then sure. Sure looks like catering to me!

Haswell is extremely innovative, most people overlook (or don't know about) how difficult it is to get that powerful of voltage regulators onto silicon.

I just want to have my cake and eat it too

 

[Bobnova]

Bake two cakes

 

[Eldonko]

You wouldnt consider Hero?