@skylake: the last few generations of intel cpus also came with a 5-10 percent performance increase (this time it's slightly more), but more importantly also came with a 5-10 percent price increase...
The i5 2500k was a 190-200euro cpu, ivy was 230, haswell devil's canyon is 250 euros...
This + DDR4 cost is why I really did not want to wait for skylake (wanted to upgrade urgently, the skylake performance rumors pushed me over the edge as I've fallen for the 'I'll wait for ivy/haswell trap twice before))
A small performance increase that comes with an equivalent price increase just isn't appealing at all to me.
Ofcourse for those who don't have a piece of garbage cpu like a phenom II or amd fx it's always worth waiting a few weeks just to see what happens (benchmarks, overclocking , prices) but I would not expect much...
I fully expect another 10 percent price increase for their 6600k and 6700k models over the 4600k and 4700k models.
I really hope I am wrong because cpu's have not seen any price/performance improvement in FOUR years now and it's just pathetic.
If skylake really is another 10 percent performance + 10 percent price increase then we will be stuck at 2011 price/performance until 2017....
I don't think this has ever happened before in the industry, and frankly I don't understand how the fuck intel keep selling cpus until now ,and especially not how they'll keep selling cpus for the next several years.
I guess their next step would be to introduce some form of planned obsolescense into their cpus and motherboards because that would be the only incentive for anyone to upgrade once they already have a sandy bridge cpu or better.
(gaming cpus become like gaming headsets that break every 2 years <.< )
I guess intel must be salivating at the new memory technologies coming over the next years as those will be things they can sell motherboards (ofc with an arbitrary new socket!) and thus cpus for.
The real question every buyer should be asking is 'where are the midrange 6 and 8 core intel cpus' (they have 18 core server cpus already with hyperthreading for 36 threads) but the obvious answer is because AMD is not competing to intel can do whatever they want.
As others have said: at this point intel are starting to compete with themselves (pretty much everyone already has a sandy bridge or newer cpu by now that was going to buy one) so they 're going to have to start doing SOMETHING to sell cpus.
@ amd ZEN, I really hope they can deliver on that 40 percent IPC promise over excavator (which already had some modest IPC improvements over bulldozer, but nowhere near enough to bring it close to the old i5s)
Some napkin comparison I did a few months back based on that figure and IPC /benchmark figures for excavator, bulldozer , phenom II (higher IPC than bulldozer, thats how bad bulldozer was) and the last few intel architectures would bring ZEN in line with sandy bridge.
Considering how little of an IPC increase intel has seen from sandy to now skylake (maybe 25 percent in total and that's being generous) that would also finally bring AMD back within competing range of intel's performance (intel will still crush them on power consumption, but for the average desktop gamer or video editor price and performance matter
way more than just power consumption (as long as it's within reason).
Amd releasing an 8 core cpu where each core is actually within 25 ish percent of a skylake core would force intel to actually get off their asses and start offering 6-8 core cpus at mass market prices. (instead of limiting them to the x99 extreme edition insanity)
This would be very good for consumers (and us gamers).
This is IF amd can meet that 40 percent IPC figure and IF amd prices their 8 core ZEN similar to their fx 8350 (which they REALLY should if they want to start competing again and win back some hearts and minds and market share)
We NEED amd to succeed if we want any value as consumers and gamers in the coming years.
That ZEN IPC number was the most exciting bit of news in cpu land since sandy bridge was announced,and it came after most of us had already given up on the cpu market or amd ever being able to compete again.
Gonna be going from a 955 BE and 5850 to 6700K and either single or dual 980Ti.
Cannot wait.
I just went from a phenom II 720 BE (same exact cpu you have including the amount of cache, just with one core disabled) and the difference was enormous.
The phenom II really is not a worthy gaming cpu anymore.
My frametimes in games (even ones where I wasn't cpu bottlenecked before) are infinitely much more consistent.
Games are wayyyyy smoother, even in witcher 3 where I'm hopelessly gpu bottlenecked the 30 fps I get now is way more stable (and not stuttery) than the 30 fps I was getting before.
Not worth it strictly for games. You are going to need new RAM as well if you switch to Z170. You're looking at $500-800 for a marginal improvement. Spend that money on a GTX 980 Ti (even if adding in SLI) and you will see a much bigger improvement in games.
For years, the performance increase in the majority of games has been sublinear with respect to the performance increase in other single-threaded applications for new CPUs. This suggests that most games are simply not CPU-bound, and with DX12 claiming to reduce the demands on CPUs through multi-threading and more gamers transitioning to 1440p and 4k resolutions, I don't see any reason for that trend to reverse in the near future.
You need high IPC (alongside a high clockspeed) for gaming man...
If you already have an overclocked 2500k then its performance is of course very close to haswell or the new skylake (simply because intel has only seen marginal IPC improvements in their cpus in the past 4 years
)
Saying games aren't cpu reliant is a lie.
If you care at all about minimum framerates and getting consistent frametimes you need a good cpu, a stock clocked i5 or let alone one of those AWFUL amd fx cpus or now ancient intel core2 cpus is going to limit your games a lot.
Just because you can average 80 fps in a lot of games with it does not mean your min fps and frametimes won't suck a bag of dicks.
Even games where I got high average fps on my phenom II (like 70 percent of games I played the phenom was "enough" or so I thought) they were never smooth because of frametime spikes.
I always looked at 60 fps youtube and gamersyde videos in awe at how smooth they were and now I get to enjoy that myself. I always put the blame entirely on my amd GPU (it for sure was to blame in certain games) but it turns out that in the majority of cases it was my cpu causing it.
I bought this cpu because of the horrible cpu bottleneck (low fps) I was getting in some of my favorite games (dirty bomb, NS2, mmos) but I did not expect how big of an impact it would have on every other game I own.
