i7 980x Now or Wait for Sandybridge?

[Panagiotis Raris]

again, my machine (in my signature) is a dual purpose unit; one profile/boot partition for editing (with internet disabled, no installed anti-virus, and optimized configurations) the other for everything else.

As of yesterday, i have revised my hard drive setup and reinstalled everything (PITA). Again this is my home PC that i can and use for work.

Drive 0 - 2X Intel X25M in RAID 0 on Marvell SATA III, Windows 7 64 bit, CS5 suite and all software

Drive 1 - (intel ICH10R 2 disk RAID 0) Media/projects

Drive 2 - (intel ICH10R 2 disk RAID 0) Pagefile/Media Cache

Drive 3 - Preview files - OCZ Enyo USB 3.0 128GB

Drive 4 - Export files - OCZ Enyo USB 3.0 128GB

SATA II/III port list...

Marvell SATA III

RAID 0 configuration...
Port 0 - Intel X25M 80GB SSD
Port 1 - Intel X25M 80GB SSD

Intel ICH10R SATA II

RAID 0 configuration... Intel ICH10R
Port 1 - Fujitsu Lifebook 80GB 2.5" 7,200RPM HD 8MB Buffer
Port 2 - Fujitsu Lifebook 80GB 2.5" 7,200RPM HD 8MB Buffer

RAID 0 configuration... Intel ICH10R
Port 3 - Fujitsu Lifebook 80GB 2.5" 7,200RPM HD 8MB Buffer
Port 4 - Fujitsu Lifebook 80GB 2.5" 7,200RPM HD 8MB Buffer

CD/DVD/BD-ROM devices...Intel ICH10R
Port 5 - Pioneer BDR-206 Blu Ray burner
Port 6 - Pioneer BDR-206BK Blu Ray XL burner

I also have 5 1TB USB 2.0 drives as backups, one for each logical RAID 0 drive, so im not concerned about data loss or having to re-create a RAID 0 array. My girlfriend is also quite adept at computers, so its not a bother should we lose an array or have to reconfigure the machine. We also have two 2TB USB 2.0 drive for music, movies, etc as it does function as a media center. I just installed the BDR-206BK yesterday as well as the two USB 3.0 OCZ Enyo SSD's which are now the preview and export disks, respectively, so i will run PPBM for CS5 later tomorrow on the current i7 950 processor, and later on the i7 980X when i receive it from a friends' computer part-out. The work machines are P6T's with RAID controller cards; this is a personal machine.

It is perfectly stable at 4.3 Ghz whether used as a media centre or an editing machine, and thus far is just fine in all respects for 4-10 days of continuous use, which is the maximum time we have left it on since we built it in late November.

[Scott Chichelli]

to the OP.

yes buy a sandy bridge now skip the X58 unless you need a raid controller card.
(more than 2 sets raid 0)

for $700 less you get the same performance of a 980x..
16 gig ram is more than plenty unless doing AE with PP open.

Scott
ADK

[Randall Leong]

Originally Posted by Scott Chichelli

to the OP.

yes buy a sandy bridge now skip the X58 unless you need a raid controller card.
(more than 2 sets raid 0)

for $700 less you get the same performance of a 980x..
16 gig ram is more than plenty unless doing AE with PP open.

As of today (January 31), Intel has recalled the P67 and H67 chipsets due to a flaw that causes slow degradation of the performance and reliability of the four SATA 3.0 Gbps channels. (The two SATA 6.0 Gbps channels are unaffected.) Therefore, Intel has suspended shipment of the chipsets to its motherboard partners. The chipmaker will start shipping a "fixed" revision of the chipsets some time in February.

This is a warning to those who are considering a Sandy Bridge system.

[Scott Chichelli]

all boards have been removed from the channel replacement ones in about 4-6 weeks... well worth the wait.

Scott
ADK

[Steve Kalle]

Originally Posted by Scott Chichelli

to the OP.

yes buy a sandy bridge now skip the X58 unless you need a raid controller card.
(more than 2 sets raid 0)

for $700 less you get the same performance of a 980x..
16 gig ram is more than plenty unless doing AE with PP open.

Scott
ADK

Where are you getting your performance numbers from? The most improvement I have seen with the the chips is in the 15-25% range for non-video tasks and less for video encoding.

[Scott Chichelli]

from in house testing...

Premiere Pro CS5 Version 5.0.3 Testing

Video material - AVCHD 1080P 24 Frame Each Cut to 30 minutes of material
Export Codec - H264 HDTV 1080P 24 Preset Default
4 Effects per Layer - Fast Color Corrector, Brightness & Contrast, Video Limiter, Sharpen
Each Layer Scaled to 50% for 4 frame PinP view.

I7 2600 3.4GHZ Turbo to 3.8GHz (stock speed)
8GB Blackline 1600 CL 9
460GTX
4 WD 1Tb Sata 64 Meg Cache 600 Drives in 2 Raid 0 arrays
3 Layer - 37:35
4 Layer - 40:49

16GB Blackline 1600 CL 9 (stock speed)
570GTX
3 Layer - 36:17
4 Layer - 40:05

I7 2600K 3.4GHZ Turbo to 4.7GHz (OCed)
16GB Blackline 1600 CL 9
470GTX
3 Layer - 31:35
4 Layer - 34:35

980X at 3.33GHz (stock speed)
24GB Blackline 1600 CL 9
470GTX
3 Layer - 37:51
4 layer - 41:06

I7 980X 4GHZ (OCed)
12GB Blackline 1600 CL 9
570GTX
3 Layer - 32:30
4 Layer - 35:25

Scott
ADK

[Steve Kalle]

Your variables are all over the place. You go from 24gb ram to 12gb and then go from a 460gtx to a 570gtx to a 470gtx. And you compare 4.7Ghz to 4Ghz....

You use WD drives in Raid 0? I hope you don't send this to customers.

[Randall Leong]

Originally Posted by Steve Kalle

Your variables are all over the place. You go from 24gb ram to 12gb and then go from a 460gtx to a 570gtx to a 470gtx. And you compare 4.7Ghz to 4Ghz....

You use WD drives in Raid 0? I hope you don't send this to customers.

I agree that there are too many variables involved. However, I can compare the stock-speed i7-2600K with only 8GB of RAM and only a GTX 460 with the stock-speed i7-980X with 24GB of RAM and a GTX 470. As it turned out, the 980X is a tad slower - but that's primarily because its stock speeds are a bit lower than the 2600K. And that's despite the 2600K having much less RAM and a somewhat lesser GPU. In Turbo mode, the 980X runs at 3.46GHz with all six cores operational while the 2600K runs at 3.5GHz with all four cores operational. So, the i7-980X needs to be overclocked slightly just to beat a stock-speed i7-2600K, based on Scott's testing.

[Scott Chichelli]

you guys cant read?

980X at 3.33GHz (stock speed)
24GB Blackline 1600 CL 9
470GTX
3 Layer - 37:51
4 layer - 41:06

16GB Blackline 1600 CL 9 (stock speed)
570GTX
3 Layer - 36:17
4 Layer - 40:05

both stock speed no ocing..
more ram in the 980x yet it lost
same on the oced versions...

$300 vs $1000

like i said $700 more to get the same performance.

the only downside is if you need a real raid array.(8+ drives) then you have to go to X58 or Xeon platform.

the stock 2600 beats all stock 900 series.
only the 970/980 can hang with it.

Scott
ADK

[Scott Chichelli]

Originally Posted by Steve Kalle

Your variables are all over the place. You go from 24gb ram to 12gb and then go from a 460gtx to a 570gtx to a 470gtx. And you compare 4.7Ghz to 4Ghz....

You use WD drives in Raid 0? I hope you don't send this to customers.

yes they are varied and for a reason...
note the 460 with 8 gig ram vs the 470 with 16gig ram.. barely a difference..

yes 4.7 vs 4GHz thats the point a $300 processor can OC to 4.7GHz whilst a $1000 processor can hit only 4 ghz. (which does speak to the power of 6 cores vs 4)

imagine if we hade a 6 core sandy bridge! like the ones coming in Dec. this is just a preview... these present sandy bridge chips are the "Budget line" ones...
cant wait til the end of the yr..
\
oh and yes the majority of systems we ship have 2 sets raid 0 with the WD 64meg cache drives
the higher end systems 8+ drives raid 5,6.


Scott
ADK

[Steve Kalle]

So, you are telling me that a 570gtx has absolutely nothing to do with these numbers when the other is using a 470gtx? With 4 scaled layers and 4 effects per layer, the video card is involved quite a lot.

I'm assuming these tests did not have MRQ checked. Even though the output is not smaller (1080 to 1080), the files are being scaled so I would think that Adobe's bicubic implementation would still be used to scale each file and produce a better image. Frankly, without MRQ checked, any benchmarks are useless to me because the encoding is done at a LOWER quality than any professional would use. If you haven't seen the image quality difference, then do some tests. Adobe's MRQ (in a CUDA system) finally equals the quality of external encoding software such as TMPGEnc. Hell, even in broadcast SD analog. I can see a noticeable quality difference when I use MRQ and when I don't use it.

Don't you know about the major problems with WD drives in Raid and them spinning down constantly? Randall can speak to this issue and how changing drives actually increased both his workflow and encoding speeds.

Btw, even with the high-k gate in the Intel CPUs, such high speeds will certainly reduce the life of these CPUs as far more electrons are stripped off. When Intel releases a CPU above 4Ghz, then we will know that they have solved this problem.

[Scott Chichelli]

Steve,
you are mistaking the TLER issue in a parity drive arry with standard raid 0
and the tler issue can and will occur in a parity raid with seagate and any other brand that is not an "enterprise" drive. the enterpirse drives have a different firmware.
the spin downs and tler issues do not occur in raid 0, 1 or 10

give me a little credit dude... i have been doing this a very long time. (98)
We have to warrnty these systems i ship as well. not to mention our rep.

as to the 470 vs 570 depending on what you are doing will determine the performance gain.
realistically the 470 would suite most. the 570 is quieter and is what the 400 series was supposed to be originally. just more cores not a architectural change.

Scott
ADK

[Scott Chichelli]

Btw, even with the high-k gate in the Intel CPUs, such high speeds will certainly reduce the life of these CPUs as far more electrons are stripped off. When Intel releases a CPU above 4Ghz, then we will know that they have solved this problem.

i have also been OCing since 98. thats actually what got me started in this crazy biz.

for the last 5 yrs intel silcon has been near 100%. (anything after the "pres-hot" (prescot)
Intel has a safety buffer of 25% or better.
3.8GHz (turbo) x 25% = 4.75GHz.

i sell 4.5GHz to be sure.
but again those not into OCing... stock vs stock SB still wins.. :-)
albeit not by much.

[Steven Davis]

I was going to pull the trigger on a machine and went to my wishlist and saw the sandybridge i7 was out of stock. Well that was fun, now I have to rebuild the whole thing. I'd like to get the machine before March, and don't know if the Sandybridge is worth waiting. I don't mind buying the newest thing if it's worth it over what is already available.

I'll have to do something thinking. I however need a machine with a punch.

[Scott Chichelli]

well you dont have to wait you can buy the 980x on the X58 platform. its is a more robust platform.
but you will pay more!
FYI it will be more like mid march is my guess.
Intel is shipipng out test chipsets in about 10-14 days followed by full shiping 1-2 weeks later
then the manufacturers have to build and ship to the US.

Scott