i7 980x Now or Wait for Sandybridge?

[Renat Zarbailov]

Hey folks,

I am curious what your thoughts are on whether or not to wait for sandybridge in the 1st quarter of 2011 or build an i7 980x system now...

I edit AVCHD 17mbps in Premiere CS5.

If going the i7 980x route now, I am considering the following components:

ASUS Rampage III Formula LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard ($300)

12GB RAM 3X4GB sticks (CORSAIR XMS3 12GB (3 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 Desktop Memory Model CMX12GX3M3A1333C9) ($170)

CORSAIR CMPSU-620HX ATX 12v v2.2 / eps 12v v 2.91 620Watt ul fcc power supply (I will actually take it out of my current system)

MSI N240GT-MD1G/D5 GeForce GT 240 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card (..and unlock it with a CUDA hack) ($90)

Haven't decided what C: SSD drive to go with, want to stick with 128GB, any suggestions which brand/model is best?

Haven't decided what CPU cooling to go with, I loved my previous build for it's silence, I used CPU COOLER SCYTHE USA|SCMNJ-1000 R.

Also, haven't decided what case to go with, I loved Antec case for its silence that I have once used to build a system a few years ago for a friend, I think it was called P6.

Any suggestions/comments?

Truly appreciate your input,

Happy upcoming New Years!!!

[Randall Leong]

Originally Posted by Renat Zarbailov

Hey folks,

I am curious what your thoughts are on whether or not to wait for sandybridge in the 1st quarter of 2011 or build an i7 980x system now...

I edit AVCHD 17mbps in Premiere CS5.

If going the i7 980x route now, I am considering the following components:

ASUS Rampage III Formula LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard ($300)

12GB RAM 3X4GB sticks (CORSAIR XMS3 12GB (3 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 Desktop Memory Model CMX12GX3M3A1333C9) ($170)

CORSAIR CMPSU-620HX ATX 12v v2.2 / eps 12v v 2.91 620Watt ul fcc power supply (I will actually take it out of my current system)

MSI N240GT-MD1G/D5 GeForce GT 240 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card (..and unlock it with a CUDA hack) ($90)

Haven't decided what C: SSD drive to go with, want to stick with 128GB, any suggestions which brand/model is best?

Haven't decided what CPU cooling to go with, I loved my previous build for it's silence, I used CPU COOLER SCYTHE USA|SCMNJ-1000 R.

Also, haven't decided what case to go with, I loved Antec case for its silence that I have once used to build a system a few years ago for a friend, I think it was called P6.

Any suggestions/comments?

Truly appreciate your input,

Happy upcoming New Years!!!

If you're going to use CS5, the i7-980x that you're planning to get is the better choice at the moment. The initial Sandy Bridge platform (Socket LGA 1155) will replace the LGA 1156 "mainstream" platform, and as a result will still be limited by the total number of PCIe lanes (24 theoretical maximum - 16 on the CPU, plus up to 8 on the P67 chipset's PCH), quad-core maximum, and only a dual-channel memory controller. If you must wait for Sandy Bridge, wait until the fourth quarter of 2011 when the LGA 2011 (and possibly its uniprocessor/dual-processor equivalent LGA 1356) CPUs get introduced.

In addition, the RAM that you selected is not the best choice, even at $180: It is only 9-9-9-24 at 1333 speed.

Third, you will need at least two or three hard drives in addition to the SSD: Adobe advises against running any of its Creative Suite programs on a system equipped with just a single drive (SSD or HDD) for everything. If you ignore this advice, your system may run slower than a Celeron system for video editing. (Remember, unlike SCSI or SAS, SATA is still only a half-duplex interface in which data can travel in only one direction at a time.)

Fourth, I do not recommend an Antec gaming case (such as the Nine Hundred series or the Twelve Hundred): Despite its stock cooling performance, the case is surprisingly cramped on the inside, especially from rear to front. This needlessly complicates the connection of internal SATA devices to the motherboard (especially those with SATA ports mounted along its front edge, which might get blocked by the fixed, nonremovable hard drive cage mounting bracket), and in case you want to upgrade to a higher-end GPU, you may find that the card to be a tight squeeze or not even fit inside the case at all. Plus, its stock fans are far from silent at their highest speed settings (which might be required for hot-running systems such as these).

[Pete Bauer]

Your question is a tough one to answer since none of us has any experience or video benchmarking with Sandy Bridge. I'm not the most knowledgeable about comparing architectures, and would defer to our resident experts. But here are a couple considerations based only on internet reading:

- Sandy Bridge will initially be available only on LGA 1155, meaning only dual channel DDR3, and up to quad core processor, until at least Q3 2011. PPro loves RAM and is happy to have more cores. So whether the greater efficiency of the Sandy Bridge architecture will overcome a loaded 980X for editing or rendering in PPro is a question mark.

Either way, though, it looks like you'd be able to rebuild your system into LGA 1356 (triple channel mem) or LGA 2011 (which I haven't found much info on but is supposed to supercede 1356) plus a CPU with six or eight physical cores by late in 2011.

If you're ready to build and edit now, I'd say build a 950 (quad core) system -- parts are already readily available and the architecture is mature (but not end of life). It'll do a good job with AVCHD and you can save the $600 vs the 980X that you can use toward a Sandy Bridge upgrade toward the end of 2011. If you're not too cost-sensitive, then do stick with the 980X, realizing that in less than a year you might be wanting to replace it and the Mobo.

If you're not in a big hurry to get editing and really want to try out Sandy Bridge, we'll be eager to hear how it goes. Based on what (little) I understand of the architecture roadmap, though, a later upgrade toward the "top end" won't be particularly cheaper either way. Regardless, upgrading later from a Sandy Bridge or a 1366 system built now would require both a new mobo and processor (plus some more RAM to fill out the triple channel slots) just like a move from 1156 to 1366 does now.

EDIT: See also Randall's comments, posted while I typed.

[Allan Tabilas]

cpus and motherboards are already on sale now in other countries
Intel Sandy Bridge CPUs and motherboards now on sale in Malaysia, what Consumer Electronics Show? -- Engadget

Since Sandy Bridge is just days away (US "official" release in first week of January in Vegas for CES show), I'd wait two weeks for the benchmarks to come out. Anandtech already had a preview from this past August comparing performance versus equivalent # of cores and similar clock speed at Anandtech (Sandy Bridge versus Core i7 980x [westmere], Core i7 880 [lynnfield])

The Sandy Bridge Preview - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

I have a Core i7 920 (socket 1366) myself, and also considering buying on the initial quad core Sandy Bridges like the Core i7 2600K, which clock-for-clock will be 10-30% faster than any equivalent clock speed on a Nehalem (1366) or Lynnfield (1156). From the Anandtech preview, the 980x is still faster in encoding benchmarks due to more cores. The 980x will be slower on an equivalent clock basis. Since you can probably get a Core i7 2600K, a P67 motherboard from Asus/Gigabyte/EVGA/MSI etc, and 16GB of ram (4 x 4GB sticks, unfortunately only dual channel) for the price of a single 980X cpu, the first Sandy Bridges seem like a smart choice.

Or you could wait until Q4 2011 for the 6 core or 8 core Sandy Bridges.

[Randall Leong]

I forgot to mention that the initial Sandy Bridge platform will still be (relatively speaking) ill-suited to a hardware RAID card: The way most P67 motherboards are designed, most motherboard manufacturers will be eating up some of the PCH's lanes with an onboard USB 3.0 controller (this is possible because the P67 PCH's PCIe 2.0 lanes will now be full-bandwidth instead of the P55's half-bandwidth lanes), a PCIe-to-PCI bridge controller (for legacy PCI cards), an extra SATA or eSATA controller (to add legacy IDE/PATA drive support and two addtional SATA ports) and an onboard PCIe NIC from Realtek or Marvell (since the Intel PHY chip that does not need a PCIe connection remains expensive to motherboard manufacturers). That leaves only four available PCIe lanes on the P67 PCH - and most mobo manufacturers opt to include two or more PCIe x1 slots. That leaves only the CPU's integrated 16 PCIe lanes - but putting a hardware RAID controller that requires a PCIe x4 or x8 slot into a PCIe x16-length slot would drop the main PCIe graphics card slot's bandwidth from x16 to x8. As a result, the initial Sandy Bridge platform will still suffer from the very same problems that plague current LGA 1156/P55 platforms: not enough available (as opposed to total) PCIe lanes for serious video editing.

Why Intel still hasn't come up with a chipset that natively supports USB 3.0 is a mystery (although the P67 PCH does natively support two SATA 6 Gbps ports and four SATA 3 Gbps ports). But a chipset from either Intel or AMD that natively supports USB 3.0 will not arrive until Q3 2011 at the earliest.

[Allan Tabilas]

Should you need a massive number of PCIe lanes (raid controllers like Randall mentioned, video cards, etc), MSI has their solution called the Big Bang Marshal -- 8 PCIe x16 slots (four of which are full x16 bandwidth). It's likely that other manufacturers will follow suit (Asus with the RoG line, Gigabyte, EVGA etc). It doesn't use NF200 chipsets for more PCIe lanes like say the EVGA SR-2 Classified mobo or Gigabyte X58A-UD9 [those mobos are for 1366 sockets), but uses the Lucid Hydra chipset for the massive lanes.

SemiAccurate :: MSI shows off its Big Bang Marshal board

[Randall Leong]

Originally Posted by Allan Tabilas

Should you need a massive number of PCIe lanes (raid controllers like Randall mentioned, video cards, etc), MSI has their solution called the Big Bang Marshal -- 8 PCIe x16 slots (four of which are full x16 bandwidth). It's likely that other manufacturers will follow suit (Asus with the RoG line, Gigabyte, EVGA etc). It doesn't use NF200 chipsets for more PCIe lanes like say the EVGA SR-2 Classified mobo or Gigabyte X58A-UD9 [those mobos are for 1366 sockets), but uses the Lucid Hydra chipset for the massive lanes.

SemiAccurate :: MSI shows off its Big Bang Marshal board

The biggest problem with such motherboards is that most such boards will cost much more money than what most of the current X58 motherboards cost. These Lucid Hydra-equipped motherboards are expected to cost $600 or more, completely eliminating any cost advantage of Sandy Bridge versus current i7/X58 platforms.

[Allan Tabilas]

Agreed, the MSI Big Bang Marshal is likely a $400+ mobo, or any other mobo that features 1) Lucid Hydra) or 2) one or multiple NF200 chips). Still, those are options should you need a massive number of PCIe lanes or expansion slots for say a high end raid card. A high end Areca raid card can exceed $1k (or a 980x for that matter).

[Panagiotis Raris]

sandy bridge is the mid-grade replacement; NOT the 1366 replacement. that will be the 1356 chipset.

The i7 980X for now will still be editing king, and the X58 will still be the top choice for editing until it is supplanted by the (whatever it is, X68 etc) 1356 replacement.

[Mark Johnson]

Originally Posted by Randall Leong

Why Intel still hasn't come up with a chipset that natively supports USB 3.0 is a mystery (although the P67 PCH does natively support two SATA 6 Gbps ports and four SATA 3 Gbps ports). But a chipset from either Intel or AMD that natively supports USB 3.0 will not arrive until Q3 2011 at the earliest.

Expect Intel to roll out Light Peak and skip USB 3.0.

[Randall Leong]

Problem with LightPeak is, will the public be ready to shell out such expense for such proprietary technology when it is introduced? LightPeak might not be backwards compatible with the millions of existing USB devices, and might require the purchase of an entirely new input device that's priced far higher than current input devices cost. But what I stated is mostly speculative.

In any event, it is way too soon to tell whether Intel's going with a largely proprietary technology that will not be licensed at all to other companies or have its licensing costs so high that nobody wants to pay anywhere near that much for it (or cannot afford to) will flop (like Intel's flirtation with RDRAM and its early insistence of going its own way with 64-bit computing that is largely incompatible with existing x86 software) or succeed in the marketplace.

[Panagiotis Raris]

agreed; lightpeak licensing will likely cost oodles compared to SATAIII or USB3 devices. funny that they have suddenly jumped into SSD's, and are dabbling in RAM as well.

chances are they will keep proprietary rights and choke their own potential, then 2-3 years later it will begin to take off.

for most users, SATAII is fast enough, and SSD's are at the extreme end. USB 3.0 will appeal (and does) to those on the higher end spectrum, same with SATA III and SSD's.

LightPeak on standard (platter) drives will be pretty damn useless for most though, and until SSD's drop a LOT in price, chances are LightPeak will start and stay on as a high end user alternative. Look at SSD's (esp RAID config SSD's) at the moment; heck even PCI-E SSD's are still somewhat experimental yet available. But if you care, and IF you can afford it, then you probably understand how to utilize it. MOST PC users do NOT.

case in point... I bought my folks a new 6 core AMD system for xmas, to be used as a home media center PC. replaced a quad core AMD which is now relegated to web surfing and a windows media center system for the office/bedroom area. Both PC's had single disk hard drives, 7200RPM SATA II. I wasnt there when they set it up (trapped in NYC) but i did get a call...

The FIRST thing my mother said was 'its just as slow as the old one' because she was transferring media onto a 5400RPM external USB 2.0 drive and it was maxing out at 32MB/sec. She was pissed because she thought it was doing something wrong, as it advertised higher USB 3.0 speeds, she even plugged the external into the correct USB 3.0 slot, and when she went to look for songs or movies it took just as long to seek/find/play as before, not knowing the bottleneck was the 5400RPM USB2.0 external.

AFTER i set up the RAID5 on both machines and the gigabit networking, again, she said they were both 'just as fast' as each other.

Now i did install a total of 10 hard drives in the two PC's (5 disk RAID5) and network them via their gigabit connections, so NOW the transfers are MUCH faster, but the point is, she, an average user/consumer, would not have NORMALLY utilized the potential of her system had i not set it up and shown her a few bits. She was used to seeing my personal PC boot in NO time and transfer files at 250MB/sec; i run SSD's and RAID0, the average user will stick with SATA II and 7200RPM single disks.

LightPeak, SSD's, SATAIII, USB3.0, and RAID are still beyond the average user; as such, they really do not mean much to the average user. As such, it is probably not a high priority until fast enough (read, SSD's) storage comes WAY down in price. Even SATAIII isnt much faster than SATAII in a platter drive.

As flash storage prices drop and capacity increases to the point where it is a viable alternative to the standard platter disk, and read/write speeds hike up close to those of PCI-E SSD's, THEN LightPeak will suddenly be the high end, and slowly trickle down.

For most people, again, they will NEVER saturate SATAI, let alone SATAII transfer rates without either going for an SSD or a RAID setup, and again, in that case they are no longer the 'average' user. LightPeak is 3-5 years away from economical viability, in my estimation. At the earliest.

On the other hand, i am extremely interested in a PCI-E x4 SSD... And doubling my 4x80GB disk 7200RPM 2.5" SATA II RAID0 setup into an 8 disk RAID0 or two 4-disk RAID0's... (i back up weekly to externals). Chances are ill bite the bullet and buy a pair of 120GB Corsair Force SSD's in RAID0 and enjoy 570MB/sec read and 550MB/sec write speeds, and donate the slow Intel X25M 80GB SSD's (currently in RAID0 to my folks or old machine.

[Randall Leong]

Originally Posted by Panagiotis Raris

case in point... I bought my folks a new 6 core AMD system for xmas, to be used as a home media center PC. replaced a quad core AMD which is now relegated to web surfing and a windows media center system for the office/bedroom area. Both PC's had single disk hard drives, 7200RPM SATA II. I wasnt there when they set it up (trapped in NYC) but i did get a call...

The FIRST thing my mother said was 'its just as slow as the old one' because she was transferring media onto a 5400RPM external USB 2.0 drive and it was maxing out at 32MB/sec. She was pissed because she thought it was doing something wrong, as it advertised higher USB 3.0 speeds, she even plugged the external into the correct USB 3.0 slot, and when she went to look for songs or movies it took just as long to seek/find/play as before, not knowing the bottleneck was the 5400RPM USB2.0 external.

This just shows to highlight that both the host controller and the bridge chipset in the device must be capable of USB 3.0 transfers. Otherwise, the USB standard of the slower device will be the limiting factor.

With that said, my recently acquired 5900RPM USB 3.0 external drive has a physical transfer speed that's just about as fast as the fastest of the current-generation 7200RPM SATA hard drives (when plugged into the correct USB 3.0 port). Only the relatively slow access times betray the external's 5900RPM heritage.

[Renat Zarbailov]

Originally Posted by Randall Leong

If you're going to use CS5, the i7-980x that you're planning to get is the better choice at the moment. The initial Sandy Bridge platform (Socket LGA 1155) will replace the LGA 1156 "mainstream" platform, and as a result will still be limited by the total number of PCIe lanes (24 theoretical maximum - 16 on the CPU, plus up to 8 on the P67 chipset's PCH), quad-core maximum, and only a dual-channel memory controller. If you must wait for Sandy Bridge, wait until the fourth quarter of 2011 when the LGA 2011 (and possibly its uniprocessor/dual-processor equivalent LGA 1356) CPUs get introduced.

In addition, the RAM that you selected is not the best choice, even at $180: It is only 9-9-9-24 at 1333 speed.

Third, you will need at least two or three hard drives in addition to the SSD: Adobe advises against running any of its Creative Suite programs on a system equipped with just a single drive (SSD or HDD) for everything. If you ignore this advice, your system may run slower than a Celeron system for video editing. (Remember, unlike SCSI or SAS, SATA is still only a half-duplex interface in which data can travel in only one direction at a time.)

Fourth, I do not recommend an Antec gaming case (such as the Nine Hundred series or the Twelve Hundred): Despite its stock cooling performance, the case is surprisingly cramped on the inside, especially from rear to front. This needlessly complicates the connection of internal SATA devices to the motherboard (especially those with SATA ports mounted along its front edge, which might get blocked by the fixed, nonremovable hard drive cage mounting bracket), and in case you want to upgrade to a higher-end GPU, you may find that the card to be a tight squeeze or not even fit inside the case at all. Plus, its stock fans are far from silent at their highest speed settings (which might be required for hot-running systems such as these).

Thanks everyone for your kind input on this.

Randal, you mentioned about avoiding the RAM I selected for the config I listed, what RAM do you think is ideal for the mobo I chose?

Also, as far as RAID 0 for the CS5 edit drive, do you recommend going with a RAID card or using the chosen motherboard's RAID capability. If going with RAID card, which card is great to get that is valuable.

One more thing, can anyone recommend a silent case for this build?

Thanks again everyone!!!

[Randall Leong]

Originally Posted by Renat Zarbailov

Thanks everyone for your kind input on this.

Randal, you mentioned about avoiding the RAM I selected for the config I listed, what RAM do you think is ideal for the mobo I chose?

Also, as far as RAID 0 for the CS5 edit drive, do you recommend going with a RAID card or using the chosen motherboard's RAID capability. If going with RAID card, which card is great to get that is valuable.

One more thing, can anyone recommend a silent case for this build?

Thanks again everyone!!!

That RAM is okay, but you can fit in faster RAM for a little bit more money. A good example is Corsair's new Vengeance series RAM, which typically are rated at 1.5V VDIMM @ DDR3-1600 speed with 8-8-8 or 9-9-9 latency timings at 1600. (It's not that I'd recommend avoiding RAM rated at 9-9-9 at 1333 speed; it's just that you can get faster and/or lower-latency RAM for just a little more.)

As for RAID 0, if you're going for just a two-drive RAID 0, stick with the onboard Intel RAID.