Blogs bit-tech is testing Sandy Bridge

Maybe I'll get round to replacing my single core Athlon 64 when this comes out.

 

Oh Boy!! The 1155 CPU's won't need a new CPU cooler! But they will need a new mother board, now that's economy!
Regarding 1156/1366 CPU prices, in the US, prices of 775 CPU's have still not come down, and while many are still quite nice, they are now two generations old. Oddly, 1156/1366 CPU's have become a bit cheaper, although stock of 1366 CPU's is low. Newegg doesn't even have '930's in stock (I got one elsewhere for $199) and the '950's are now the "lowest" 9xx available for the most part. Check Newegg's price for Core 2 Duo E8500's or E8600's for a surprise, not to mention C2 Quad 95xx's. Great CPU's, but come on!

 

Several?

We're only guaranteed one. Beyond that is anyones guess. There's no such thing as upgrade-proof anymore.

 

be nice if you could get 5ghz on air

 

I can't wait for sandy bridge to be released.
Poor me is still running an old socket 939 setup LOL.

 

My Sandy Bridge Question

I'm running Win7 home pro on a socket 775 e8400 on a X38 mboard.

If I swap my motherboard/cpu/ram out for a 1155 2600k, and with UEFI in the mix, will I have to reinstall windows?

If you have a sandy bridge system for testing, can you try taking a hard drive with win7 already on it from an older cpu (like a 775) and see if windows will crap out or switch over ok?

It takes me weeks and even months to get windows back to the way I like it, and just want to know how painful the transition will be.

Thx.

 

Right, but 1366 is guaranteed for 0.5 and not any longer. It's pretty much dead now, as IMO the only 1366 processor that's not yet available is a 985x or 995x (forget which), which is just a 980x with a small clockspeed bump.

That's not to say that the 1155 will be completely future-proof, but it's a significantly newer socket and architecture and will be mainstream for the near future, whereas 1366 is an older architecture that's being discontinued very soon.

Unless you plan on getting the 995x or whatever the overclocked 980x will be called, 1366 has no future upgrade options beyond what there is now. With 1155, you have the higher IPC and higher-clocked Sandy Bridge chips, and the ability to move to 22nm Ivy Bridge in 2012 on the same motherboard.

 

Intel has said that Ivy Bridge will use the same socket as Sandy Bridge. So, that gives us at least 2 years, if not 3 on the 1155/2011 sockets.

 

Intel alluded to the same with 1156 tbh. They can drop sockets at the drop of a hat and people will still buy their hardware these days. Also, no new socket means no new PCH and new features (since there's no competition these days and look at X58: a good 3 year lifespan but only one chipset with a southbridge that was even older??) and motherboard companies will want Intel to give them something new so they can continue their revenue stream. I expect Ivy Bridge will come with a Lightpeak and PCI-E 3.0 option, and, we don't yet know if it'll be low/high end or both: Intel never re-launched Lynnfield on 32nm remember

To be honest, as long as the heatsink holes remain the same - as they have between 1156 and 55 - I don't see that much issue

EDIT: WRT PCI-E 3.0: I'll commit to an educated guess that 1155 mobos launched this year won't be PCI-E 3.0 'compatible' - they'll only run at PCI-E 2.0 speeds even if an Ivy Peak is used in it. I expect you'll need a different grade of motherboard design/PCB material to achieve PCI-E 3.0 reliably, which will be 2012 hardware. Of course it'll be a marketable feature, but more bandwidth than we'll actually need.

 

i don't see any reason people would stick with one motherboard while upgrading their CPU. in the olden days, CPU were soldiered on the board anyway.

with LGA775, how many of you stayed with 975 for new core2? p35/x38 is clearly a more suitable and problem free combination with core2 chips.

my point is, you should always buy a new CPU with its pairing motherboard chipset to get most out of it anyway, so why care so much about whether you can upgrade it?

 

I'm very excied to see what its going to be like but I'm also secretectly hoping it wont be quite as good as the I7 950 + mobo + mem I just spent all my monies on

 

Gits, I have boards but no CPUs yet.

 

Interesting HSF configuration in the picture there. Would you always recommend blowing air through the cpu heatsink and bouncing it off the back the graphics card like that (doubt it), or is this purely recommended for an open to air test bed config thats laid out horizontal (still dubious)?

 

My 775 experience has been one CPU and two motherboards CPU was still fast enough for my needs with a moderate overclock whereas a new motherboard provided a better chipset and PCIe 2.0 support.

Normally I try not to swap out major components on my PCs, opting instead to save that money for buying a brand new system.

 

Agreed, I still have a 965 board although I have upgraded more or less every other part. If sandy bridge is any good, like you say I will probably build a new system.

 

Either you mean literally, or this is a new manner of speaking only to be used by journalists come overclockers

Can't wait!!

 

Oooh! What makes you say that??

 

Can you confirm that existing 1.5-1.65V DDR3 will work with these? Would like to grab some RAM at a pre-Chrsitmas sale but don't want to get burned.

 

Yes it does, although sometimes the XMPs do not (so far in testing) if they are designed for X58 or Lynnfield.

okenobi - Given the increasing popularity mini-ITX and success of Gigabyte's H55N I suspect.

 

They would have to ship a system without something called a compatibility support module. That would be an insane thing to do as not only does it allow an OS that is not UEFI aware to boot just like it is on a legacy BIOS system, it is also needed for PCI and PCIe cards that do not have a UEFI compatible BIOS on the card to run.

Based on what I know, only the 64 bit version of Windows 7 will have a UEFI boot option. I don't know if the drive had to be partitioned as GPT or if Windows could set up a small FAT partition for their UEFI boot loader and leave your install intact. I never got to play with it much.