Don't Upgrade Now; Quad-Core is coming soon

But how much do they cost??

(2*price Conroe)-(10 or 20%) I guess...

What would be more interesting: When will Conroe be free to pre-order in Germany? :|
Tried www.Alternate.de as it normally is one of the fastest to have new stuff and you can't even order them.

Back to topic --- Conroe is a kickass cpu as will Kentsfield be imo and if Intel keep their prices that 'low' I might consider going Kentsfield for Christmas. :)

I hate you Bigz :D, you convince me of Core 2's pwnage with that awesome review, and now you tell me to wait ;(

Big question is though, how sure are you all that the mobo is going to stay the same? Buying a cheap Core 2 and some decent DDR2 with a nice mobo would make good sense if the only thing being upgraded in 6-12 months once 4Core is out and about in good numbers and value was the CPU itself. But if quad core is going to make expensive RAM or a decent mobo useless then waiting does indeed seem like the smart option.

K8L better be good now, because without it who's going to bother buying AM2 kit?

erm, thanks for the heads up Tim but 4 cores ? C'mon it does seem overkill but We'll just have to see what Vista says about it. Also I'd assume when kentsfield is out Core 2 Duo (dual core) will get a price drop ?

Great article, which makes choosing a new PC even harder. I'm glad I didn't think twice when I bought my new rig, otherwise I would still be waiting a month or two on for the new Core chips.

Is it me, or does it seem that the evolution of PC technology is picking up?

Originally Posted by specofdust
I hate you Bigz :D, you convince me of Core 2's pwnage with that awesome review, and now you tell me to wait ;(

hehehe, sorry :D

Big question is though, how sure are you all that the mobo is going to stay the same?

Tyrou at XS has a Kentsfield in a D975XBX rev 304 (http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=107092) ;)

Originally Posted by Fr4nk
Also I'd assume when kentsfield is out Core 2 Duo (dual core) will get a price drop ?

Quite possibly yes

Originally Posted by Lazlow

Is it me, or does it seem that the evolution of PC technology is picking up?

Yeah...it seems like it to me too.

Whenever you see questions in computer forums about "should I buy now or wait for xxx new thing" people always respond "there's always something else around the corner, if you wait for it, something else'll be just around the corner in a few months again."

But with a less than 5 month (possibly only 3 or 4 months to get in before the holidays) wait between Dual-core Core 2 and Quad-core Core 2, waiting for the new technology (or the likely associated price drop on the Dual-core) becomes a bit easier to justify. Especially when you can't even buy Core-2 yet (release next week?) and availability might be sketchy for a while anyway.

If I was looking to upgrade my current pentium system, I might just upgrade it to a higher end Pentium in a week when the price drops through the floor...and wait for the Kentsfield for a "true" upgrade.

To upgrade to Core 2 or not to upgrade to Core 2.. That is the question. Even though i would welcome quad cores by the end of the year, what if there are delays and it gets pushed back and for those with a pc not so tuned up to handle vista and advanced 3D gaming of Q4 this could be a bitch... Spending their hard earned money now and there not being any delays and loosing out on quad goodness or waiting and waiting and waiting.... I think I might just upgrade to Quad Core and wait for a while, my current main rig is a fine specimen and should tide me over fine into Vista and on to Q2 2007 ish...

There is a pattern amerging here! It is the pattern of everything... They releace something, its awesome, and i'm all set to spend money on it.. and now i have to wait for the next new thing to come out! Whats the bet that 2 months later they will announce another new thing and we'll be told to wait for that as well... I think sometimes we just have to take the plunge, upgrade and miss out a few of these advancements... Unless your uber rich like some of the people on this forum seem/have to be!

I am slightly supprised at the timing here though.... its like they are trying to reduce sales of conroe...

Originally Posted by will.
I am slightly supprised at the timing here though.... its like they are trying to reduce sales of conroe...

I was incredibly surprised to see Otellini say what he did - it's almost like they want to trash Core 2 sales, hence why I felt there was a need for an OpEd. :)

Originally Posted by will.
Whats the bet that 2 months later they will announce another new thing and we'll be told to wait for that as well...

What's left to announce? 8 core? It seems that they're just doubling up everything now, which is by no means a bad thing.

Originally Posted by will.


I am slightly supprised at the timing here though.... its like they are trying to reduce sales of conroe...

Thats what I said when I posted about this first!

Honestly, I don't think this is true.

Not buying AMD and waiting for Dual Core Conroe is NOT the same as

Not buying Dual Core Conroe and waiting for Quad Core.

Why not? It's missing the performance jump. Conroe is a big improvement over AMD in CPU terms. Quite the slam dunk. However the same can't be said for Quad core.

Is Quad core gonna give you twice the performance boost? Hardly. It's rare enough to hit 100% usage on both Cores already. Can you imagine how often users will see that on 4 cores?

It's hard enough to develop software for dual-core, let alone quad. Outside of a few specialized applications I just don't see their being much benefit.

This is like saying "Don't buy Core 2 Duo now, because there will be faster speeds of the dual-core chips come fall". But in the CPU biz, this is always true. It's nothing new.

So unless you are a _massive_ multitasker, in leagues of encoding video while playing games, the benefits of quad core are largely academic.

Conroe was a big jump, so it was worth waiting for. The benefits of Quad core will likely only be seen on paper.

Aggies

I disagree. My main system is used primarily for gaming, but I'm shortly going to be building a PVR too. If I want, I'd be able to do the heavy duty encoding on a quad core core over the network, thus keeping the PVR low powered in every way, which has both silence and cost benefits. That's one core. Games are starting to be coded for two cores. True, it'll probably take time before 100% of two cores are used by games, but I have no doubt in the ability of programmers everywhere to abuse any CPU I have to the fullest. That's three cores. That leaves one core over for the usuals, scheduled virus scans, real time monitoring apps that lean heavily on the system, and all the other random things people do.

I agree that quad core wouldn't be for everyone, but as a main processor for all my PC's quad core sounds fantastic.

Lastly, if people don't build 4 core CPU's no-one will ever code for 4 core CPU's. These things have to be being used by people before the coders will bother, but you can be sure that they will and within a few years apps that need a lot of power will be able to utilise all that is available to them.

Imo it wasn't until the release of the AthlonXP when AMD eventually overtook Intel in the performance stakes. It's taken a long time for Intel to rediscover how to make good cpu's. The P4 was pure marketing, the Core chips seem to be Intel getting back to their roots. Maybe they re-hired the team that created the P3 to create the successor to the P4? :)

I'm still tempted to shift to Intel with a Core2 for the moment and shift to Core4 when the dust settles.

Originally Posted by kenco_uk
Maybe they re-hired the team that created the P3 to create the successor to the P4? :)

I believe that the same Israel design team that created the Pentium M also extensively worked on Core2 ;)

Just going to point out, there have been no reports of a lowend kentsfield, has there? The only think I've seen is reports that kentsfield will be replacing the x6800.

I think Zekey is right i read somewhere that the first Kentsfields will be Extreme edition chips, so i very much doubt there will be a price drop in Core2 at that time.

Originally Posted by olly_lewis
To upgrade to Core 2 or not to upgrade to Core 2.. That is the question. Even though i would welcome quad cores by the end of the year, what if there are delays and it gets pushed back and for those with a pc not so tuned up to handle vista and advanced 3D gaming of Q4 this could be a bitch... Spending their hard earned money now and there not being any delays and loosing out on quad goodness or waiting and waiting and waiting.... I think I might just upgrade to Quad Core and wait for a while, my current main rig is a fine specimen and should tide me over fine into Vista and on to Q2 2007 ish...

i doubt they are going to delay kentsfield. they made that announcement before the release of core 2 duo and i am 100% sure that intel knows the news would reduce the sale of core 2. now, if they arent 120% sure they can get kentsfield out to the market by the end of the year, why would they hurt their sale like that?

anyway, i hate you intel! i cant wait any more!!!

These new Kentsfield processors aren't mobile, right? Meaning, Merom won't be overshadowed any time soon.

I'm trying to wait for Merom to be released to buy my laptop for college. Hopefully it will come out (for Apple ;)) sometime soon so that I can get it in time.

Oh, and does any think Apple will have the same kind of access to cutting-edge compilers when Kentsfield nears release like they had for Core 2 Duo and the optimization of OSX Leopard?

To support that statement: I point you Here

why not upgrade? there will always be something new coming out in just X months!

I got a new computer (4400+, 7900gt, etc) in may fully knowing conroe was on the way, and I don't regret it a bit. If I had waited every time I was advised to, I would never get anything new, and be stuck with a p4 and fx5200 with a broken fan

of course the title of the article isn't necessarily meant to be taken literally, but my response was toward the whole "don't waste your money now, you dolt!" suggestions plaguing all types of media nowadays.

I hope that made sense and got my point across because I'm just about to go to bed

edit: also 4 simultaneous processes would only really be good for serving-type stuff

Originally Posted by Bruno_me
why not upgrade? there will always be something new coming out in just X months!

I got a new computer (4400+, 7900gt, etc) in may fully knowing conroe was on the way, and I don't regret it a bit. If I had waited every time I was advised to, I would never get anything new, and be stuck with a p4 and fx5200 with a broken fan

of course the title of the article isn't necessarily meant to be taken literally, but my response was toward the whole "don't waste your money now, you dolt!" suggestions plaguing all types of media nowadays.

I hope that made sense and got my point across because I'm just about to go to bed

edit: also 4 simultaneous processes would only really be good for serving-type stuff

You've got to consider your current position. I'm sure Tim didn't mean that if you upgrade now, you're stupid :) If your current rig is getting a bit long in the tooth, then of course you should upgrade to Conroe, but just don't go all out with the fastest chip there is, when you can wait for Kentsfield. If, on the other hand, you're in a position like me, where you want to upgrade but don't really need to, then it makes sense to wait, which I think I will after seeing the results on XS and reading that.

Any ideas on power consumption with Kentsfrield anyone? I mean, it's essentially 4 CPUs... I'm starting to be concerned with the amount of power PCs are starting to require these days. It's no longer an option to leave your rig on anymore. I can remember when I used to leave my old Thoroughbred on 24/7 and not even see any impact on my electricity bill, but leaving something like this on 24/7 would make a VERY noticeable difference I would think.

While all this talk of multiple cores is nice the fact remains that the only guaranteed method of boosting the performance of an architecture is to raise its clock speed. Moving to quad core is likely to have a detrimental effect on clock speed, which makes it a highly unattractive technology.

I really feel that Intel should be trying to ramp the Core 2 architecture clock speeds up as fast as possible. A 4-5GHz Core 2 Duo would be devastatingly quick in both past, current and future applications.