Who's planning to upgrade to Haswell?

Rob Williams

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
Moderator
With Intel's Haswell right around the corner, I'm wondering who here is planning on making the move? It's supposed to be the most power-efficient desktop / server chips that Intel has ever crafted, and to be honest, I find that a lot more interesting than the 10-15% performance boost.

We'll of course have a review on the Core i7-4770K once it officially launches. As a hardcore enthusiast, I can't help but wish a six-core came along with this launch but... we can't have it all.
 

Optix

Basket Chassis
Staff member
It was hard enough to step up to Ivy Bridge, which wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for a super cool Editor In Chief. It's a no for me.

Haswell that ends well.

Sorry. I've got nothin'.
 

Rob Williams

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
Moderator
I'm perfectly happy with my Phenom II 940.

With a four-year rig, when do you think you'll upgrade? Sure doesn't matter if you don't feel the need to, though. It's not like the old days where your rig would feel out-of-date after six months.
 

madmat

Soup Nazi
Any upgrade I do will probably center around the GPU and possibly ram. Currently I have 4 gigs and it's been fine with it but if games get any more demanding I'll up it to 8. I wish I'd had the foresight to pick up a pair of 4 gig DDR2 kits when they were under $50. Now that it's gone out of style the price has nearly doubled. Still, $200 in ram is cheaper than buying everything over. I mean it's still a game of inches on PC upgrades. Not like when going from P4 to Core2 or an Athlon to Athlon 64 dual core. As to when I plan to upgrade to current gen stuff, well, when I have to. as a WC'er it's not as simple as it is if you air cool. I'd need a new CPU block as there's no top that works with the new Intel LGA boards for mine and possibly a new GPU block. Or I could scrap my loop and go with air cooling and only need to buy a CPU cooler. A tad drastic though.
 

RainMotorsports

Partition Master
I wouldn't mind grabbing a haswell laptop. My old gaming laptop needs a new battery a new power supply and the screen bezel is starting to crack. Main thing has always been the expense of getting something that can still keep up with my overclocked 9800M GTS. The IGP should be enough to play ST:O on low and the cpu will rape my core 2 duo and all on the cheap.
 

Kougar

Techgage Staff
Staff member
My 920 was still fine for my needs, but I really needed a new motherboard and that was the deciding factor. Was missing UEFI, USB 3, native Intel SATA 3 to name a few I'd use daily... Also my X58 board had several odd issues with it and I was tired of it drawing ~450w under load from the wall at 3.2Ghz. With Haswell-E not due for about two more years I bit the bullet and upgraded.

I was amused to pull my OS SSD out of the X58 rig and plug it into the Z87 board and have it boot up without a single complaint. Gonna image it then try a fresh install of Win 8 for awhile... can just image back if needed.
 
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BoySCouT

E.M.I.
Would you consider $289.99 a great price for the 4770k? Just noticed that Amazon has lowered the price. I have no clue what a good price is. Micro Center has it for $249 in store pickup only.
 

Optix

Basket Chassis
Staff member
I don't believe there are SKUs per se. Just making sure you're getting an unlocked chip as denoted by the trailing K.
 
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