Intel 6-series chips are damaged goods, now what?

[thejamppa]

I was set to upgrade my E8400+P45 board into E2500K sandy bridge and P67 board as its clear that games I now play would like some more CPU power and prefirabely also more cores. Unreal engine seems to love more cores and some strategy games love to use one core for AI so my dual core isn't quite... enough.

But since Intel announced there's critical problem in 6-series chipsets in Sata 3/GB's system, purchasing Sandy Bridge is now not an an option till 6-series boards are fixed.

My options: Go For AMD (What Quad core would be atleast roughly 20% faster than my E8400 in AMD Section minimum?? without overclocking) and I am quite lost in that too. AMD is cheaper but doesn't quite go for Intel in raw calculating power. I was perhaps thinking something like Phenom II X4 965BE 3,4 Ghz quad core but I am unsure. I might save bit for going AMD system but I have been very hapy with my E8400 Wolfendale that I got in very first patch when they brought it for market pretty much 3 years ago.

Currently AMD line has nothing that can compete with i5-2500K equally but on the other hands do I really need such CPU when most games need more from VGA card, which I have very good GTX 460 SuperClocked... Or should I wait till Intel gets chipsets fixed and/or see when AMD's bulldozer comes? I know in IT world you're always waiting for better but Bulldozer has been developed for 5 years and might bring AMD back to challenger... or not.

Thanks for any input.

- Jani

[merlin]

Why not wait until mid-march-aprilish before upgrading?

[ck8-04]

Why not just upgrade to a Q9300 or a Q9550 if you have such a need for a quad core? It's the cheapest option and the P45 platform is still solid for gaming. Hell, I'm still using a 975X chipset with a Q6700 and I can run all my games at 1920x1200 with near max settings.

[mkk]

Yeah wait a little longer and see how soon the Bulldozers really come out and at what prices. If that takes too long then there's always the fixed socket 1155 route in a couple of months. It will be motherboard + CPU + RAM anyway.

I'm playing games just fine with a cheap Core 2 Duo prioritizing image quality and high graphics settings anyway. If the CPU starts feeling old it's not so much because of games, though over the course of this year there should be a few good games that just might require four cores to really fly. I've been set on Bulldozer for a while anyway, I'm just hoping they get out one reasonably priced eight-core model reasonably soon(like summer or so). Not that the least expensive four core wouldn't do me fine, it's just that if it's been taking me three years to upgrade...

[AldenWitt]

I was set to upgrade my E8400+P45 board into E2500K sandy bridge and P67 board as its clear that games I now play would like some more CPU power and prefirabely also more cores. Unreal engine seems to love more cores and some strategy games love to use one core for AI so my dual core isn't quite... enough.

But since Intel announced there's critical problem in 6-series chipsets in Sata 3/GB's system, purchasing Sandy Bridge is now not an an option till 6-series boards are fixed.

My options: Go For AMD (What Quad core would be atleast roughly 20% faster than my E8400 in AMD Section minimum?? without overclocking) and I am quite lost in that too. AMD is cheaper but doesn't quite go for Intel in raw calculating power. I was perhaps thinking something like Phenom II X4 965BE 3,4 Ghz quad core but I am unsure. I might save bit for going AMD system but I have been very hapy with my E8400 Wolfendale that I got in very first patch when they brought it for market pretty much 3 years ago.

Currently AMD line has nothing that can compete with i5-2500K equally but on the other hands do I really need such CPU when most games need more from VGA card, which I have very good GTX 460 SuperClocked... Or should I wait till Intel gets chipsets fixed and/or see when AMD's bulldozer comes? I know in IT world you're always waiting for better but Bulldozer has been developed for 5 years and might bring AMD back to challenger... or not.

Thanks for any input.

- Jani

It's only a ~month's wait, worth the wait. Bulldozer's coming soon too. Hold tight!

[thejamppa]

Thanks guys. I'll wait the Bulldozer and see how they fare.

- Jani