A recent thread by Dick Nervous required a reply that ended up growing into a much larger topic about the "State of the union" for Intel and it's variuos CPU's and chipsets that have recently come to market, will be out soon. or in the next year (2008)

He was trying to decide if going to DDR-3 and P-35 Chipset was worth it for his new 1333FSB chip, or if he should stick with the previous performance leader, NVIDIA's 680i.

http://forums.pcapex.com/hardware_ad...tml#post657736

Cost was not the objext for him..but it might be for you, You can get tons of performance with a 100-200$ 2GB kits of DDR-2, The price of admision for DDR-3 800 is 350$ all the way to nearly 600 for DDR 1390!
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The most recent release of high end DDR3 Chips are rated up to a base speed ot 1800mhz, and are overclocking slightly past 2000mhz...wich is quite a bit higher than the current 1200-1300mhz from DDR-2, but with the looser "Timings" required, it is not as huge of gain as one might hope, but there are still some decent gains. (No priicing available..but I bet it's gonna hurt, ALOT!)

That isn't all bad, if you look at the early release DDR-2 comppared to what you can get today...it's not even in the same league as to price, speed or timings! Anandtech metioned that one memory maker executive thought that DDR-3 was doing quite well in the short tiem it has been available in retail...much better than the dismal launch of DDR-2 (Performance wise)

Gains in performance are often cumulative...the recently available 1333FSB chips aren't a huge bump over the 1066FSB CPU's, but add that little bump with along with DDR-3, and you can have a nice gain over a current 1066 CPU with DDR-2 setup.

This will be even more noticable with a Quad Core, the "Penryn' code named 45NM chips are due out in Jan of 08, and will have more "Cache" (6mb for dual cores, 12mb for Quad's) than the current Core 2/Quad chips (Max of 4MB Dual Core, 8MB Quad Core) plus some other tinkering on the insde (And a new Instruction set) that seems to be initially showing some pretty impressive gains...clock speeds are expected to climb well above 3GHZ (3.33ghz) at launch for the high end CPU's, with room to grow as they perfect the new process.

I would not be surprised if you can get a "Stock" 4ghz Quad core by this time next year!

A low FSB can potentialy choke an Overclocked CPU with 4 cores on Intel since it has to go through the North Bridge (AMD has the memory controller on the CPU, so chipsets and ram are not quite as important right now to them) more so than a dual core as the CPU speeds climb..this is not currently an issue though, so don't read too much into it, just food for thought!

You typicaly won't be seeing a massive 50-100% jump in performance soon like we did going from the P-4 to the Core 2 Duo, it's just going to be 2% here and 5% there...but when you look at the end of a lifespan of an architecture, it can add up to 50% or more over what was avaialbe at launch....think back to the old AMD XP, AMD 64 and Intel P-4, right now we are probably approaching on the middle of the Core 2's lifespan.

If one is really looking towards the future, you should consider a 3rd chipset that is due out soon you might not be aware of... if you can wait just a bit, the X-38

The recently launched P-35 is just kind of a minorly updated 1333FSB "Equivalent" to the slightly outdated 965 "Value/Performance" Intel chipset...like what the 650i is to the 680i for NVIDIA. This chipset is no slouch, and is kicking all kinds of ass!



Check out the details of Oscar Woo's Incredible DFI coming in at 632FSB! (Thats' 2528FSB using Intel "Quad Pump" formula)

632fsb done on DFI P35-T2R by Oskar-Wu - XtremeSystems Forums


With NVIDIA the gap in real world performance (680i vs 650i) is not as big as it is between the 965 and the current "King Kong" performance/power user/enthusiast Intel chipset, the 975x

The upcoming X-38 will be DDR-3 ONLY..and typically with Intel, there is at least a 5% to 15% gain in performance for the "Good chipsets" over there value/performance versions, it usually hovers around the 10% mark.

That means it could potentially be 25% faster than a current DDR-2 setup, but most likey 15-20%

One other factor that can slightly tip in it's favor is it will be the first SLI Chipset "Officially" supported for the Core 2 Duo/Quad family.

As I have mentioned..they won't offer it in any other flavor than DDR-3, so you know it's not gonna carry an extra baggage along like the P-35 for backwards compatability too!

Another minor FYI note...and I know this is not one of everyones' major concerns, but P-35 is X-Fire only, and is limited to 8x when using 2 cards, the X-38 will be using the full 16x PCIE lanes for dual NVIDIA SLI cards.

There are also rumors that X-38 might possibly have built in support the next bump in FSB wich should be around 1600MHZ, something the current version of P-35 won't have...but I cannot confirm this.

Here are some recent articles to look at and ponder...in order of newest to oldest, keep that in mind!

DDR-3 Memory

AnandTech: OCZ Introduces DDR3-1800

AnandTech: Super Talent & TEAM: DDR3-1600 Is Here!

AnandTech: Kingston Launches Low-Latency DDR3

AnandTech: DDR3 vs. DDR2


Chipsets

P-35 and 680i

AnandTech: NVIDIA 680i SLI: Official 1333MHz FSB CPU Support Arrives

AnandTech: Intel P35: Intel's Mainstream Chipset Grows Up

AnandTech: Intel P35 Memory Performance: A Closer Look

X-38

X38... when? - XtremeSystems Forums

What about X38? - Universal abit USA Forums

CPU's

AnandTech: Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 Preview: The Desktop Gets a 1333MHz FSB

Penryn~Wolfdale (Dual Core) and Yorkfield (Quad Core)

Wolfdale and Yorkfield launch clocks revealed

Harper Town and the latest Intel roadmap (Harper Town may be the new code name for Yorkfield)

VR-Zone : Technology Beats - Intel Harpertown Model Number & Clock Speed Unveiled

Attached Thumbnails

 

That is a great post, and a ton of information.

For a variety of reasons that I'm not going to go into I may not be able to wait until the X-38 Chipset comes out, but it sounds like the way to go. The performance of that OCZ DDR3 RAM in that Anadtech review was quite impressive. It makes me think that if I go with a P35 DDR3 board now I will have everything I will need to do some worthwhile upgrades without replacing everything. The P35/6850/DDR3/8800GTX combo would get me through the next 6 months or so no problem. The next step would be to move to the X38 platform, retaining the CPU, RAM and video card I have. After that I could go with either a new video card or SLI.

I figure an upgrade path like that should be able to take me into 2009 with a machine that may not be bleeding edge, but still performs really well. And if the overclocks people are already seeing is any indication, combined with the water cooling I will have, I can probably stretch it even further.

Thanks Necro, I think you just helped me decide on a course of action. I will wait a few weeks to see if any X38 boards hit the street, but I now have a plan if I can't get one.

If nothing else, I'm certainly very excited. I'll prolly wait until I notice my CPU holding me back then next year I'll upgrade to the higher end of what's out like I did with this rig 8 months ago.

Nice thread as per usual Solid.

Nice to hear about, but with all this x-38 stuff, why is DFI coming out with a DDR2 and DDR3 model of the x-38




I know I ruin all the hopes and dreams of on the edge of the seat hardware guys, but i like the classic, late return of the DFI wonder. The boards may come late, but as I've talked to many about, they test them more than Tyan does with their server boards...

Much will come from these boards although they may not get here for some time.

Okay, so I've done some more research and I have just one question: When will we see X38 boards? I would much rather get that now, if I can.

X38 they I have heard later this month but I have also heard later this year. Im not to sure.

Quote: Originally Posted by Cpt.Planet X38 they I have heard later this month but I have also heard later this year. Im not to sure.

I seem to remember hearing next month for Intel's "BoneTrail" "BadAxe2" replacement.

Well, I ordered the E6850 and the Corsair RAM. I wanted to get the OCZ but nobody has it in stock and the superfast one was listed someplace for over $800, so I skipped it. Now I am just waiting for the mobo. Hopefully the X38s will be out by the end of the month, otherwise I might have to go with the Asus Blitz Extreme which adds water cooling to those cool looking heat pipes Asus has for the chipset and mosfets. Otherwise it looks like it is pretty much the same as the P5K3 Deluxe.

The Blitz Extreme is a good board. Very expensive, but you get an external POST code LCD, STALKER, thermal probes, integrated water cooling and tube adaptors, and sound on a daughterboard to reduce interference. And not to mention awesome overclocking abilities. It'll also take two ATi cards in Crossfire, and there's a special chip between the two PCI-E slots that provides an extra four lanes to the slave slot to give boosted performance.

Quote: Originally Posted by reflux The Blitz Extreme is a good board. Very expensive, but you get an external POST code LCD, STALKER, thermal probes, integrated water cooling and tube adaptors, and sound on a daughterboard to reduce interference. And not to mention awesome overclocking abilities. It'll also take two ATi cards in Crossfire, and there's a special chip between the two PCI-E slots that provides an extra four lanes to the slave slot to give boosted performance.

Its the striker with the P35 chipset, and a watercooling block, its nice.

Quote: Originally Posted by reflux The Blitz Extreme is a good board. Very expensive, but you get an external POST code LCD, STALKER, thermal probes, integrated water cooling and tube adaptors, and sound on a daughterboard to reduce interference. And not to mention awesome overclocking abilities. It'll also take two ATi cards in Crossfire, and there's a special chip between the two PCI-E slots that provides an extra four lanes to the slave slot to give boosted performance.

It's only $50 more than the P5K3 Dlx and the watercooling alone is worth that. I'm an nVidia guy (8800GTX) so while the crossfire stuff is interesting, it doesnt matter to me. Unless someone wants to give me a crossfire setup.....

The rest of that stuff is sweet, sweet icing on the speed demon cake

Well if you get one make sure you keep us updated on how good it is.

Quote: Originally Posted by reflux Well if you get one make sure you keep us updated on how good it is.

That goes without saying once I get it all together in the Megadeth case. I have a week off at the end of the month when I plan on getting this all done. I hope.