So.. Skylake is here. But is the price premium worth it?

[Andrew Sh]

Hey all!

So I have a dilemma at the moment. 

I've been waiting for Skylake for quite some time since I have an incomplete PC that I want to finish.

 

Now that it's here. we've discovered that performance is really not a big leap to drop your jaw for..

 

So let's discuss.

 

***

 

i7 4790k vs i7 6700k.

Performance difference are pretty much identical due to the higher clock rate on the Devil's Canyon cpu.

Gaming performance is within margin of error (trading blows)
Other stuff such as rendering and all that is still unclear but seems like Skylake cpu is edging it out about 2-3% in most cases.

 

WInner - Depends on pricing really. If 6700k costs more than about 20EU/£/$ more, then the 4790k wins..

 

***

 

Z97 vs Z170

Z97 is at the end of it's lifecycle (but definitely not obsolete)

Z170 is now the new norm for the next 2-3 years.

Unless you got an extreme enthusiast build, you won't make use of extra PCI lanes/extra ram capacity in a Z170.

Z97 will be quite a bit cheaper than Z170 for quite some time.

 

Winner - In most cases the Z97 for now.

 

***

 

DDR4 vs DDR3 = Practically equivalent in anything you throw at it these days. 

Like the Z97 vs Z170 comparison, unless you got an extreme enthusiast build (or need for work), you won't need more than 32gb RAM.

Cost - DDR3 wins by a longshot.

 

Winner - DDR3.

 

 

So looking at all that.. Is skylake really worth it? 

Probably not.

 

Will i7 4790k be obsolete soon? HELL NO.

Sandy Bridge is not obsolete and that's pretty old at this stage so I can see Devil's Canyon lasting a good ~5 years ahead before it's in any way worth changing.

In my opinion the second Tock for 14nm will be much more interesting than skylake itself.

 

Based on Pricing alone, I will go ahead and purchase myself a Z97m + i7 4790k combo.

I've found that Amazon.ES sells electronics for much cheaper than my local .co.uk. 

 

i7 4790k for just 317EU right now. (it's about 360 on Amazon.co.uk after converting from £)

 

On the other hand the Asrock Z97m Fatality Killer costs about 125EU on the UK site.

 

Will we be able to get a 5600k + Z170 (non budget one) for 442EU? Seriously doubt it.

What are your thoughts guys?

 

[Syntaxvgm]

I think DDR4 is well worth it now, and the prices are not insane. Consider having more than 16GB of memory in an ITX rig and the tune about skylake might change for some.

 

 

 

I'm likely moving to x99 for my next itx system, but either way I'm looking forward to upgrading to 2 non-ecc 16GB sticks. 

[arronleeds]

well the new i5 is only £10 more than the 4690k and in some of the benchies ive seen it trades with a 3770k and 4770k, id get the i5, the new i7 doesnt seem that much better and its £320.....

 

thats £20 more than a 5820k.

[Hunter7263]

BTW skylake is only 16 pcie lanes.

[siberiansteel11]

well.. I'm planning on getting a second hand 4970 this year assuming someone's going to sell cheap in my city LOL Can't really appreciate skylake to be honest

[Nonco]

Maybe if youre building from scratch, Upgrading doesnt seem worth it for me to have to buy a new CPU+Mobo+DDR4 ram

[Andrew Sh]

well the new i5 is only £10 more than the 4690k and in some of the benchies ive seen it trades with a 3770k and 4770k, id get the i5, the new i7 doesnt seem that much better and its £320.....

thats £20 more than a 5820k.

Well an i5 will always trade blows with an i7 in gaming. In fact quite often it's better.

It does seem the i5 5600k is a chip worth getting if building an i5 based system. I still can't really justify the price premium on the i7 combined with new mobo and RAM.

DDR4 might be better value now than a year ago but its still quite a long more expensive. Its also quite early in its life cycle.

2600mhz ddr4 will have cl15 or so which in performance index loses out to ripjaws 2133mhz cl9 but cost a lot more.

Thanks for the input about the i5. I should have added some details about it. Might do that tomorrow after doing some research

[Andrew Sh]

Maybe if youre building from scratch, Upgrading doesnt seem worth it for me to have to buy a new CPU+Mobo+DDR4 ram

I'm kind of building from scratch. Missing CPU, GPU, ram and mobo. Got the rest. Still believe z97 is better value at high end performance

[arronleeds]

Well an i5 will always trade blows with an i7 in gaming. In fact quite often it's better.

It does seem the i5 5600k is a chip worth getting if building an i5 based system. I still can't really justify the price premium on the i7 combined with new mobo and RAM.

DDR4 might be better value now than a year ago but its still quite a long more expensive. Its also quite early in its life cycle.

2600mhz ddr4 will have cl15 or so which in performance index loses out to ripjaws 2133mhz cl9 but cost a lot more.

Thanks for the input about the i5. I should have added some details about it. Might do that tomorrow after doing some research

the new i5 almost beats a 4790k in single core benchies,  its not just gaming bro , wish i would have waited and id have bought it.

[Syntaxvgm]

the new i5 almost beats a 4790k in single core benchies,  its not just gaming bro , wish i would have waited and id have bought it.

well....duh

core for core clock for now new archs generally are...better

[Andrew Sh]

the new i5 almost beats a 4790k in single core benchies, its not just gaming bro [emoji14], wish i would have waited and id have bought it.

Its always been like that bud the i7 only beats the i5 in multi core,for obvious reasons the 4690k keeps up with the 4790k in pretty much anything too. Just falls behind in rendering and such

[arronleeds]

well....duh

core for core clock for now new archs generally are...better

no need for the smarky comments.... sorry im not a intel genius.

[arronleeds]

Its always been like that bud the i7 only beats the i5 in multi core,for obvious reasons the 4690k keeps up with the 4790k in pretty much anything too. Just falls behind in rendering and such

i guess you learn something every day .

[Syntaxvgm]

no need for the smarky comments.... sorry im not a intel genius.

Well the difference between and i5 and i7 is hyperthreading, and if you are doing 1 core/1 thread,  of course a newer generation will win...unless I'm missing what you were saying 

[ryanmmax]

Hey all!

So I have a dilemma at the moment. 

I've been waiting for Skylake for quite some time since I have an incomplete PC that I want to finish.

 

Now that it's here. we've discovered that performance is really not a big leap to drop your jaw for..

 

So let's discuss.

 

***

 

i7 4790k vs i7 6700k.

Performance difference are pretty much identical due to the higher clock rate on the Devil's Canyon cpu.

Gaming performance is within margin of error (trading blows)

Other stuff such as rendering and all that is still unclear but seems like Skylake cpu is edging it out about 2-3% in most cases.

 

WInner - Depends on pricing really. If 6700k costs more than about 20EU/£/$ more, then the 4790k wins..

 

***

 

Z97 vs Z170

Z97 is at the end of it's lifecycle (but definitely not obsolete)

Z170 is now the new norm for the next 2-3 years.

Unless you got an extreme enthusiast build, you won't make use of extra PCI lanes/extra ram capacity in a Z170.

Z97 will be quite a bit cheaper than Z170 for quite some time.

 

Winner - In most cases the Z97 for now.

 

***

 

DDR4 vs DDR3 = Practically equivalent in anything you throw at it these days. 

Like the Z97 vs Z170 comparison, unless you got an extreme enthusiast build (or need for work), you won't need more than 32gb RAM.

Cost - DDR3 wins by a longshot.

 

Winner - DDR3.

 

 

So looking at all that.. Is skylake really worth it? 

Probably not.

 

Will i7 4790k be obsolete soon? HELL NO.

Sandy Bridge is not obsolete and that's pretty old at this stage so I can see Devil's Canyon lasting a good ~5 years ahead before it's in any way worth changing.

In my opinion the second Tock for 14nm will be much more interesting than skylake itself.

 

Based on Pricing alone, I will go ahead and purchase myself a Z97m + i7 4790k combo.

I've found that Amazon.ES sells electronics for much cheaper than my local .co.uk. 

 

i7 4790k for just 317EU right now. (it's about 360 on Amazon.co.uk after converting from £)

 

On the other hand the Asrock Z97m Fatality Killer costs about 125EU on the UK site.

 

Will we be able to get a 5600k + Z170 (non budget one) for 442EU? Seriously doubt it.

What are your thoughts guys?

By all your logic you should get a 2550k instead of a 4690k...

Price to performance is not the ruling factor either the CPUs in question... 10% is the "standard" improvement gen to gen, why is 4690k a better deal if it's only 10% better then the last gen.

[SolarNova]

Buying older generation CPU's currently doesn't matter much. If you find u can buy an older gen CPU +motherboard for a not so insignificant reduction in price vs a new gen, then go for the older one, especially for gaming since any performance gains in synthetics and hardcore compute tasks do not translate over to games very well.

 

As you mentioned, SandyBridge isn't even outdated yet performance wise (when taking into account OCing). And tbh it wont be until something comes along with a significant boost in performance clock for clock and allows for high clock speeds, at which point everything after SandyBridge and before said 'something' will also become obsolete.

Sandybridge, ivybridge, haswell ,broadwell, and skylake all have only given around 5-7% clock for clock boost in performance from one to the other. Granted that means Skylake is ~25% faster than Sandy clock for clock BUT from what iv read the average OC on Skylake is less than Sandy at around 4.5ghz on an average cooler and safe voltages (6600k), where as Sandy can easily hit 5ghz (2500k) in most cases, thus reducing that ~25% performance difference as the clocks are no longer the same.

 

TLDR: I wouldn't worry about buying older gen CPU's, Anything after and including Sandybridge CPU's will perform very similarly.

[dizmo]

I'd say wait a bit and see how it tests out. It's too early to reeeeally tell.

Did you see the benchmark where the memory speeds increased the chipset quite substantially in games?

Might be worth noting.

There's also features, the Z170 boards might have more features you're looking for.

 

Generally though new chips are never a jaw dropping improvement, sad to say.

[Ostwind]

BTW skylake is only 16 pcie lanes.

16 on the chip itself and 20 on the chipset

https://youtu.be/6LARindW1xk?t=1m22s

[JPDucky]

So now that that has been released, Will the prices on z97 and Devils Canyon go down?

[NumLock21]

4790K only has 16 lanes that's only enough for 2 graphic cards, and M.2 drives and PCIe SSD are limited to x2 mode. With Skylake it has 16 on the cpu and 20 on the chipset, which gives you a total of 36. Enough for plenty to go around, like 2-way SLI and still have enough lanes for PCIe SSDs. The M.2 on the Z170 runs at x4.

[Hunter7263]

16 on the chip itself and 20 on the chipset

https://youtu.be/6LARindW1xk?t=1m22s

The PCH has 20 lanes if that is what you are referring too. Its a lot like how you get to quad SLI on a Z97 board despite the fact that 1150 socket chips only had 16 lanes. The PCH basically manages whats connected to it so that you don't have eat up so many lanes from the CPU. The CPU it self still only has 16 lanes and that is the max it can use at once. The old chipset's pch had like 16 lanes I think. The PCH is more like a traffic controller that manages the intersection onto a large highway. The high way only supports 16 lanes but the little streets equal up to 20 lanes so the PCH gives green and red lights depending on what is coming from where in order to manage the traffic.

 

Also incase you where curious there where Z97 boards with up to 40 lanes on the board like this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130764

[keepcalmcarryon]

Don't know about you guys, but recently the micro center electronic store in California raised their prices as skylake releases.

[NumLock21]

The PCH has 20 lanes if that is what you are referring too. Its a lot like how you get to quad SLI on a Z97 board despite the fact that 1150 socket chips only had 16 lanes. The PCH basically manages whats connected to it so that you don't have eat up so many lanes from the CPU. The CPU it self still only has 16 lanes and that is the max it can use at once. The old chipset's pch had like 16 lanes I think. The PCH is more like a traffic controller that manages the intersection onto a large highway. The high way only supports 16 lanes but the little streets equal up to 20 lanes so the PCH gives green and red lights depending on what is coming from where in order to manage the traffic.

 

Also incase you where curious there where Z97 boards with up to 40 lanes on the board like this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130764

Z97 and X99 only has 8 gen 2 lanes from the chipset. Z170 has 20 gen 3 lanes from the chipset.

[Andrew Sh]

By all your logic you should get a 2550k instead of a 4690k...

Price to performance is not the ruling factor either the CPUs in question... 10% is the "standard" improvement gen to gen, why is 4690k a better deal if it's only 10% better then the last gen.

The 2500k which I think you meant is near to impossible to get as "new" anymore.

I'm comparing just the series that is about to end to the new one where this 10% doesn't exist. Try 2-3%

[Andrew Sh]

I'd say wait a bit and see how it tests out. It's too early to reeeeally tell.

Did you see the benchmark where the memory speeds increased the chipset quite substantially in games?

Might be worth noting.

There's also features, the Z170 boards might have more features you're looking for.

 

Generally though new chips are never a jaw dropping improvement, sad to say.

Yeah it really is sad. Skylake would have been nice to have as a bit more of a leap but the performance improvement was quite disappointing to me..

 

 

So now that that has been released, Will the prices on z97 and Devils Canyon go down?

Probably. In the past there was always a very minor drop.

You should see Devils Canyon stuff on small price reductions now (for example 5-10% off) but don't expect something like 30%+.

I had bought a 4790k back in september 2014 for £281 (which unfortunately I had to RMA because of some issues with a Z87 motherboard after the bios upgrade)

Now it's selling on Amazon.co.uk at £240 (on sale from £257)

 

So there is a small drop but normally intel stuff doesn't lose much value gen to gen.