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Haswell is HERE now!


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The chips shipped with a defect and rev 2 is due at the end of june so I would not recommend ordering one at this time. Besides the Flagship boards are not out yet nor are the Thunderbolt boards from the majors.

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OS X in its current state will not even boot on a haswell system. I'd expect new haswell Macs at WWDC and a 10.8.4 update soon after to add support for the new chipset, CPU and graphics.

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The Haswell chips don't bring much to desktops in terms of an upgrade. The new z87 boards from ASUS and Gigabyte seem really decent and pricing is in line with current boards (with my supplier at least), but I think I will give Haswell a miss. It does not warrant the cost to move from Sandy/Ivy Bridge to Haswell with virtually no improvement in processing power. I am not even sure the IG HD4600 is going to warrant that either. This is why I only upgrade every 3-4 years. I have become use to Intel's tick tock cycle (google it).

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I have an old system with P45 chipset that has been running so well in vanilla config. It's time for me to do an upgrade because I do lots of video transcoding; and the Intel QuickSync CODEC now is available on Handbrake. Yet taking inputs from the posts here, I may wait to see if Apple implements the high-end mobile CPU into the MacMini with HD5200.

As for 10.8.4, Dr. Hurt, the Beta program already ended at 12E55, which means it is final. That's why I was asking anyone has tried out the new Haswell motherboards available now.

Yet thanks for all the inputs and your time.

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To be honest I was not impressed with what I've read about Haswell thus far in terms of improvements. Certainly in my opinion isn't worth the upgrade from SNB or IVB even from my first gen i7 processor either. I personally find it a waste how Intel just opts to waste previous die space on an iGPU every time on the high end i7 processors with 90% of the masses using these CPUs utilize a dedicated GPU. Makes more sense to me in an i3, i5, or i series laptop configuration but when pure performance is needed from a desktop I find the die space spent on the iGPU rather wasteful.

 

In regards to jumping the gun on making a Haswell rig for OS X with no before hand implementation by Apple themselves yet is a recipe for bad things to come. :)

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well, I very much welcome Haswell. I am still on a core2quad. To be honest, it served me well, worth every penny. I did wanted to upgrade for some time now but just couldn't justify buying into 1155 based chips given that they are now around for ages.

So I can finally make a step up, although not really for processing power. I don't do gaming nor encoding/decoding. Compiling LaTex documents is the only thing were it bugs me, but that is such a simple process only clock-rate helps not architecture. Upgrading will bring me thunderbolt and USB3 on an itx board with 16gb or more of ram and a powerfull onboard graphic. I hope we will see some it boards shipped with the soldered on GTe3 variant. My guess is this will be what we will find in apples line up.

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OS X in its current state will not even boot on a haswell system. I'd expect new haswell Macs at WWDC and a 10.8.4 update soon after to add support for the new chipset, CPU and graphics.

 

There will be a special version of 10.8.4 as the public release does not support it yet.

 

The Haswell chips don't bring much to desktops in terms of an upgrade. The new z87 boards from ASUS and Gigabyte seem really decent and pricing is in line with current boards (with my supplier at least), but I think I will give Haswell a miss. It does not warrant the cost to move from Sandy/Ivy Bridge to Haswell with virtually no improvement in processing power. I am not even sure the IG HD4600 is going to warrant that either. This is why I only upgrade every 3-4 years. I have become use to Intel's tick tock cycle (google it).

 

From what I have seen so far is Asus failed with every price point. Very sad. AsRock makes the nicest boards so far. Will be nice to see the flagship boards ship later this month.

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The chips shipped with a defect and rev 2 is due at the end of june so I would not recommend ordering one at this time. Besides the Flagship boards are not out yet nor are the Thunderbolt boards from the majors.

Look for C2 stepping for south bridge in few months

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Look for C2 stepping for south bridge in few months

 

There is no south bridge. All in one package now. Z68 was the first.

 

Intel's C2 Stepping chips production started in late April and will be out at the end of june as intel has stated back in the beginning of May.

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A good test would be someone trying to boot in a Haswell CPU with the current version of 10.8.4, but using the kernel patcher module of Chameleon, to see if it can be of any help in this particular case (new architectures).

 

All the best!

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There is no south bridge. All in one package now. Z68 was the first.

 

Intel's C2 Stepping chips production started in late April and will be out at the end of june as intel has stated back in the beginning of May.

 

Z68 was not on the same package with SNB, I think you are confusing a few things there. Z68 had some enhancements and OC ability.

You are incorrect when it comes to this discussion since LynxPoint LP has not been released yet. HSWL and Lynxpoint LP are 2 different die's on the on package and are targeted for LP and tablet devices. But for mainstream there are still the southbridge/ a.k.a PCH to CPU design. I don't think that the current motherboards have C2 LP yet, maybe a bit later. For Lynxpoint LP that is a different issue.

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There is no south bridge. All in one package now. Z68 was the first.

 

Intel's C2 Stepping chips production started in late April and will be out at the end of june as intel has stated back in the beginning of May.

Z68 was not on the same package with SNB, I think you are confusing a few things there. Z68 had some enhancements and OC ability.

You are incorrect when it comes to this discussion since LynxPoint LP has not been released yet. HSWL and Lynxpoint LP are 2 different die's on the on package and are targeted for LP and tablet devices. But for mainstream there are still the southbridge/ a.k.a PCH to CPU design. I don't think that the current motherboards have C2 LP yet, maybe a bit later. For Lynxpoint LP that is a different issue.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_Controller_Hub

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Z68 was not on the same package with SNB, I think you are confusing a few things there. Z68 had some enhancements and OC ability.

You are incorrect when it comes to this discussion since LynxPoint LP has not been released yet. HSWL and Lynxpoint LP are 2 different die's on the on package and are targeted for LP and tablet devices. But for mainstream there are still the southbridge/ a.k.a PCH to CPU design. I don't think that the current motherboards have C2 LP yet, maybe a bit later. For Lynxpoint LP that is a different issue.

 

No, Z68 was the first South/North bridge in one. Then all of x79. Haswell is the same. All on one chipset. This has nothing to do with mobile.

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No, Z68 was the first South/North bridge in one. Then all of x79. Haswell is the same. All on one chipset. This has nothing to do with mobile.

Again you are wrong here Rampage:

Intel's first implementation of MC to CPU was a side project before Yonah ( cant remember the name now but starts with a "D") which was shut down and Merom was born.

Most area in NB was used for MC and that was moved to CPU and now called SA + few other minor designs.

The bulky analogue design was moved to PCH ( glorified ICH) + what ever ICH had before. So instead of a 3 chip solution now you have 2 including HASWL BUT HASWL has now integrated voltage regulators to reduce MB makers BOM.

 

HASWL has 2 different designs,

1) HASWL + Lynx point PCH => notice 2 packages

2) HASWL + Lynx point LP => 2 Si parts on 1 package making it smaller and cheaper to design and manufacture but harder to validate.

Option 2 will be used for LP mobile devices and option 1 will be used for traditional computer designs

 

Traditionally Intel does this so called iteration or evolution to fine-tune its manufacturing techniques and eventually will move everything into 1 Si package but for now the FR is too high and that has to wait a bit, I don't think even SL will be 1 Si design.

I hope this helps you to understand.

 

 

Yes they called it PCH now, as I mentioned before it is basically a glorified ICH and marketing name to show a "new" design but when it boils down to it still an ICH concept and nothing new here.

Look at it as a pumped up ICH with DMI and FDI and few other things. Really if you look at it nothing revolutionary but evolutionary to reduce cost with least design change and most ICH designs still in PCH.

Now when all things move together into one design that is when things really change but that also means reduced user visibility and almost no customization and OC ability which I don't like.

Hope this helps.

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Again you are wrong here Rampage:

Intel's first implementation of MC to CPU was a side project before Yonah ( cant remember the name now but starts with a "D") which was shut down and Merom was born.

Most area in NB was used for MC and that was moved to CPU and now called SA + few other minor designs.

The bulky analogue design was moved to PCH ( glorified ICH) + what ever ICH had before. So instead of a 3 chip solution now you have 2 including HASWL BUT HASWL has now integrated voltage regulators to reduce MB makers BOM.

 

HASWL has 2 different designs,

1) HASWL + Lynx point PCH => notice 2 packages

2) HASWL + Lynx point LP => 2 Si parts on 1 package making it smaller and cheaper to design and manufacture but harder to validate.

Option 2 will be used for LP mobile devices and option 1 will be used for traditional computer designs

 

Traditionally Intel does this so called iteration or evolution to fine-tune its manufacturing techniques and eventually will move everything into 1 Si package but for now the FR is too high and that has to wait a bit, I don't think even SL will be 1 Si design.

I hope this helps you to understand.

 

 

 

Yes they called it PCH now, as I mentioned before it is basically a glorified ICH and marketing name to show a "new" design but when it boils down to it still an ICH concept and nothing new here.

Look at it as a pumped up ICH with DMI and FDI and few other things. Really if you look at it nothing revolutionary but evolutionary to reduce cost with least design change and most ICH designs still in PCH.

Now when all things move together into one design that is when things really change but that also means reduced user visibility and almost no customization and OC ability which I don't like.

Hope this helps.

 

The chipset is still one package now. Part of there die shrinking plan which started with z68. Moving everything back onto the CPU's will create the same issues we had in the 1990's. A uniform chipset on a single die and not broken up across the board I am ok with but everything on the CPU I am not. Many MB manufactures plan to create or buy a 3rd party chipset for there boards once it is all on the die. Very promising information on it from what I have see.

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The Haswell chips don't bring much to desktops in terms of an upgrade. The new z87 boards from ASUS and Gigabyte seem really decent and pricing is in line with current boards (with my supplier at least), but I think I will give Haswell a miss. It does not warrant the cost to move from Sandy/Ivy Bridge to Haswell with virtually no improvement in processing power. I am not even sure the IG HD4600 is going to warrant that either. This is why I only upgrade every 3-4 years. I have become use to Intel's tick tock cycle (google it).

 

Haswell (like Ivy Bridge) is NOT for anyone with current-generation Intel hardware looking to crossgrade; it is for those with Nehalem (or older) Intel hardware (or any AMD hardware) as the improvements are pretty much mostly in those mobile SKUs (the same was largely true of Ivy Bridge, in fact). Since I am looking to migrate from Q6600, Haswell is pretty much aimed at me (because I skipped both Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge). Further, what incentive does Intel have to improve CPUs, since we as users (especially mainstream users) keep insisting on baby-step software changes, if we allow any changes at all?

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The chipset is still one package now. Part of there die shrinking plan which started with z68. Moving everything back onto the CPU's will create the same issues we had in the 1990's. A uniform chipset on a single die and not broken up across the board I am ok with but everything on the CPU I am not. Many MB manufactures plan to create or buy a 3rd party chipset for there boards once it is all on the die. Very promising information on it from what I have see.

The die shrinking plan is always an ongoing process and not specific to cougar point. Z68 is basically the same as P67 but fused differently for adding small enhancements that I am not going to explain here.

You are just repeating what I stated before that Cougarpoint, Pantherpoint and Lynxpoint are basically enhanced ICH with additional design boxes moved from NB to PCH and yes "one" package.

Moving everything back onto the CPU's will create the same issues we had in the 1990's

That statement is confusing because in 1990's we had no such thing as a true SOC please explain. The "design" technology to have a true SOC has been around since stone age and the only limiting factor was to FAB the design for the right failure rate and right price.

True SOC will minimize power consumption, minimize design rules and need less parts which is music to toy makers around the world.

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The die shrinking plan is always an ongoing process and not specific to cougar point. Z68 is basically the same as P67 but fused differently for adding small enhancements that I am not going to explain here.

You are just repeating what I stated before that Cougarpoint, Pantherpoint and Lynxpoint are basically enhanced ICH with additional design boxes moved from NB to PCH and yes "one" package.

 

That statement is confusing because in 1990's we had no such thing as a true SOC please explain. The "design" technology to have a true SOC has been around since stone age and the only limiting factor was to FAB the design for the right failure rate and right price.

True SOC will minimize power consumption, minimize design rules and need less parts which is music to toy makers around the world.

 

I have to agree with my esteemed fellow.

 

Many people forget that it isnt just about the technological knowledge of computer sciences needed to build it, it is also about the technology that can build it for the mass market. You can make all the 512bit CPUs in the ara of 64bit CPU era but no one could afford it because the manufacturing cost would be outrageous. Every leap in computer technology needs a leap in manufacturing technology before it becomes mainstream.

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On a side note, is the SATA Express related to Haswell ? SSD bandwith on the new MacBook Air is insane (600/700)..

 

Hope to see some Z87 boards with SATA Express.

 

I don't think the MBA is using SATA express. The specs haven't been finalized and won't be included till intel 9-series chipset.

It's probably using standard PCIe protocol. I guess we'll find out for sure once we get an ioreg from a new MBA.

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