Haswell-E time!

Yep. Intel Haswell-E 5960X processor, X99 chipset, DDR4, PCIe 3.0 galore, and more!

It's out there now. I am so tempted, too, price be damned! But methinks I will (try to) play it cool and wait just a little bit longer, let those 1st-gen implementations go through their teething pains, wait until Intel's 15nm "Skylake" stuff is more than a pipe dream, allow the inevitable Newer/Faster/Better Haswell-E proc comes out (lol, without deactivated microcode for buggy extensions), see those 8GB DDR4 sticks become affordable, etc etc.

I notice, reading last month's NCIX's CPU Magazine/Brochure, that they've benchmarked the 8-core entry level proc across a handful of middly- and high-tier X99 motherboards. Some phenomenal numbers across the whole range, makes my "old" X79 look like complete suckage.

But then they also benchmarked a $12,000 "Living Room Computer" which is basically the same setup running on a top-tier X99 mobo which packs the same fat GPU card setup and a pair of performance-RAIDed SSDs. It scored TWICE AS HIGH on every benchmark, it sustained about 115fps on Metro, the numbers look like five of my X79's added together. Can RAID-paired performance SSDs really make such a difference flat across the whole range of metrics when compared to a single decent SSD setup? The mobo was (presumably) better, and apparently runs ASUS-provided custom EUFI, but I can't see it alone standing so much higher than the "lesser" X99 mobos (including another one from ASUS).

Short answer, probably yes.

On any high end, modern system even a SATA 3 SSD will come up against the limits of the bus (600MBs). In terms of moving data around, having ~2x the drive bandwidth will likely not come up against the next slowest component. CPU <--> RAM is WAAAAAY faster (couldn't find numbers for Haswell-E but with the integrated controller in the CPU it definitely is on of the fastest buses in a consumer desktop), even CPU <--> GPU communication (8GBs for 16x PCIe 2.0, 15GBs for 3.0) far outstrips the SATA bus (though maybe not SATA Express, I don't know enough about it ATM).

If the benchmark tests used files off the SSDs, rather than load themselves entirely into RAM, then I would say those numbers are pretty close (though I would expect them to be slightly less than double as there is some overhead in RAID configs). Was the RAM at an identical clock?

Same 5960X processor, stock cooling, 4x4GB Corsair quad-channel CL15 DDR4-2133, not-bad Intel promotional SSD, and a pretty good nVidia card used in all the motherboard-comparison benchmarks, a fairly comprehensive selection of metrics for CPU, memory, number-crunch, graphics, bus speeds, thermals, drive speeds, bus speeds, etc. Basically a flat 25-40% increase on all scores across the board vs an extreme-end-elite-hardware-heavy uber X79 platform, CPU and memory functions dramatically blow away old scores, but component-dependent tasks (like gaming graphics) are only a bit better.

All these boards could run Metro around 58fps. My merely half-leet light-overclocked X79 can Metro at about 39fps, maybe up to 45fps when I allow it to run really hot. So this one particular benchmark is something I can understand and appreciate. I like and dislike that each major manufacturer (ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, and EVGA in this case) presented a few unique improvements and features that mod the Haswell-E architecture a little, and they're all good! But no One Board To Rule Them All - MSI packs streaming video and audio and network accelerator hardware en-route to the chipset, ASUS directly modded the LGA2011-3 CPU socket pins and VRM logic for stable overclocking, Gigabyte did some wizardry involving spliced PCIe lanes to bump bandwidth up (256Gbps to 320Gbps) to some of the physical slots (and even support x8/x16/x16/x8 setups), EVGA installed a series of precision clocks and per-slot-per-component controls and hyper overclocking options galore which will even appeal to the crazy nitro freaks. And these are just the middly-/high- entry-tier X99s, much better boards are out there right now and more to come (at hopefully lower costs) in upcoming months!

The "Living Room Computer" specified a better (the best, I think) ASUS ROG X99 mobo, somewhat better GPU-pair setup, watercooling and overclocking (>4.0GHz, they claim), the supertwins SSD RAID thing, and 4x4GB quad-channel G.Skill DDR4-2600. Probably everything in the case overclocked at least a little bit. Benchmarks are indeed astronomical and nearly unbelievable, and indeed basically twice as high in almost every measured category. I gotta say that $12,000 isn't realistic for my computers, and the whole "Living Room" form factor is kinda ugly and useless for my tastes - but it's some damned impressive hardware setup, whatever it is!

Probably worth heading over to NCIC and picking up a free copy of the mag, if you're interested.

Cool. I'll hit up a Canada Computers the next time I'm by one as I'm pretty sure they have the same mag. Unfortunately, I'm a long way from NCIX being in Ontario; I do miss their stores and it would be nice to have someone to compete with Canada Computers out here.

Probably be a while before Haswell-E hits my realm of possibilities but I like to keep up on what's current so that I know what to get in 3 years :)