Will Haswell be significantly better than Ivy Bridge?

[PP Mguire]

Even Core 2 is getting rather obsolete unless you have one of the quads. For regular usage if it cost me 100 bucks to get an i3 over a Core 2 for a laptop I'd do it. Then again, I've owned or still own almost all of the chips in question. I have only owned 2 laptops, and the second one happened to be a P8400 based laptop with DDR3. Recently my fiance owned an Acer laptop for a brief time that had a SB based i3 with the same speed DDR3 both running HDDs. The Acer was significantly faster at what she does than the yesteryear gaming beast I had. All she does is get online, stream movies/anime, and chat with people as she doesn't really game anymore. Best part is, that particular laptop was only 250 bucks 4 months ago. Anybody in the market now has no reason to go any slower than a Core i first gen unless a comparable AMD laptop is cheaper. Then you run into power issues as they typically take more power.

Like I said, there's no reason to buy Core 2 based anything unless you get it for next to nothing as faster solutions are next to nothing now since tech outdates itself so quickly. Another thing to think about is, the new consoles are making multi-tasking such a demand and with those come 64bit native and multi-core native environments. Everything is about to get a lot more CPU demanding in the next couple of years making anything less than a quad rather obsolete for things that will run on more than 2 cores.

All that without even going into architectural details. The next step to that would be, 4k is literally right around the corner. My fiance's poor Q8200 struggles with that because the 7950GT I have in her machine doesn't/can't help.

 

[LEDPros]

I completely agree that 4k changes everything. Thing is, I am most excited for 4k because it will drive all the 1080 hardware down even more. I doubt I will ever buy into 4k, because I dont even own a screen larger then 22" anymore. I had a 42" tv, but even at that size 1080 is plenty good enough for the distance I sat away from it.

I don't think 4k is as gimmicky as 3D has been, but I do believe they will push it the same, acting as if its SO much better then 1080. Whatever, because it will leave me all the 1080 "scraps" for next to nothing.

 

[PP Mguire]

4k isn't a gimmick at all, as the resolution increase actually changes the game compared to the junk that is 3D. Anything 27" and over starts to suffer from pixel stretch when at 1080p which degrades the quality. 4k greatly reduces this. It also helps gaming tremendously as it produces a sharper image without the need for high amounts of AA. The only drawback of 4k is high prices at introduction and movie sizes will be considerately large. After a while it won't matter though, but for now 4k is still in its infancy. I suspect it will take great strides towards the mainstream market in the next 2 years with how fast manufacturers are adopting to the wants of enthusiasts. I've even already seen 4k remastered BD.

 

[LEDPros]

Well yeah, if you game then requirements are always different. I think 90% of people with computers don't play anything more then solitaire. What I was talking about is movie watching, in a HTPC setting... 4k is nice, but it all depends how far away you sit. A 42" tv at 10 feet away isn't going to really benefit from 4k- all its going to do is make your HTPC run slower. I'm sure the guys at best buy will try to convince people of it though.

 

[PP Mguire]

Any screen no matter the size can benefit from higher pixel density as it has a sharper image with the appropriate content being fed to it. A 1080p 42" TV at 10ft is pixeli, and my 1080p projector producing a 120" image sitting 15ft away is also noticeably pixeli. To be clear, I was also talking about movies and TV, as lately that's all I use my own PC for. Like I said, anything over 27" suffers from image stretching and larger TVs suffer greatly because the image produced just isn't large enough. This is typically reduced by distance sat, but a 40" screen to me is simply too small sitting on the other side of the room. By the amount of large format sales increasing over the past 2 years I would say others feel the same way. Thing is, 1080p on a 70" screen sitting 10ft away looks terrible. Reminds me of rear projection SD screens that were around 50"+.

By the time 4k even starts becoming the norm integrated hardware will be able to handle 4k movie playback easily.

 

[LEDPros]

1080 70" at ten feet, yes that would be pixelated. But 42" at 10ft really isn't.

Here's the famous chart that has been around, and I think it's fairly accurate from what I have noticed.

 

[PP Mguire]

I disagree, but that's because I'm an HD ***** more so than an audiophile. I have owned all sorts of TVs and settled on projection because as I literally just told a friend of mine a 120" screen still looks big at 20ft away without noticing pixelation. A 40" TV at 15ft away to reduce pixelation is too small for me. In all honesty, I can't go to a friends house to watch movies, they have to come here.

Still doesn't detest the fact that higher resolution reduces image stretching and a sharper image always looks better regardless of size or viewing distance.

 

[steve10765]

I disagree, but that's because I'm an HD ***** more so than an audiophile. I have owned all sorts of TVs and settled on projection because as I literally just told a friend of mine a 120" screen still looks big at 20ft away without noticing pixelation. A 40" TV at 15ft away to reduce pixelation is too small for me. In all honesty, I can't go to a friends house to watch movies, they have to come here.

Still doesn't detest the fact that higher resolution reduces image stretching and a sharper image always looks better regardless of size or viewing distance.

Its more of the fact that it will be hard to notice the increased quality, yes the image will be sharper but we are too far away to take advantage of it

 

[PP Mguire]

Its more of the fact that it will be hard to notice the increased quality, yes the image will be sharper but we are too far away to take advantage of it

Swinging back to the beginning, that depends on how large your screen is and who you are. I don't care how far back I am, if the movie is a DVD I can tell the difference no matter the distance because it looks like ****. 4k vs 1080p will be the exact same to people like me in no time. I already think most 1080p content looks terrible due to compression methods even in legit discs.

 

[LEDPros]

Well DVD's are upconverted for 1080 screens, so of course you will see the difference at any distance.

But I can't imagine a Bluray running in its native resolution on a tv that can accept an unscaled image (theres a name for that..) is going to be noticeable.

To say 1080p looks terrible is a big stretch... I have never heard anyone say that.