I have reached the point where I want to upgrade CPU and MB.

As the title says I quite like the look of the i5-3570K and wanted advice from more experienced users on this CPU. (AMD = No because I prefer Intel)

In addition, any help on Mobo (preferably Asus) to go with this CPU would be appreciated. This will go on my Q9300 system with Asus GTX660TI

I would also like to know if I could use built in CPU graphics to run mundane stuff like browsing and HD Video while using 660TI as dedicated cruncher.

Thanks in advance with any help. It has been over 4 years since I last built a computer and feel a little out of touch with the current processors.


ADDED

Must have "Virtualization" USB 3, PCIe 3 and Sata 3 but these are probably already a given just thought I'd mention.

Why not look at the i5-4570 'Haswell'? The internal GPU is no slouch at crunching, either, and without a discrete GPU that entire system box is drawing less than 90 watts from the wall (monitor powered separately).

The K following the 3570 means it's unlocked which means you can OC it easily. If you don't want to OC then you might be able to find a non-K model running at similar speed for less money.

Since it's Ivy Bridge I don't think that model has PCIe 3, I think you must go to the newer Haswell models for that.

It doesn't have HT (hyper-threading). If you look you will find Xeon models that run at similar speed and have HT and are similarly priced. What the Xeon's don't have is onboard video but your mobo will likely have that anyway.

Edit added:

I just noticed at Newegg Canada, the i5-4670K (Haswell, new) is $5 cheaper than the i5-3570K (Ivy Bridge, old). That's a bargain but you might find the mobo's for Haswell are more expensive than mobo's for Ivy Bridge but you may have to go Haswell anyway if you want PCIe 3.

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BOINC <<--- credit whores, pedants, alien hunters

Thanks Richard and Dagorath I've looked at those and while I'm a long way from deciding yet I have dropped the requirement for PCIe 3.0

An i5-3570K does support PCIE3 (it's the i3's that don't), but PCIE3 doesn't offer any significant advantage for this project at present, just at POEM.
I agree however that one of the i5-4xxx processors would be a better buy; they are slightly more powerful/power efficient. The i5-4xxx series also supports PCIE3, but have better iGPU's (~50% for most).
You can plug your monitor into the on-board video port and still use the 660Ti as a dedicated cruncher. You can even crunch on the iGPU too (not here, but at OpenCL GPU projects such as Einstein).

The price difference of the motherboards isn't much, and it makes sense to get a newer motherboard for a new system.

Basically most Intel processors now support USB 3, PCIe 3 and Sata 3, but while almost all support Virtualization not all support VT-d Virtualization introduced with Haswell.

There are no i3-4xxx processors, and I don't know if any are in the pipeline.

Note that the K models don't support VT-d Virtualisation, this includes the i5-3570K, i5-4570K and the i7-4770K. - VT-d is Intel® Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O

i5-3570, i5-4570, i5-4430 and i7-4470 support VT-d Virtualisation

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processor-comparison/compare-intel-processors.html?select=desktop

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Please note that the K models also Do Not support Virtualisation. This includes the i5-3570K, i5-4570K and the i7-4770K.
By Virtualization I mean, Intel® Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (VT-d)

VT-d being distinct from VT-x which is the feature some projects require for running their Virtual Box.

Would a cruncher miss anything if a rig didn't have VT-d? That's not a rhetorical question, I don't understand how it might be useful for DC or number crunching.

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BOINC <<--- credit whores, pedants, alien hunters

Please note that the K models also Do Not support Virtualisation. This includes the i5-3570K, i5-4570K and the i7-4770K.
By Virtualization I mean, Intel® Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (VT-d)

VT-d being distinct from VT-x which is the feature some projects require for running their Virtual Box.

Would a cruncher miss anything if a rig didn't have VT-d? That's not a rhetorical question, I don't understand how it might be useful for DC or number crunching.

I don't think it has any use in the world of DC. However both are supported by the i5 4670

Thanks to all of you, I really appreciate it and without your help I would've bought the wrong one. I have decided to go for i5 4570 or 4670 (shame about the locked multiplier) so it looks like I'll be joining Richard crunching at Einstein (used to be one of my projects) with the integrated GPU while continuing to crunch here with the GTX660TI.

Will there be any problems running 2 GPU projects? I mean I won't want a GPUGrid WU on the integrated GPU.

Now to hunt through the potential MB's

Thanks to Richard for pointing out that the onchip GPU can be used for crunching with OpenGL, I didn't know. I think I will go Haswell for my next CPU purchase too.

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BOINC <<--- credit whores, pedants, alien hunters

Will there be any problems running 2 GPU projects? I mean I won't want a GPUGrid WU on the integrated GPU.

No problem. I also have an Ivy Bridge i7-3770K which sometimes crunches here using one of two GTX 670s - it's on light duties at the moment because it seems to have been suffering from heatstroke.

That same machine is currently crunching OpenCL (not GL, Dagorath) tasks at Einstein using the on-chip HD 4000: we seem to be using older server software here which doesn't display the Intel GPU in the host details.

Please note that the K models also Do Not support Virtualisation. This includes the i5-3570K, i5-4570K and the i7-4770K.
By Virtualization I mean, Intel® Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (VT-d)

VT-d being distinct from VT-x which is the feature some projects require for running their Virtual Box.

Would a cruncher miss anything if a rig didn't have VT-d? That's not a rhetorical question, I don't understand how it might be useful for DC or number crunching.

Edited my post to clarify.
Just so people don't get confused, most recent Intel and AMD processors have Virtulization (of some sort), and the Boinc projects needing it just specify VT-x or AMD-V (I think). VT-d is just a Haswell improvement on this, but isn't in the Haswell K models or previous generations (VT-x is still there however). I've used my i7-3770K to support a couple of Boinc Projects that use Virtualization.
I think in theory VT-d could be faster as it would allow you access devices (disks, memory, possibly PCIE) directly without going through the main Operating System. Might require Boinc to run within the VM rather than just running a task within a VM.

PS. Thought Betting Slip wanted Virtulization for work rather than Boinc (don't know why)!

Richard, perhaps you could underclock the iGPU. Mr.S found that this reduces the impact on discrete GPU's, as well as keeping it cooler.

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FAQ's

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Please note that the K models also Do Not support Virtualisation. This includes the i5-3570K, i5-4570K and the i7-4770K.
By Virtualization I mean, Intel® Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (VT-d)

VT-d being distinct from VT-x which is the feature some projects require for running their Virtual Box.

Would a cruncher miss anything if a rig didn't have VT-d? That's not a rhetorical question, I don't understand how it might be useful for DC or number crunching.

PS. Thought Betting Slip wanted Virtulization for work rather than Boinc (don't know why)!

You are correct SK my need for Virtualization has nothing to do with Boinc and I wasn't aware that this technology played a part in any Boinc projects.

There are no i3-4xxx processors, and I don't know if any are in the pipeline.

I'd like to correct this factual error: there are i3-4xxx processors, I've already sold configurations containing the i3-4130.

EDIT: This and this hosts are those I've mentioned above. :)

Thanks Zoltan, forgot that Intel don't always update their own CPU tables,

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processor-comparison/compare-intel-processors.html?select=desktop

Released at the beginning of Sept too.

Not sure about the i3-4330, but the others are also PCIE3 compliant (which the earlier i3's weren't),

http://ark.intel.com/compare/77480,77481,77769,77770,77771

These i3-4xxx processors have VT-x (with EPT) but not VT-d.

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You are correct SK my need for Virtualization has nothing to do with Boinc and I wasn't aware that this technology played a part in any Boinc projects.

The following projects use virtualization:

Test4Theory
RNA world
Climate@home (this is a new climate modeling project, not the venerable CPDN project)

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BOINC <<--- credit whores, pedants, alien hunters

Note that Haswell compared with Ivy Bridge will run very hot under full load. Haswell has from origin also a lower turbo boost ratio on low-end models compared to Ivy Bridge.

IMHO, the greatest advantage from Haswell is:
- USB3.0 integration in chipset 8 series
- AVX2.0 support (only no folding project support at this moment)
- power saving @ idle loads (folding isn't @ idle load... :P )
- a little bit more (single core) performance compared to Ivy Bridge (avarage 5-8%)

The bad:
- heat under full load
- price (compared with new and second hand Ivy Bridge)

The i5-4xxx without K and crunching Einstein on the iGPU are my recommendation, too :) Another option would be the Xeon E3-1225 v3. Haswell at the same clock speed as the i5-4570, including the iGPU, but with HT for ~35€ more. That is a bit more expensive, but if you'Re running CPU projects profitting from HT (e.g. ~30% at Einstein) that may well be worth it, especially compared to the i5-4670, which it beats in such situations for just 15€ more.

Make sure not to skimp on main memory speed, as the iGPU and especially Einstein need some serious throughput. DDR3-1866 9-11-9 should be the minimum (fair price), but depending on your budget upgrading to 2133 or at most 2400 on good latencies will yield some performance improvement for Einstein (not GPU-Grid).

Mainboard: I suggest to look for the smallest Asus (personally I'd prefer Gigabyte, but both are popular due to good reasons) which has 4 memory slots (keeping it usable as long as possible) and otherwise the features you need. I see little value in spending big on mainboards, unless you're sure you need whatever additional controllers they provide. Then there's still the question of the chipset remaining. Z87 obviously provides everything Intel currently has to offer, whereas H87 is just as good if you don't overclock (which won't work without a K CPU anyway). Cheaper chipset compromise in the number and speed of USB and SATA ports, as well as support for Intels SRT SSD-caching (which I like a lot).

Regarding the dreaded Haswell heat there are two point the panic-spreading crowd usually forgets:

- Haswell does indeed become hot under sustained AVX2 load, generated e.g. by the current LinX. But using these new instructions it's also a whopping 70% faster than Ivy Bridge over there! This performance has to come from somewhere. And achieving 70% higher performance for ~10% higher power consumption is actually an epic win and not a failure. However, this matters as much as FurMark for GPU-Grid in the real world.. not at all. No real application can use AVX2 exclusively, or as much as LinX. Call it a power virus, or at least an unrepresentative work load.

- This topic only becomes an issue if you OC hard (>1.2 V) or have subpar cooling. Neither are things you should do for 24/7 crunching anyway.

And comparing the price of Ivy and Haswell: considering the ~8% average performance increase per clock, a Haswell i5 4570 at 3.2/3.6 GHz for 155€ is actually slightly faster than an Ivy i5 3570 at 3.4/3.8 GHz for 170€. As a 2nd hand CPU Ivy can still be of great value - but not when buying new.

MrS

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Scanning for our furry friends since Jan 2002

Make sure not to skimp on main memory speed, as the iGPU and especially Einstein need some serious throughput. DDR3-1866 9-11-9 should be the minimum (fair price), but depending on your budget upgrading to 2133 or at most 2400 on good latencies will yield some performance improvement for Einstein (not GPU-Grid).

I´m building a new system with a Haswell i7 (4771) and a 780Ti. It should be crunching within the next month to replace 2 of my old and energy consuming rigs.
But a question after reading the above by MrS.
When checking Intel´s site for a processor, the memory types that can be used are 1333 and 1600. Would it make sense buying faster memory?
PCIe 1x16, 2x8 and 1x8/2x4, so an expensive MOBO with 2x16 or even 3x16 has no use to buy.

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Greetings from TJ

2 x 16 slots are OK if you want to run 2 GPUs. They slots will "only" run at 8x PCIe 3, but the GPUs fit and the boards are not much more expensive than others. But more slots than these are.. borderline.

Regarding the memory: I'm not entirely sure how the low-end chipsets handle this, but on the Zx7 you can run your memory as fast as it can. You may be right though, that H87 and lower won't allow you to do so.

If you're using the iGPU for Einstein the added bandwidth of higher speed memory should be worth it, although I don't have exact numbers at hand. And it's not like the CPU wouldn't want a memory cycle here and there ;)

MrS

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Scanning for our furry friends since Jan 2002

A few notes on other projects.
If you have one eye on running Einstein WU's on the iGPU, but like to do some CPU work, then it's definitely worth getting an Intel HT model; you need to make sure you don't saturate the CPU (run at less than 100% CPU usage) otherwise the runtime inflates ten fold. This impacts on GPU projects too - would make GPUGrid slower.
POEM also benefits from running work across more threads and especially likes fast RAM (might even be more important than an overclocked CPU), but it doesn't like PCIE3 x8.
Einstein thought they might have to stop/reduce the flow of iGPU work in a couple of months but recently got word of a new batch. POEM hasn't had a steady flow of GPU work for a long time but it's intermittent.

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Well a lot of you have more knowledge from hardware than I. I can only make decisions on things I read at "official" sites (and some trusted people). So for information of my new Haswell I go to Intel's page and with the i7 4771 I want, it says that only 1333 and 1600 memory can be used.
I will put this CPU in an ASUS Sabertooth Z87, and that can indeed handle faster memory. I have read in the past that when you put in faster memory (more expensive) and the CPU or the MOBO can't handle it, it will run at lower speed. That is why I have concerns and already bought 8GB of 1600.

Indeed I would like to run Einstein on the iGPU and some Rosetta/FightMalaria/Docking on the CPU. With HT on I use 60 to 75% of the CPU. So a core free for GPU and a core free for me to check the system, using internet and such.

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Greetings from TJ