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i7 920 to Ivy Bridge : A worthwhile upgrade?

jb7

jb7

jb7

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Joined
28 Jul 2009
Posts
360
My reasons for upgrading:

- My 920 is a rubbish overclocker : max I can get is 3.4ghz (C0/C1 stepping)
- I have a GTX 680 and want to get the most out of it
- I want USB 3 and Sata 3
- I want a full tower case, and am reluctant to spend a lot on a full tower case and put old hardware in it


However...

My current i7 920 setup runs most things fine, including games

Are there many people upgrading from LGA 1366? Or would I be better off waiting for Haswell?
 
I'm upgrading from a Phenom 2 955 that ran @ 4.2ghz to Sandy Bridge. I only have a 6950 2gb graphics card though. With that 680 you have I would definitely upgrade to sandy or ivy because if 3.4ghz is the max overclock you can get I think it will be bottlenecking your 680 on the modern games.
 
Spenty said:
I'm upgrading from a Phenom 2 955 that ran @ 4.2ghz to Sandy Bridge. I only have a 6950 2gb graphics card though. With that 680 you have I would definitely upgrade to sandy or ivy because if 3.4ghz is the max overclock you can get I think it will be bottlenecking your 680 on the modern games.
Click to expand...

It's weird though. I have a second screen and had GPU-z running on that. I have tried Skyrim, BF3 and GTA IV with ICEnhancer 2.0 mod.... all use 100% of the gpu..which I wasn't expecting
 
I am in the same boat, I have a c0 i7 920 at 3.4ghz. I am upgrading to IB I missed SB because I had a very expensive year last year so I am hoping upgrading to IB I will see a nice improvement.
 
jb7 said:
My reasons for upgrading:

- My 920 is a rubbish overclocker : max I can get is 3.4ghz (C0/C1 stepping)
- I have a GTX 680 and want to get the most out of it
- I want USB 3 and Sata 3
- I want a full tower case, and am reluctant to spend a lot on a full tower case and put old hardware in it
Click to expand...

If you change those "wants" into "needs" then you should have your answer. Unless you simply want a toy to play with then cost of upgrading to IB isn’t worth it in my opinion.

My 920 runs at stock and does everything I want it to. When I do decided to upgrade it, it will be either xfire my 6970 or buy an SDD. Performance would be more noticeable and cheaper from either.
 
Personally, I'm waiting for Haswell (or an AMD if they start making good CPUs again) as the i7 920 is fast enough for my needs and with a HD 6970 and a 1920x1200 display resolution games are basically never limited by the CPU and always by the GPU (even though the games look very nice and are extremely playable).

The GTX 680 is obviously more powerful than a HD 6970, but I would still think that for the majority of the time games will still be GPU-limited (assuming you game at 1080p or higher).

As for SATA3 and USB3 - I agree SATA3 is only really achievable with a new board and a native SATA3 controller (as the SATA3 add-on cards generally suck) - though going from SATA2 to SATA3 isn't an upgrade that will shake your world - as a fast SATA3 SSD running on an Intel SATA2 port is still going to be mighty fast. As for getting a PCIE USB3 card, this is actually a pretty good idea and the performance is comparable to a native SATA3 port. This one for example uses a controller which was widely used on the Sandy Bridge USB3 boards.

As for the full-tower case, I wouldn't be put off installing old hardware in a shiny new case. It will make your system look nicer and depending on the case will run quieter and cooler - so may even help you push a bit more of an overclock out of your CPU. When it does come time you replace the X58 kit then you just need to turn it off, remove the graphics card, disconnect the power/data connections, unscrew the board and lift it all out. This isn't a particularly time consuming or difficult job (especially if the case is a good size) and means that when you do install the new hardware all the other parts (HDDs, PSU, cable management etc.) are already done - you just need to make the new connections to the board.
 
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I'm in the same boat - I was thinking of upgrading my system to IB with GK110 (when its released). Now I'm thinking that I should just upgrade the GPU. Presumably the i7 920 @ 4Ghz will not cause a significant bottleneck with GK110 SLI?
 
I'm doing exactly that OP, I've ordered all the new parts besides the CPU itself.

What is this GK110 people keep talking about? It sounds like a code name that hasn't been announced yet, isn't it a bit early to say when you'll be going around SLI'ing it?
 
I have a i7 920@4GHz and personally I will be waiting, my GTX470@800 will be the next thing to be upgraded.
I don't feel that a Ivy bridge or even a Sandy bridge CPU would be a sufficient enough upgrade, even though they would certainly overclock much further. If i could get a guaranteed 5GHz Ivy bridge chip than I would have to seriously consider it. :)
 
jb7 said:
My reasons for upgrading:

- My 920 is a rubbish overclocker : max I can get is 3.4ghz (C0/C1 stepping)
- I have a GTX 680 and want to get the most out of it
- I want USB 3 and Sata 3
- I want a full tower case, and am reluctant to spend a lot on a full tower case and put old hardware in it


However...

My current i7 920 setup runs most things fine, including games

Are there many people upgrading from LGA 1366? Or would I be better off waiting for Haswell?
Click to expand...

Hi. I have an i7 920 c0 @ 3.9 and 2x680. I see a clear bottleneck from the CPU in MP BF3, but still benefit from having 2 in SLI. 1 runs at 99%.

Having looked at the SB and IB, I've decided the platforms are not for me. X79 with 2011 is looking more like the next step up for me. I'm going to see how I feel when IB-e comes out, or wait for the next evolution.

I priced and SB-e setup and it came to £700. It's not worth it for the extra 10fps I'd get in MP BF3.
 
I'm in the same boat.

I've never had a CPU last this long! and I keep telling myself surely it's time for an upgrade.
 
My i7 920 is still running fine @4Ghz, so I'll not be upgrading at least until either

-My CPU dies
-Socket 2011 IB comes out
-22nm process improves to the point where 5GHz is an easy OC

If you can only get 3.4GHz out of your 920 and you would be looking to OC your next CPU, then maybe it is time for an upgrade. No one really needs USB3 or PCIe gen3 yet, but SATA3 is really needed if you are considering getting a latest gen SSD. (I've still got a vertex2, so for the moment SATA2 will do).
 
shaf said:
I've only overclocked to 3.4 - any further and it'll start to produce more heat which I don't want.
Click to expand...

What cooler do you have? I have a Corsair H60 I think and temps under max load never go about 75%.

My room is nice and cool though, so I guess that helps. You really need to get that chip to 3.8-3.9 with a vCore of 1.35ish
 
I'm still on a Q6600 - five years now - and wit runs pretty well. Sadly, I don't have the one that overclocks nicely so it is running at stock 2.4GHz. I was going to go with Sandy as a nice safe over-clocker but am now not only looking at Ivy but wondering about Haswell too. Is Haswell going to be worth waiting for or am I better to buy something now?

I had to sawp my motherboard out last year as the old one broke and the choice was tiny so I could really do with a new motherboard as I need more SATA ports of any flavour as well as more USB.
 
I'm in the same boat. Have a 920 D0 which is stable at 3.6ghz but i havent been able to get any more out of it. Been looking at ivy but the socket only has a year left which really puts me off more then anything.

I have ordered a GTX 680 now and i'll decided if i need to upgrade the cpu once i've done some testing. I'll let you know how i get on but the card i've ordered isnt going to be in stock till the end of next week.
 
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