i7 920 to Ivy Bridge : A worthwhile upgrade?

DarrenM343 · 27 Apr 2012 at 12:34

All, your 920 LGA1366, i5-i7 1156 and 1155's are all old tech and soon to be (if not already ) obsolete. You know you all really want to upgrade to Ivy or even Sandy E. It will of course be the right move to take, it's the latest technology, right?

Get yer wallets out.

413x · 27 Apr 2012 at 12:38

Sticking with i7920 and 6950

I think from this setup I will only buy used, may keep this for some time tbh

prescott28 · 27 Apr 2012 at 12:43

OK, here's a chart from Tom's Hardware which groups CPUs into those of similar gaming performance. the advice given is that it is not wroth upgrading unless one is moving at least 3 levels up the chart.

Maybe this might guide some in their decision to upgrade or not.

jb7 · 27 Apr 2012 at 12:48

Aaahh I'm still undecided! Put my system into a haf x yesterday, my 920 c0/c1 still isn't stable over 3.4ghz! lol

Now the decision is...z77....or x79? (cheaper than I thought it was)......or x58 another year?

cmndr_andi · 27 Apr 2012 at 14:30

Great to hear you put the X58 system in your new case.

Even at a "mere" 3.4GHz the i7 will still not be CPU limiting your GTX 680 in any games, so I would be tempted to stick with what you have and instead invest your money in other upgrades which will give you noticable performance differences (like an SSD, a sound card or a new monitor) or put it in the bank.

If you are happy to spend the money then going for a Z77 + i5 2500K/3570K is a decent option, though I would personally save the money (or spend it on something else) before doing that upgrade.

francky · 27 Apr 2012 at 15:43

jb7 said:
Aaahh I'm still undecided! Put my system into a haf x yesterday, my 920 c0/c1 still isn't stable over 3.4ghz! lol

Now the decision is...z77....or x79? (cheaper than I thought it was)......or x58 another year?

have you tried disabling HT?? It isnt really needed for gaming and gives you a lot more OC headroom at the same voltages.

IvanDobskey · 27 Apr 2012 at 16:01

Wait for Haswell in my opinion.

HazardO · 27 Apr 2012 at 16:12

prescott28 said:
OK, here's a chart from Tom's Hardware which groups CPUs into those of similar gaming performance. the advice given is that it is not wroth upgrading unless one is moving at least 3 levels up the chart.

Maybe this might guide some in their decision to upgrade or not.

That chart also assumes that an i7 920 isn't running at 4GHz+

smilertoo · 27 Apr 2012 at 16:15

I would be looking to upgrade for 3d rendering performance, my i920 is perfectly fine for games.

prescott28 · 27 Apr 2012 at 16:19

IvanDobskey said:
Wait for Haswell in my opinion.

I'm wondering about Haswell too - but, of course, there is not much about it to read at the moment. It also could just be a way of putting off upgrades for ever as there is always a newer, better processor just around the corner - gosh! AMD might actually make one!

Anyone found anything significant out about Haswell?

bhavv · 27 Apr 2012 at 17:38

DeeJayCee said:
oh, and wtf is with those **** 920 overclocks??!!! jeeez! why are they so very very very bad? what problems did you have??

3.8GHz is piece of **** on almost any cooler and 4.2GHz is usually considered standard for a 920 with reasonably decent cooling.

My I7 920 only did:

3.8 Ghz @ 1.25v
4.0 Ghz @ 1.33v
4.2 Ghz @ 1.38v

The last two were too hot and and straining on the CPU due to the voltage. This is why I got rid of it, but I splashed out on an I7 980 as the replacement, which I will be using for a long time.

Skynet5 · 28 Apr 2012 at 02:58

Looking at bit-techs review which compares vs an oc 920 it doesn't look worth the money to me.

setter · 28 Apr 2012 at 03:41

Still on x58 here, not the greatest overclocking cpu ive owned, 4.2ghz at 1.3125 vcore. Sure, it runs a bit hotter and uses a bit more power than the latest cpu's, but it doesnt hold back my sli'd gtx 470's in game. If anything, the cards are the bottleneck in my chosen games.

Skynet5 · 28 Apr 2012 at 06:46

setter said:
Still on x58 here, not the greatest overclocking cpu ive owned, 4.2ghz at 1.3125 vcore. Sure, it runs a bit hotter and uses a bit more power than the latest cpu's, but it doesnt hold back my sli'd gtx 470's in game. If anything, the cards are the bottleneck in my chosen games.

U must be a d0 with those volts. I'm busy experimenting with 4ghz with 1.4v.

What are your bios settings?

old gamer · 28 Apr 2012 at 07:35

no urge to replace my i7 920, got it at 4ghz with a 7970 and no problem running any games, i did disable ht as i found it a bit pointless for gaming plus it runs cooler and i felt the games run a bit smoother without it

shaf · 28 Apr 2012 at 07:47

I've bought a new cooler so I can push my 920 to better overclocks.

No need to replace it yet.

Yaayuh! · 28 Apr 2012 at 10:25

Have the C0 from first month of release. 4GHz only possible with over 1.4v and temperates in the 90's with coolermaster v6GT @ max... I have an old, hot chip. Also the p6t deluxe (v1) has its quirks.

Skynet5 · 28 Apr 2012 at 17:41

Rossi~ said:
Have the C0 from first month of release. 4GHz only possible with over 1.4v and temperates in the 90's with coolermaster v6GT @ max... I have an old, hot chip. Also the p6t deluxe (v1) has its quirks.

I've spent the last few hours thinking things through in my little brain.

Turns out HT is pointless in BF3. Makes no difference in any of my games. So I turned it off, thinking that it might reduce heat and give me some more OC options.

I use to run with 19x and a blck of 207. Anything more and it would bomb. Tried with HT on or off.

So I went the other way and did 21x with a blck of 196 and have achieved a quick test stable of 4.1. I get temps into the v.low 80's.

BF3 runs better on a 64 man server...thats about it.

IBT ran on v.high 15 times and it seems fine. BF3 only seems to utilise 85% CPU and temps never gone above 69c when playing.

I have a Corsair H50. Another reason I really don't want to upgrade...I'd have to buy a new cooler too, and they aint cheap!

Oh...because I have a lower bclk, my memory is running at 1530 odd. Rather than 1600, but i7 1st gen can't really support more than 1333 anyway...plus bet it makes no difference really in games.

Still I've had to up the v core to 1.39v to achieve this...and it still seems ok.

Random Guy · 28 Apr 2012 at 19:42

My D0 on stock volts is sat at a 3.6 GHz overclock - I just mentioned the same thing in another thread: no point in upgrading my i7 920 until the next tick. There are virtually no games out there demanding as much CPU as the newest processors can give, and face it, the next reason to perform a major upgrade on your rig will arrive at the same time as the next generation of consoles.

Imo the most worthwhile upgrade in the mean time is a new GPU or a SSD if you want general benefits across the board.

Skynet5 · 28 Apr 2012 at 20:19

Random Guy said:
My D0 on stock volts is sat at a 3.6 GHz overclock - I just mentioned the same thing in another thread: no point in upgrading my i7 920 until the next tick. There are virtually no games out there demanding as much CPU as the newest processors can give, and face it, the next reason to perform a major upgrade on your rig will arrive at the same time as the next generation of consoles.

Imo the most worthwhile upgrade in the mean time is a new GPU or a SSD if you want general benefits across the board.

Agreed.

Although I don't have much left I can upgrade! My SSD is pretty old (Vertex 1st Gen) but really it is fast enough (200+MB/s) for what I want. Quick to boot and quick to load games. I don't need 500+MB/s at the moment.

I have noticed an improvement between 3.855 and 4.1 ghz in 64 player BF3...

I'd up my monitor to 1400p....but I like 120 hz too much!