What's my next move?

habbyster

habbyster

habbyster

Associate
Joined
26 Aug 2012
Posts
130
I live stream a lot, playing games. I want to extend the reach of games I can stream with comfortable FPS and not sure on what I should upgrade next...

AMD Phenom II x4 965 BE @ 3.80GHz
Gigabyte 78LMT-S2P
8GB GeIL Black Dragon RAM
Antec 550W PSU
ATI ASUS 7850 OC III TWIN FROZR 2GB OC EDITION
Coolermaster 430 Elite Case
Coolermaster 212 EVO

I'm not too sure on my budget, I don't really wanna spend over £300 nor do I want a new card, since I just bought this one.

Best upgrade?
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £167.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £89.99
Total : £269.38 (includes shipping : £9.50).



The mobo also has the lucidMVP software which can use the IGP to boost your 7850 whilst gaming. When not gaming it can switch to the IGP to save on power. Hopefully you kept the intel backing plate for your heatsink. You can OC the i5K much further (lets say 4.2Ghz) than you could with your AMD phenom which is on par with the sandybridge i3. Is your RAM 1600mhz or 1333mhz?
 
Last edited:
Yes it will help. 1600mhz is the sweet spot on the 1155 socket any higher makes little odds. You get lifetime warranty with RAM so try and buy the best speed you can for the price.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £167.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £89.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED38GM1600HC11DC01) £29.99
Total : £299.36 (includes shipping : £9.50).



Sell off your old mobo bundle to recoup the cash
 
Last edited:
i5 3570K vs 965BE

That's at stock clocks, the i5K overclocks very well and there is much better tech on the Z77 mobos too. As I said the 965 basically is on par with the sandybridge i3 which is a dual core with hyperthreading. Keep in mind the intel CPUs are also using less power as they are 77W TDP your phenom is 125W TDP

Oh and yes I've used both. My HTPC has the 555BE (it unlocks to a quad so becomes a 955BE basically). When I used the i5 2500K the difference was very apparent. I did a encode of a 2 hour movie on the fly from the optical drive with intel quick sync enabled and on a two pass encode it was done in 20mins!!
 
Last edited:
I did a similar upgrade a whole ago from a 955 to a 2500k. The difference whole gaming, especially in games like skyrim is very noticable.

Over locking is also a breeze. Its so easy to get it to 4.2 you wouldn't believe.

I understand that it is a lot of money, though it will be a great upgrade.
 
i'll go against the flow as normal, for gaming the only thing i'd change tbh is the vga, the rest is fine for now, just add a faster card like this one http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-097-GI&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=938

the Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 7970 Windforce 3X 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card, as that will mean as much in gaming than a cpu and memory boost for now, then when you do have more money for a new system you will at least have the card for it, then if you want you can always either keep it with new system or add another etc

but for gaming if your happy with your res and fps then why change, i wouldn't, not even the card tbh, only change when you really see a slow down, you do seem happy with what you have already got, while the newer cpu's mentioned above will be worth having in the long run, you wont see much day to day difference using the same card, if you benchmark it first,well yes you would, but im not talking about benchmarks and scores, im on about real gaming values, if with the same card and you only change cpu and m/b ram etc, you may get 10fps more max at a higher setting than you have it on now, but no great jump as the card you have is the power for most games now days as long as your cpu, which it is, is any good.
 
Last edited:
Seriously zakk?

So your advice would be get rifle of a new £150 card and replace it with a £230 one? I assure you that the difference on his current motherboard and CPU would be minimal if that.

The CPU would possibly bottleneck the 7950.

His current system is good and we are just advising ideas, though a CPU and motherboard upgrade would be the best thing to do. Whether its ivy or wait til haswell.
 
Doomedspeed said:
Seriously zakk?

So your advice would be get rifle of a new £150 card and replace it with a £230 one? I assure you that the difference on his current motherboard and CPU would be minimal if that.

The CPU would possibly bottleneck the 7950.

His current system is good and we are just advising ideas, though a CPU and motherboard upgrade would be the best thing to do. Whether its ivy or wait til haswell.
Click to expand...

I can't take Zak seriously after seeing him recommend AMDs bulldozer/piledriver in other threads lol

It will be several months before Haswell lands. As you rightly said the i5K will make a noticeable improvement, not just for gaming but for video editing too. If he wants to wait for Haswell I wont blame him, hopefully as he OC'd the CPU he has managed to unlock the voltage on his 7850 to get a better OC on that too.
 
If you are short on cash hold the upgrade for later
The specs are decent for the moment
I am not a hardcore max settings gamer so the only benefit for me is the 77W TDP on i5 3570k
If you are thinking about saving money on electricity get the i5
The 48W TDP difference is big but compared to the phenom II OC we are talking about 100W you can save the planet :D
P.S. you can upgrade ram later so get a better motherboard
 
Last edited:
habbyster said:
I think I'll just go with the i5, I hope I really notice a difference is games whilst streaming
Click to expand...

Well the streaming is the catch isnt it. It's not something I do personally, maybe there are forums on the subject which could give you answers with practical experience.

The i5K is what you want to overclock. The Z77 mobo has lucidMVP sotware which will use the IGP as needed to save power. When you are gaming it can boost your 7850 GPU......I hope you have overclocked it ;)

Perhaps you should look on youtube. I'm sure you can find a vids with 965 and i5K CPUs running the same GPU and games. They will be using FRAPS to record which does knock the FPS so that might help you make the comparison
 
honosuseri said:
Yes it will help. 1600mhz is the sweet spot on the 1155 socket any higher makes little odds. You get lifetime warranty with RAM so try and buy the best speed you can for the price.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £167.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £89.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED38GM1600HC11DC01) £29.99
Total : £299.36 (includes shipping : £9.50).



Sell off your old mobo bundle to recoup the cash
Click to expand...

This +1

the 7850 will be good for a while
 
i take it you use Xsplit to stream ? to get the best quality you need a really good upstream, i am talking 6mb+ if you want to stream in 1080, the i5K will be great and your GFX is fine for it too, the only thing letting you down is your CPU.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom