Upgrade Advice

Steiger

Steiger

Steiger

Associate
Joined
28 Mar 2011
Posts
20
InWin Fanqua
i7 2600s ( stock cooler )
Asrock P67 Fatal1ty Pro series
2x 4gig Team 1600
Hitachi 1tb 32mb Sata 7200rpm
GTX 650ti 1G
800w PSU

Over the past few weeks i have been playing crysis 3 and i come to realise that my system is more substandard for it than what i thought pre-release. I need run the game on lowest settings in order for it to run as jutter free as possible, disabling V-sync was the biggest contributor for smoother game play. I slightly upped the core clock on my GPU from 925mhz to 945, and this runs at 56°C, but my CPU gets quite hot!. With speed step disabled running at 100mhz x37 core temp is showing me:

Core1 : 76°C
Core2 : 76°C
Core3 : 77°C
Core4 : 76°C

With quite cool ambient room temps, ie radiators off with UK temperatures from this time of year.

I know the chip is rated to handle up to something like 95°C but an average of 76°C feels too high for comfort. Ofc i could lower the multiplyer to obtain better temps, at a cost to the in game experience.

Bottom line is i know many of my parts are not great, a GTX 680 will be a cert for the near future, but what quick mods should i make regarding my CPU? Since its not the 2600K i cannot OC so is it still worth getting a H2O kit? and what is the max OC potential of the 2600S? The chip i have has been in use for nearly 2 yrs now with plenty of gaming along the way mainly crysis 2, so u don't think it might just be getting tired? or should there be plenty more life in it yet?

I was thinking about getting a full set of replacement fans for the case i have as a cheap fix in the short term. Maybe with an extra inlet fan to raise incase compression. Would this give me any noticable improvement or is it worth just going straight for a H2O kit which would mean me needing a new case i think cause theres no Ports for the pipes to go through the back of it.

Sorry i yarped on a bit :) any advice would be appreciated, suggestions and opinions also.

Owe 1 last thing, when i am to replace my 650 GTXti would it be worth hanging onto as a PHSX card?

Many thanks for any replies.
 
First off, I would keep your current CPU & get one of these:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Phanteks PH-TC14PE CPU Cooler - Blue (Socket 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £69.98
1 x Noctua NH-D14 Dual Radiator CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £62.98
1 x Alpenföhn K2 Mount Doom CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £59.99
Total : £204.35 (includes shipping : £9.50).



These coolers are the top 3 and I guarantee you, you'll see a massive drop in temps over your stock cooler. Cheaper options are available, but you get what you pay for. Water coolers are great if you are space saving, but they are no where near as good or as efficient as air coolers. My FX-6100 went from 30-32 idle to 27-28 & under load from 65-68 to 41-44.

There is an obvious issue with getting a 680 and that would be a bottleneck. While it would definably be an investment, the bottleneck would remain until you upgrade. I would think about the release of Haswell in June to upgrade or if your not bothered about timing & Intel's 4th Gen CPU, go for a 3570k or 3770k. The best budget board for this would be around £90.

I wouldn't worry about holding on to the 650, sell it and put the money into an upgrade. The 680 is an awsome card. You could get the 670, not far apart from each other, just over clock it:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/598?vs=555

Case Fans, there are loads of choices out there, have a read of this.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18495074

It will give you a better insight to what fans you should be looking at.
 
Hey thnx snips86x for your detailed response, the noctua looks like the cooler for me but does it require a backing plate fitted to back of my motherboard?

The thermal paste is probably past its best on my current set up, so fitting the noctua would resolve that also as i'd need to re-apply the compound.

Do you or any1 reading this post know the maximum OC for my CPU? Whenever i google the issue its all about the 2600K, I know i can adjust the multiplier and clock speeds i just don't know by how much, could any1 suggest a reccomended multiplier, clock speed and voltage level?
 
Steiger said:
Hey thnx snips86x for your detailed response, the noctua looks like the cooler for me but does it require a backing plate fitted to back of my motherboard?

The thermal paste is probably past its best on my current set up, so fitting the noctua would resolve that also as i'd need to re-apply the compound.

Do you or any1 reading this post know the maximum OC for my CPU? Whenever i google the issue its all about the 2600K, I know i can adjust the multiplier and clock speeds i just don't know by how much, could any1 suggest a reccomended multiplier, clock speed and voltage level?
Click to expand...

Most of the coolers you buy will require a backplate to be fitted. The procedure is very easy but can be fiddly. It would seem your case should have a cut out for the CPU backplate, so you shouldn't need to remove anything bar the old cooler & it's fitting bracket.

In terms of overclocking, I'd have to leave that to someone more experienced. Not sure if it would help, but I found THIS
 
Firstly why have you dissabled speed step? all this does is increase the average temp of the cpu as it never goes to idle even if your just browsing the web.

A good air cooler should bring temps down and lower the noise comming out of your rig the ones mentioned above are suitable.

I would grab the 670 rather than the 680 as there really is not that much in it for the added cost but obviously thats up to you.

As for bottlenecking i would expect the chip you have to cope ok on most games as there are very few that are more CPU than GPU dependant, for a value for money jump you really want to be waiting at least for haswell to come along.
 
Hey thnx Gav, both you and snips say the same about the haswell processor range so any major upgrade of CPU and M/B can wait until then.

I went through many steps in order to reduce the jutter i was getting in game, and keeping my cpu locked at a given speed seemed to help. Besides the CPU does still idle, load right now is between 3 - 15% with temps of 35°C . So i'm really not sure why i would need put speedstep back on other than to save a few pence on my energy bill.

As for the 670 though, both you and snips say the same how there is not a dramatic increase in performance between the two, when i think back to the nvidia 4 series, a twin 460 setup used to offer performance somewhere between the 470 and the 480 at a reasonable price level, You run this setup with the 6 series snips86x how does this work for you, could you reccommend an sli choice like yours or in hindsight would you reccommend just going for one of the 2 bigger cards instead?
 
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