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Is now a good time to upgrade my Lynnfield i5 750?

xce1xce

xce1xce

xce1xce

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I've been very content with my Lynnfield i5 750, it's been overclocked from 2.6ghz > 3.2ghz with no effort and been stable and problem-free for 2 years. But now in my strive for better fps I'm starting to wonder if it is holding my PC back - I'm running a GTX 570 and 8gb DDR3 as well.

In terms of clockspeed and cores the current generation don't seem to be much of an upgrade, but I'm starting to become convinced that there is more to it these days lol. So any advice would be greatly appreciated thanks!
 
I'd say hang on too, Ivybridge isn't far away. Sandybridge does overclock much better than the 1st gen, but you've still got a very capable CPU.

I've got mine at 3.2Ghz too, and not had problems yet in games tbh.
 
El Jimben said:
Overclock your CPU more, 4GHz is pretty much a given with your chip.
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My 3.2ghz overclock is on stock voltages(1.24v), I've just had a little mess around with it now and first impressions are that it's stable 3.675Ghz 1.36v - Is this likely to have a major impact on the CPU life? and would it be relatively safe to go even higher?

The advice has been very helpful so far thanks, it seems I should stick with my i5 750 for now, and see how much life I can squeeze out of it without setting my PC on fire :D
 
beejjacobs said:
What cooler do you have?
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An old version of the Noctua NH-D14 - a complete beast of an air cooler :D Running the old 3.2ghz/1.24v overclock I never got above 60degrees even though I took one fan off it and the other one is running silent.

Thanks for the link, the topic was an interesting read.

*Edit unfortunately Prime95 deemed my 3.6ghz as unstable =( I think that was the reason I kept it down lower before, could never find a setup that would agree with p95
 
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The cooler is great yea, heat isn't holding me back, something else is making it unstable, maybe 1 of the auto overclock settings buried deep in my Gigabyte P55M's bios =/
 
Personally i am waiting for Haswell. A overclocked 750/760 is plenty enough for any game that's out now. The performance gain for the price paid of changing simply is'nt worth it.
 
beejjacobs said:
Go for a manual overclock, it's not too difficult. Then you know exactly what settings are being used
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I found a good guide for my motherboard online, which led me to find the sneaky option that was restricting my overclocking capabilities before; it had a rather misleading name "CPU Thermal Monitor" so I never considered changing it before. I've managed to get a stable 4ghz overclock, but was a little hot for my tastes - 85degrees on p95. So now I've toned it back a bit and it seems stable 3.8ghz, 1.26v and using the option that lowers power consumption when the CPU is idle which will hopefully increase the lifespan. I upped the fan speed on my NH-14 and it never goes above 75degrees on p95 despite the fact I've take 1 fan off the cooler and 35degrees idle.
 
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I've had mine at 3.8 since I first got it and it's fine, roundabout the same voltage.

Can't remember how hot it got under prime, but it was nowhere near 85 degrees. More like 60. I do have a push / pull thermalright true on it though.

There's no way I'm upgrading until Haswell. Even then I might not.

Then again, I ran my 1Ghz Athlon Thunderbird until 2009! ha ha.
 
I have the same cpu, been checking in on the cpu market from time to and time and can't see anything worth upgrading to yet. 2500K is decent but the price hasn't dropped at all, they are still ~£160 which they've been for ages. Quite like the look of I7-3820 but again at over £200 it is difficult to justify the upgrade from i5-750.

As for temps, mine runs really hot under load as well, I used to have it at 4.2ghz but have eased back to 3.8ghz.
 
750's are stunning overclockers. Mines rock solid at 4.1GHz and has been for well over a year now cooled by a hugely noisy CoolerMaster V6gt. Temperatures creep into the very low 80's with a long run of prime. I'm definitely waiting for Haswell or beyond for an upgrade.
 
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Now probably isn't an "opportune" time to upgrade. Your Lynnfield is still a "good" performer (and I hope you feel so too). You may be able to clock it a bit higher to tide you over, but upgrading now probably won't get you the most satisfaction for your money, just yet.
 
PGdude said:
Now probably isn't an "opportune" time to upgrade. Your Lynnfield is still a "good" performer (and I hope you feel so too). You may be able to clock it a bit higher to tide you over, but upgrading now probably won't get you the most satisfaction for your money, just yet.
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I agree, I've been very happy with it for 2 years now, and it was very cheap back then as well. I just wasn't sure if I was missing out by not having some of the tech that the newer chips have like the integrated graphics.

I've now got my CPU nicely stable at 3.82ghz 1.25v and it stays below 70degrees on an intensive game like BF3 (even during the great sunny day we had here yesterday :D). I might have to stick an extra fan on the case just to make sure my PC doesn't catch fire during summer however lol. Thanks for all the encouragement to overclock, I feel like I saved £150 just by overclocking instead of upgrading!
 
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