Dilemma - CPU or GPU upgrade?

Thanks dude. The i7 worth the extra over an i5 then? I hate to use the term "future-proof" but with the multi-core consoles on the way I think the hyperthreading may prove useful in the future.
 
banjoted said:
Thanks dude. The i7 worth the extra over an i5 then? I hate to use the term "future-proof" but with the multi-core consoles on the way I think the hyperthreading may prove useful in the future.
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If you can afford the peace of mind now its well worth it. But if it means you'll be only eating sweetcorn for the next 2 months its not worth it..

What cooler go you currently have?
 
banjoted said:
Thanks dude. The i7 worth the extra over an i5 then? I hate to use the term "future-proof" but with the multi-core consoles on the way I think the hyperthreading may prove useful in the future.
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I own both. Can't say I noticed a huge difference in the two, but the i7 is a little bit quicker when multitasking, and a lot quicker at encoding gaming videos. For general use and gaming, not much in it at all.
 
acme15 said:
And unless the board is a Gen 3, you wouldn't be able to use PCI-E 3.0 anyway. (Which Ivy but not Sandy supports)
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This is a common misconception, but any 1155 board with an Ivy should/will get PCI-E 3.0 in the primary lane as it's controlled by the CPU and the lane is physically and electronically the same as a PCI-E 3.0 one.

Although fairly moot as OP runs Crossfire, which he'd need an Intel for to elevate the bottleneck.
Although I find the notion of upgrading to something older than your original purchase silly, it'd have made far more sense to have made the "right" choice initially.
 
Martini1991 said:
This is a common misconception, but any 1155 board with an Ivy should/will get PCI-E 3.0 in the primary lane as it's controlled by the CPU and the lane is physically and electronically the same as a PCI-E 3.0 one.

Although fairly moot as OP runs Crossfire, which he'd need an Intel for to elevate the bottleneck.
Although I find the notion of upgrading to something older than your original purchase silly, it'd have made far more sense to have made the "right" choice initially.
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What an elitist response!

I only built my first PC a few months ago and it's very much a learning experience. Plus my budget was initially limited.
 
banjoted said:
What an elitist response!

I only built my first PC a few months ago and it's very much a learning experience. Plus my budget was initially limited.
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It may sound elitist but he has a good point. If you always had plans to go xfire piledriver would always be the wrong choice as they are much more likely to bottleneck.

Even if you went with an i3 at the time, your rig would bottleneck but you save yourself £70-£100 of motherboard cone this point..

I totally agree with this "elitist"..
 
I'm not sure what's elitist about it, also note the "...".
Rightly or wrongly, the only way to elevate the bottleneck is on an Intel set up, of which you've bought a socket 1155 for.

In all honesty I'd have either stuck out for Steamroller, or went Haswell.

acme15 said:
I have heard that people who go from an i7 920 to a 3570K (heaven knows why they did that buy hey ho) actually get worse frame rates in some games due to the fact that hyperthreading was being utilised with their old CPU. :rolleyes:
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Doesn't compute, the instruction set advantage, IPC and overclocking would be greater than that of the maximum amount of performance given by HT.
 
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I had never even heard of Crossfire when I built the thing! In retrospect do I wish I'd waited until I understood the whole scene a bit better? yeah, sure. But then I only began to understand once I'd dirtied my hands and got involved.
 
Everyone makes mistakes and starts somewhere, but I don't know many people who start with GPU's as high end as the 7950 :p
I'd have picked the FX6300 over an i3 easily, but I wouldn't have gone Crossfire with it.
 
banjoted said:
What can i say - I'm still learning!
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You don't learn until you make mistakes and if you dont make mistakes you'll never learn... So actually this is a good thing. :)

I did the same. could have started with an i3 (sandy) on a z68 motherboard but decided on the much older Phenom X 4 955. When it struggled with CAD work and rendering I swapped it for a 2500K. Cost me an extra £70 due to the motherboard.

Live and learn! :)
 
banjoted said:
Think I'm going to go for the i7 3770k - a bit concerned that there's a small potential of the i5 3570k bottlenecking crossfired 7950s.
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if the 3570k may bottleneck your cards whole gaming so will the 3770k. The 3770k has hypertheading and a bit faster stock clock. It may give you a bigger overclock.
 
Quick, do it before everyone talks you out of it :D
I wish I had got a 2600K and spent less on my motherboard when I built my rig. (Could have got a 2600K and a Z68XP-UD3P for around the same as I paid for my 2500K and Z68 Extreme 4 Gen 3 :()
 
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That's the thing I've discovered since getting into the PC gaming gig - you can always find someone to back up any argument. Bottleneck debates seem the most confusing as, I guess, there are no firm answers.

My main reasons for going for the 3770k are:
1. Less likely to get the upgrade itch again (for a while at least)
2. It might hold up better with AMD's multi-core console future drawing close
 
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