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Does my CPU need upgrading?

Converge

Converge

Converge

Soldato
Joined
26 Jan 2005
Posts
7,931
Hi all,

I'm not really all that up to speed on CPUs, they all seem the same to me. I'm oblivious to things that don't have GT or GTX or something prefixing the name... ;)

Currently, I've got a Intel Core i7-2700k 3.5GHz (sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 CPU.

I'm looking to upgrade my Graphics Card from a GTX 670 to a GTX 780, and was wondering if there was much point if the CPU may be bottlenecking?

Any help would be grand, or admonishing for thinking such a thing :D

Thanks! :)
 
bru said:
In a word 'no'
Overclock it instead :D
Click to expand...

Yeah fair enough, but the fact I had to even ask the question, means I won't have a clue where to start with overclocking! :eek:

So, safe to say, the CPU's up to the job? Looking at what's about, doesn't seem to have been much development on the CPU front? Or again, am I being ignorant?
 
Free upgrade = overclocking

Not on stock Intel cooler tho,so get decent CPU cooler if you havnt already,

4.5ghz for CPU would be fine
 
Converge said:
So, safe to say, the CPU's up to the job? Looking at what's about, doesn't seem to have been much development on the CPU front? Or again, am I being ignorant?
Click to expand...

Your looking at approx 10% improvement clock for clock/on IPC going to ivybridge (3770k) and then an approximate further 10% over ivybridge going to haswell (4770k). There are some new instructions such as AVX as well that are in the newer generation CPU's but whether you make use of these will depend on what software you use.

The thing is though, Ivy and Haswell run hotter than Sandy so you cant always get as good an overclock. Therefore the lower IPC on Sandy can be made up somewhat by a higher overclock.

Basically, stick with what you have and overclock it. :p
 
you cpu wont be a bottleneck mate, so get a 780 and if you dont fancy overclocking then dont worry, dont make a big difference in games anyway, the 780 will be a nice upgrade over the 670 ;)
 
Im running a 2500K @4.8 with a Giggy windforce 780ti, i went from a asus 670 4gig an noticed a big difference in performance on games like bf4.

Didn't really notice much difference in eye candy thou as both cards can run it on ultra.

Get the 780 an overclock that cpu :D
 
Absolutely not. Your CPU will be good for six years, just like the original I7. We're not headed into a world where we need CPU power any more. Devs and the CPU manufacturers alike are making sure of that.

The brick wall has been hit with Haswell, now it's time to calm down and actually write the software for it. AMD are doing everything in their power to make sure their FX CPUs show their true power and worth, which is a bloody great idea.

It's kind of like the consoles, see. Look how poor the initial games are compared to the ones that come out near the end of a console's life. As time goes by devs are forced to optimise their code making the hardware do what it should.

Thus far in the CPU race devs have not done this. Honestly, I can't emphasise just how powerful the hardware that we have in our mitts right now is. The problem has been that AMD, Nvidia and AMD again (guilty on two bloody accounts !!) have rushed out hardware that gives the devs a chance of throwing brute force at cross compiling games for the PC, from their console brethren.

If that technology race slowed down they would be able to sit down with the same hardware for a while and make sure that games are fully optimised and run better on it, instead of being allowed to cheat time and again.

HSA and Mantle are two ways of doing this, both are being rolled out by AMD who haven't bothered putting Streamroller into a AM3+ socket. This is extremely telling about why. If you run Cinebench or Asus Realbench 2.0 and look at the Cinebench score, and the encoding and multi tasking scoes of a 8320 you can see it's right up there trading whacks with the 3770k.

Sorry for the long winded post, but you have a top end CPU there which will be absolutely sublime for the direction things are going in. You'd be stark raving mad to switch it out for something that's basically the same.
 
Just tickle it up to 4Ghz you should be able to get that on the stock cooler with auto everything.
Should give a form of improvement.
 
Thanks guys! :)

As always, excellent advice! I decided to swat it up a little on CPUs in the end, and you're right! It is a rather good CPU still, so very much going to stick with it for now, and do a small overclock if I see any worth in doing so.

I also did just put down an order for a GTX780 :D
 
Yep, I know.

As I say, I'm just not confident doing it with something quite as expensive as what i have. I should probably get a small throw away thing to practice with. I'm a wimp... :(
 
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