GPU or CPU upgrade?

ondrugs

ondrugs

ondrugs

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Hi everyone and happy New Year!

I'm trying to decide between upgrading my AMD 2gb 7850 GPU or my 1st gen i5 CPU (I think it's an i5-750).

My plan is to ultimately have a 3gb Nvidia 1060 GPU and an i3-7350k; I just don't want to do everything at once.

The reason I'd like to upgrade is to get better performance playing BF4 and Battlefront - I get around 40fps on medium @1920x1200, but want to up the quality a bit more. Also future proof a bit.

The CPU upgrade is about £300 (8gb ram) and the GPU around £180.

What do you guys reckon?
 
:0).

Well to be frank, yes i think it is holding it back for sure it is slower than a q9550 here > https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i5-750+@+2.67GHz vs https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core2+Quad+Q9550+@+2.83GHz

The amd 7850 that you have is close to the performance of a nvidia 1050ti http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-1050-Ti-vs-AMD-HD-7850/3649vs2182 .

I change my mind that processor is weaker then a q9550 well yeah so am now thinking you really should get a new processor motherboard and ram it would be better..

You have the correct consensus get a new processor motherboard and ram.

Your current processor is more of a bottleneck then the graphics card, whereas if you got the new processor it will be less of a bottleneck between the 2 options that is.

Take that with a pinch of salt.

Dan.
 
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I think I would go GPU first. Your system will hold it back yes, but I think it will be a bigger performance boost to start with.
 
CPU !
You can chuck in an gtx 980ti/1070/1080 11gbps like I did with my old ROG p55 and i7 860 at 4.0 can lose easily 15fps lowest frame rate because the 1st gen is just poor compared to 3rd gen and above .
You'll find you might be able to gain some FPS on current GPU .
I went to i5 6600k- worried of going from 4c/8t to 4c/4t but yeah... Best choice ! Then upgraded the CPU as current 660 benefited .
Worth going changes from 1st gen i core to 2nd/3rd gen - after that Intel didn't do much till coffeelake

Others are right that GPU will get you the frames! Just you won't be getting the full amount for your cash . Test at 1080p/1440p and 4k . First gen shows its age and design
 
Run afterburner to monitor cpu / Gpu usage in game. See which is being maxed out.

My i5-760 @3.8Ghz over clock was not able to max out an r280x and in bf1 earlier in the year gave me a fairly stable 60fps+, it had no problems with bf4, both at 1080p.

The i3-3750 is only 2 core and 4 thread so could even be slower than what you have now especially if you overclock it.

As above a better GPU is likely the best idea and a 1060 6GB is worth saving the extra for.
 
just wait imo, nothing's worse than an "upgrade" on a low budget, only to find that in a few months you need to upgrade again.
alternatively you could go the 2nd hand route and bag a 4790k/z97 setup for much cheaper than a new i3 8-series setup.
definitely wouldn't consider a i3 7-series chip at this point. they're basically dead, and pointless
 
The system will hold you back, but I doubt your cpu will bottleneck the 1060 much, so you will see a bigger performance increase if you went with the gpu upgrade first.
 
DarkHorizon472 said:
Run afterburner to monitor cpu / Gpu usage in game. See which is being maxed out.

My i5-760 @3.8Ghz over clock was not able to max out an r280x and in bf1 earlier in the year gave me a fairly stable 60fps+, it had no problems with bf4, both at 1080p.

The i3-3750 is only 2 core and 4 thread so could even be slower than what you have now especially if you overclock it.

As above a better GPU is likely the best idea and a 1060 6GB is worth saving the extra for.
Click to expand...

I went from i7 860 at 4ghz cooled by a 480 60mm rad to i5 6600k and even at stock speeds was faster in any game .
Wasn't so much a bottle neck but the changes made from 1st gen to 2/3 gens are quite a bit.
Catch 22, GPU upgrade will get the frames but 10-15 FPS will be missed off due to older core
 
+1 For gaming always upgrade the GPU first and only then if that makes no difference the GPU. Unless you have a game or application where you know the the faster CPU is mandatory you'll virtually always see a larger boost from a new GPU.

The 7850 is a 2012 card so that's pretty dated as something like a 1060 will probably be orders of magnitude faster whereas with the CPU in single threaded apps you may not even notice that big a jump. I went from an i7-920 to an i7-5930k and most of the time (unless you're using an app that can make use of the extra cores) the improvement isn't that noticeable despite it being 5 years newer!
 
It is true that the Intel Core i7 870 and Core i5 750 processors will have less memory than for example the LGA 1366 since they are dual channel. But will that matter in real world tests and in the games?



_____________________________________________
My experience in app marketing android development
 
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orbitalwalsh said:
I went from i7 860 at 4ghz cooled by a 480 60mm rad to i5 6600k and even at stock speeds was faster in any game .
Wasn't so much a bottle neck but the changes made from 1st gen to 2/3 gens are quite a bit.
Catch 22, GPU upgrade will get the frames but 10-15 FPS will be missed off due to older core
Click to expand...

That's how i see it as well, the challenge is the gpu and cpu are getting on a bit. On a budget it can be hard to choose.
 
MSTRBKR said:
This isn't a reliable method. A CPU can show in afterburner (or any monitoring programme) that it is not being utilised 100%, but it can still be the bottle neck.

If it were me, I'd do CPU and RAM first. You'll see a bump in performance with the 1060, but the i5 750 will be severely holding it back. With a new CPU, you take it and the RAM out of the equation in future upgrades. It will form a good baseline for the future. You may even see that you get a few more FPS on the same GPU.

OP, read this https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/lynnfield-i7-skylake-i5-performance-compared.18736047/
Click to expand...

As a simple test it indicates which is being maxed out, how would you suggest measuring them?
 
DarkHorizon472 said:
Run afterburner to monitor cpu / Gpu usage in game. See which is being maxed out.

My i5-760 @3.8Ghz over clock was not able to max out an r280x and in bf1 earlier in the year gave me a fairly stable 60fps+, it had no problems with bf4, both at 1080p.

The i3-3750 is only 2 core and 4 thread so could even be slower than what you have now especially if you overclock it.

As above a better GPU is likely the best idea and a 1060 6GB is worth saving the extra for.
Click to expand...

I went from i7 860 at 4ghz cooled by a 480 60mm rad to i5 6600k and even at stock speeds was faster in any game .
Wasn't so much a bottle neck but the changes made from 1st gen to 2/3 gens are quite a bit.
Catch 22, GPU upgrade will get the frames but 10-15 FPS will be missed off duebtk
DarkHorizon472 said:
That's how i see it as well, the challenge is the gpu and cpu are getting on a bit. On a budget it can be hard to choose.
Click to expand...

My i7 wasn't a bottle neck at that speed and 8 threads but the IPC is really lacking to the new gens
 
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