i5 3570 upgrade, which way to go?

[pieman109]

As it looks like I'll be upgrading me Son's pc in the near future with my old i5 3570, gigabyte Z77 D3H mobo and 8gb kingston ram, I'm going to be looking at replacing these components.
Now, I've been out of the pc scene for a while and I really don't know what format to for, obviously cheap is better but I don't want to compromise performance too much (My current setup is in me sig as a guide to what I'm used to) and it performs remarkably well coping very well with all my needs to date although I'm seeing I could do with a bit more grunt for gaming as the 7050 is starting to show it's limitations.
Is Haswell the way to go, or just go for a better/ faster i5/ i7 Ivybridge? is it adviseable to go for more ram? more up to date mobo? I'll certainly be replacing the 7950 with summat more powerful so thats sorted.

Any ideas or opinions appreciated.

 

[Stuen4y]

Haswell is good but I am not sure you will see the improvements you are hoping for from a new system if you only upgrade the cpu and the motherboard. I would buy a cheap 120m cooler with heatpipes (really any will work for that type of overclock), you can easily overclock your 3570 to up to 4.2GHz and get more than enough performance to put a card of 780Ti's calibre without bottlenecking it massively. Yes, it might be several % slower than a similar Haswell system but the increase in the price will not be transferred linearly into performance.
I would invest into graphics if gaming is priority. GTX 780 and R9 290 are both a very good choice and will give you quite the increase from 7950, around 40-50%. Your PSU will be able to handle pretty much any single core card you throw at it so maybe only the memory with this 1333MHz speed will be problematic. If you can hunt a good and cheap 2133MHz kit of either 8 or 16GB it is absolutely worth to change yours. You can sell yours second hand and get good money for it as memory is still quite expensive.
P.S. My comment is assuming your CPU is 3570 without K. If we are talking about an unlocked 3570K like the one in your signature, the upgrade to a Haswell is even less appealing as with good cooler, 4.5-4.7GHz are totally possible and the clock to clock difference between Ivy and Haswell will shrink even further by the higher clock you can achieve with the Ivy.

 

[pieman109]

Haswell is good but I am not sure you will see the improvements you are hoping for from a new system if you only upgrade the cpu and the motherboard. I would buy a cheap 120m cooler with heatpipes (really any will work for that type of overclock), you can easily overclock your 3570 to up to 4.2GHz and get more than enough performance to put a card of 780Ti's calibre without bottlenecking it massively. Yes, it might be several % slower than a similar Haswell system but the increase in the price will not be transferred linearly into performance.
I would invest into graphics if gaming is priority. GTX 780 and R9 290 are both a very good choice and will give you quite the increase from 7950, around 40-50%. Your PSU will be able to handle pretty much any single core card you throw at it so maybe only the memory with this 1333MHz speed will be problematic. If you can hunt a good and cheap 2133MHz kit of either 8 or 16GB it is absolutely worth to change yours. You can sell yours second hand and get good money for it as memory is still quite expensive.

P.S. My comment is assuming your CPU is 3570 without K. If we are talking about an unlocked 3570K like the one in your signature, the upgrade to a Haswell is even less appealing as with good cooler, 4.5-4.7GHz are totally possible and the clock to clock difference between Ivy and Haswell will shrink even further by the higher clock you can achieve with the Ivy.

Thanks for the info mate. The cpu is already clocked to 4.2ghz and has a Zalman heatpipe cooler with 120mm fan on it as well and temps are fairly good with it being in a Corsair Carbide 400r case. As said, I can't fault the performance so it looks like I'll pick up a cpu/ mobo bundle from the MM and transfer my memory into me son's set up and get meself some faster memory. I'll also invest in either a next gen gpu or pick up a s/h 290/ 290X or Invidia equivalent.

 

[~>Dg<~]

keep cpu its fine in games you wont notice any difference.

just get a better gpu or wait past september new gear new ddr4 ram.

you card will run a titan black fine so don't worry its more than capable.


prolly seen it before but look at these gaming benchmarks you'll see a i5 3570k is actually very good value performance.

http://wccftech.com/intel-sandy-bridge-ivy-bridge-haswell-graphics-compared-10-difference-average/


crysis 3 is the hardest game . i5 3570k oc vs haswell 4770k most games 1-2 fps difference single cards.

new games to come this year wont test either. bf same engine.

 

[hellhasnofury]

I know it's cheeky but worth a shot, I'm coincidently trying to find a second hand i5 3570k, HD 8950, and Z77 mobo for a budget build. Incidentally this is a thread I made over a year ago looking to buy it all new (before I got thrown into unexpected financial problems) : http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?p=23162328

Do you expect you'll be selling your parts?