I7 + 4870

martin5454 · 27 Mar 2009 at 10:14

Will having a I7 make any difference when gaming if I only have a 4870?

With this combo what's performance gonna be like on games like crysis?

I am not gonna be able to stretch to the 4870x2, any ideas on alternavtive cards that wont raid the bannk too much?

reflux · 27 Mar 2009 at 10:18

i7 is not really the gamer's setup of choice. Although they are awesome processors, some games run faster on the older Core 2 architecture. And since most games are GPU-limited these days anyway, even if i7 was very well suited to gaming, there wouldn't really be a huge improvement to be seen.

To be honest, i7 only really shines with dual graphics, where the sheer processing power gives them more headroom to operate than was available with Core 2. At the 4870's price range, you're not going to be able to buy anything significantly faster.

martin5454 · 27 Mar 2009 at 10:28

Is it worth investing in? My friend just got a Q6600 setup and he is over the moon with that. Will the i7 n DDR3 future proof my system more for later upgrades?

reflux · 27 Mar 2009 at 10:30

Well that was how I justified the £500 upgrade. Buy a decent i7 motherboard and you get a pretty new socket with a lot of advanced features; triple channel DDR3 support, CrossFire and SLi for example.

martin5454 · 27 Mar 2009 at 10:35

yeah thats it, there is also the joy it will bring me from winding my friend up