i7

[father-ted]

I am thinking of upgrading my i7 920 to a 990x.
Can get a second hand 990x for around £200.

Is it a worthwhile upgrade, will I notice much of a difference?
I dont want to go to the full expense of upgrading everything just yet, unless I really have to?

Thanks

 

[On Holiday]

What's your primary use of the PC?

Is your 920 currently overclocked?

If the primary use is gaming then I'd recommend slapping a high end cooler and easily overclocking to 4GHz - this will give you more performance per £ than switching to 6 cores.

If it is already overclocked and primary use is gaming then you're not going to see much difference going to the 990x.

 

[P4Clock]

buy an x5650 and save yourself £150

going from 4 to 6 cores is a very big upgrade
When i went from a 920 @ 4Ghz to a 5650 @ 4.5Ghz the difference was out of this world, games was back in max out setting

 

[Scurburg]

buy an x5650 and save yourself £150

going from 4 to 6 cores is a very big upgrade
When i went from a 920 @ 4Ghz to a 5650 @ 4.5Ghz the difference was out of this world, games was back in max out setting

+1

No point in spending £200 at all. The 5650s are the better choice by far. There are threads here that should explain more about ocing them (basically BCLK instead of multi).

 

[father-ted]

What can I expect to OC a 5650 to?

Is there any real benefit of spending a bit more for say a 5675?

I want a decent chip so that my gfx card is not bottlenecked.

I want to get as long as possible with my current set up before I do another complete upgrade.

Also, will my current H50 cooler fit one of these?

Thanks for your advice.

 

[Dave2150]

I am thinking of upgrading my i7 920 to a 990x.
Can get a second hand 990x for around £200.

Is it a worthwhile upgrade, will I notice much of a difference?
I dont want to go to the full expense of upgrading everything just yet, unless I really have to?

Thanks

Bad idea to buy any 'ancient' technology, such as a 990 or xeon for socket 1366.

It's outdated crap at this point, no warranty, mediocre performance, power hungry and produces a lot of heat.

Far better to save up and invest in X99/Skylake, depending on your use. Much higher resale value also.

Remember with socket 1366 you're missing out of many new technologies, not just the speed.

 

[AiiR]

Bad idea to buy any 'ancient' technology, such as a 990 or xeon for socket 1366.

It's outdated crap at this point, no warranty, mediocre performance, power hungry and produces a lot of heat.

Far better to save up and invest in X99/Skylake, depending on your use. Much higher resale value also.

Remember with socket 1366 you're missing out of many new technologies, not just the speed.

Bad idea to spend around 50 quid for 4 extra logical cores? Not at all. If you can get a 5650 to 4ghz+ it'll trade blows with a 5820k at stock speeds.. Thats not mediocre performance. It's also a 32nm chip so it'll run cooler.

@OP - if you want a boost in performance for little cost, get a used xeon x5650. They're very much the same chip as the i7's but geared towards server use (no impact on desktop usage).

 

[tickedon]

Bad idea to buy any 'ancient' technology, such as a 990 or xeon for socket 1366.

It's outdated crap at this point, no warranty, mediocre performance, power hungry and produces a lot of heat.

Far better to save up and invest in X99/Skylake, depending on your use. Much higher resale value also.

Remember with socket 1366 you're missing out of many new technologies, not just the speed.

He has no warranty on his current chip, but it's definitely not mediocre performance!

The Xeon upgrade would also be my preference over the 990x.

 

[Caracus2k]

£200 is too much for a hex core x58 chip £50 for a CPU and spend a bit more for a usb3/sata3 card and you have a quite capable system with modern io for much less than buying a new z170/x99 system

£200 for a 990x is close to used 5820k prices. You could sell your x58 stuff (x58 motherboards still sell well, and you should be able to get reasonable money for the 12gb ram) and have an x99 setup for not much more than the 990x with similar clocks when overclocking, better ipc and better io on the motherboard

 

[Dave2150]

Bad idea to spend around 50 quid for 4 extra logical cores? Not at all. If you can get a 5650 to 4ghz+ it'll trade blows with a 5820k at stock speeds.. Thats not mediocre performance. It's also a 32nm chip so it'll run cooler.

@OP - if you want a boost in performance for little cost, get a used xeon x5650. They're very much the same chip as the i7's but geared towards server use (no impact on desktop usage).

Trade blows with a 5820k? No, just no. Besides, who runs their 5820k's at stock, bearing in mind the name of the forum your posting on?

If you're spending money, it's best to get on a modern platform.

 

[P4Clock]

What can I expect to OC a 5650 to?
Is there any real benefit of spending a bit more for say a 5675?
I want a decent chip so that my gfx card is not bottlenecked.
I want to get as long as possible with my current set up before I do another complete upgrade.
Also, will my current H50 cooler fit one of these?
Thanks for your advice.

I have the same motherboard as you, and i owned 5 5650's trying to find a golden one. it turned out that ever one i had did a solid 4.5Ghz so you would be looking for 4.3 to 4.5ghz
there was a few ppl that paid out for more expensive chips none clocked passed the 4.5Ghz daily use

if the H50 fits you current setup then yes it will fit this. the CPU's run cooler than the 920's

 

[P4Clock]

bearing in mind the name of the forum your posting on?

ME!

 

[AiiR]

Trade blows with a 5820k? No, just no. Besides, who runs their 5820k's at stock, bearing in mind the name of the forum your posting on?

If you're spending money, it's best to get on a modern platform.

Plenty of benchmarks show it can keep up, you can educate yourself in here: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18618052

My friend has a 5820k that he runs at stock because he just wants the 6 cores for rendering and doesn't feel comfortable overclocking a chip he spent £300 on. Just because it has an unlocked multi doesn't mean it absolutely needs to be overclocked.

No one is suggesting that the Xeon is better than current chips available today, but its certainly no slouch and is irresistible at 50-70 quid a pop.

 

[DragonQ]

Bear in mind that you can get £30-40 for your i7-920, so the total outlay of an upgrade to an X5650 would be maybe £30. Great bang for buck despite it being "ancient technology".

 

[Caracus2k]

Bear in mind that you can get £30-40 for your i7-920, so the total outlay of an upgrade to an X5650 would be maybe £30. Great bang for buck despite it being "ancient technology".

You will not get anything like that on the mm here and even at auction on a popular site most 920's sold at auction recently sell for no more than £20-30 minus fees of course

Good x58 motherboards still command good second hand prices

 

[d1am0nd g33z3r]

If you're spending money, it's best to get on a modern platform.

Well there's spending money and spending money. There's a big difference between spending £50 on a chip or £500 on a whole new platform.

Would a new platform give him 10x the performance increase that a 5650 would? Big maybe.

@OP You have reason to believe your gfx is being bottlenecked?

 

[father-ted]

Not sure really, as 920 is old I expect it may be?

 

[AiiR]

Not sure really, as 920 is old I expect it may be?

It won't bottleneck the 7970 in your sig if that's what you have if it's clocked high (3.8ghz+).