If your a gamer, what's the point in upgrading to Sandy Bridge?

Michaeljcox24 · 26 Dec 2010 at 13:33

Reality of the situation at the moment?

GPU is king. Even if you have a Q6600 that is 3 years old, at 3.4 - 3.6 ghz, it's more than enough processing power to run the majority of games on the market today.

If you haver an I7 that is @ 4GHz you have an abundance of CPU power that probably isn't utilised in games.

So you upgrade to a Sandy Bridge, manage to overclock to 4.5Ghz, will you see a difference? Probably not.

Until games specify 4GHz I7, I can't see the point in buying one.

Go SLI 460, go GTX 580, which will be the same price as a board and cpu / ram bundle. Otherwise keep your money.

It's like with the I7 chips and half decent quads Intel produced chips that were so good, and so futureproof, that they shot themselves in the foot.

Ordokai · 26 Dec 2010 at 13:45

Pretty much, but the upgrade itch...

- Ordokai

iamtheoneneo · 26 Dec 2010 at 17:47

Yep we need a console refresh to even begin to see CPU power being used properly in pc games

markiejt · 26 Dec 2010 at 18:41

No console refresh for many years yet. I believe MS have said xbox 360 is only just over half it life cycle. Which is little worrying.

But on my new laptop will be nice

PCM2 · 26 Dec 2010 at 18:44

Arma 2 makes good use of CPUs, as a PC exclusive title, does it not? Not exactly the cutting edge of technology, perhaps more a badly coded engine

.

iBSOD · 26 Dec 2010 at 19:03

Newer/faster hardware just encourages game dev's to be lazy when making PC games.

HighlandeR · 26 Dec 2010 at 19:10

upgrade itch definatly strikes....

For me I just fancy a total overhaul and to get a decent rigg with 2600K Core i7/4gig DDR3 with decent mobo/ a 580GTX or 6970 and a decent Ocz SSD with a decent IPS Panel. After that wont need to upgrade for ages even

bainbridge · 26 Dec 2010 at 19:48

My system runs games fine & I haven't upgraded for over 3 yrs apart from the gpu & storage, trouble is I just really want to put a new machine together, can't even do it for family & friends anymore as they all want laptops

bakes0310 · 26 Dec 2010 at 20:04

Ive set myself a challenge of not upgrading every 1-2 years and im gonna keep my rig to 2014 then im gonna go nuts

Edit: Im buying a blueray drive tonight or tomorrow but that dont count ok.

Gin0rm0 · 26 Dec 2010 at 20:30

Doubt I'll upgrade to Sandybridge.

I'll only upgrade when there's a game my CPU can't cope with. Hoping it'll cope with BF3!

cplhardnut · 26 Dec 2010 at 22:18

I was seriously considering to go sandybridge but now ive decided just to upgrade my gtx 460 to a gtx 570.

mattyfez · 26 Dec 2010 at 22:22

Gin0rm0 said:
Doubt I'll upgrade to Sandybridge.

I'll only upgrade when there's a game my CPU can't cope with. Hoping it'll cope with BF3!

This.

3vil Tom · 26 Dec 2010 at 23:44

This is all well and good for people with quad core machines, I am still running a C2D 3Ghz, for me sandy bridge at 4.5 Ghz would be a really big increase!

WingZero30 · 26 Dec 2010 at 23:50

I usually upgrade every 5/6 years

. Just recently upgraded from AMD Athlon XP 3000+ and ATI Radeon 9200 se family to Q6600 and HD5850

.

Vertigo · 26 Dec 2010 at 23:57

TBH I usually skip every other generation and so have given Nehalem a miss and am currently running a Q9550 and Q9650 in my two rigs.

Thing is though, the old Core 2 Quads are so damned good I'm wondering if there's any real point in upgrading to Sandy Bridge when it arrives?

LokiS · 27 Dec 2010 at 00:06

I have a Q6600 at 3.6 and can't help but feel like it can be sluggish at times under cpu intensive games (generally RTS), or multitasking while installing crap etc and having to wait to load stuff.

So I'm after a new CPU but at the same time not in a hurry, my trusty q6600 is still going but going to be watching around Sandy Bridge release and looking at the higher bits that are coming after it. Unless they are insane prices may as well buy newer tech then say some of the newer cpus out now. Depends on price/performance etc.

tbh · 27 Dec 2010 at 01:08

cplhardnut said:
I was seriously considering to go sandybridge but now ive decided just to upgrade my gtx 460 to a gtx 570.

Having personally already bought 3 GPUs on TSMC's crappy 40nm process I refuse to buy a fourth so looks like I'm waiting for the 28nm cores for my next GPU upgrade.

Tempted to upgrade my Q6600 however, although if I can hold off the upgrade itch I'd like to see what Bulldozer brings to the table as my last 3 CPUs have all been Intel and I'm an AMD guy at heart.

~>Dg<~ · 27 Dec 2010 at 01:16

only crysis lol

wonder why i got a xbox at christmas

games are 90 percent ported. no one is willing to take a risk on big games look at crysis going console the pcs benchmark game . says it all .

Redmint · 27 Dec 2010 at 01:22

UEFI means faster boot times, means you can spend more time gaming.

In seriousness, not a lot of point if you already have a decently clocked quad core. Only the appeal of new shiny stuff that's tempting me. (skipped the nehalem generation).

Uriel · 27 Dec 2010 at 08:18

It's worth upgrading CPU for gaming if you have a dual core. To be honest, a triple core athlon II is quite adequate for most games.

I run an athlon x2 5000+ 45nm overclocked from 2.2 GHz to 3.1 GHz (can squeeze 3.3 out of it if I overvolt my RAM) and that's satisfactory in most games. It unlocks to a Phenom FX-5000 (same as Phenom II but only cost me £36) but the majority of time games run perfectly without unlocking the extra 2 cores and 6MB l3 cache. Of the games I own, I only see a real difference unlocking for Ghostbusters and GTA IV.

As a gamer, buying a better CPU right now would be a complete waste of money.