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Ok same question nearly 3 years on! Time to upgrade my i7 920?

Blackhorse

Blackhorse

Blackhorse

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Joined
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Posts
495
Hi Guys

First of all thanks for helping an idiot over the years, its very much appreciated, to be honest its the sole reason I wont shop anywhere else (obviously no direct link to the store, but the its down to their forum so figure its only just to keep the money going to an area where im helped!)


Following on from the thread I posted in March 2013
Motherboard and processor remain the same, tweaked a few quick fire wins i.e. graphics card and memory

This computer seems to be doing well but I seem to have this itch to upgrade what is an 6.5 year old processor and motherboard!

My primary use is gaming, seems to still perform well barring the odd hiccup with tearing in certain games



Currently running:
Intel Core i7 920 D0 Stepping (SLBEJ) 2.66GHz (Nehalem) (Socket LGA1366) (Clocked at 4.1GHz)
Asus P6T Deluxe v2 Intel X58 (Socket 1366) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard
Be Quiet! Dark Power Pro 850W ATX2.2 Modular SLi Compliant Power Supply
Corsair CMZ12GX3M3A1600C9 12GB DDR3

Graphics card is obviously a more recent purchase and is fine
ASUS Radeon HD 7970 ROG MATRIX Platinum 3GB

I run games on a single monitor at 1080 resolution (reason for this as its a:)
Samsung S27A750D 27" 120Hz 3D Widescreen Ultra Thin LED Monitor

So same question if i could
Am i actually going to notice any improvements? Or just hang fire again?!
 
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Realistically the difference if you upgraded to something new will probably on paper be something like 20%, but whether or not that is noticable will be hard to say.

A lot of it will depend on the games you play, whether they are CPU limited etc.

That said however, at 6 and a half years old, it may be worth just looking at an upgrade on the grounds of reliability (e.g. better to plan a new build now, rather than have to rush if your existing kit suddenly fails), and also to take advantage of any newer features available on the newer platforms (e.g. USB 3.1, M2 SSDs, newer audio codecs etc)
 
Armageus said:
Realistically the difference if you upgraded to something new will probably on paper be something like 20%, )
Click to expand...

It will be far more than that! As an example, if he went to a 5820k at similar ghz he would get double the score in cinebench R15.

Gaming will depend on the game but even then, there will be big gains to have in certain titles. Some of course wont show any difference.

For other cpu tasks (rendering, editing etc) a 600k or 5820k will be much, much faster ( although I know the OP says he mainly uses it for gaming)
 
I was asking myself the same question about my 950. After careful consideration I realised no. There have been no gains as such in terms of speed. It seems Moore's Law is no longer relevant with silicon.
 
Jono8 said:
It will be far more than that! As an example, if he went to a 5820k at similar ghz he would get double the score in cinebench R15.
Click to expand...

Not sure where you think that improvement comes from then, because assuming they are clocked at similar speeds, as from Nehalem to Haswell-E there hasn't been 100% improvement in IPC that would be needed.

The improvement in architecture alone (i.e. assuming same clock speeds) is around 28% (so more than the 20% I guessed at, but nowhere near double.)

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8426/...view-core-i7-5960x-i7-5930k-i7-5820k-tested/2


Adding more cores would give some benefit in multithreaded benchmarks/apps/games, but equally a 6 core xeon could be used in the OPs current motherboard.



Jono8 said:
Gaming will depend on the game but even then, there will be big gains to have in certain titles. Some of course wont show any difference.
Click to expand...

As the above link shows - gaming gets less of a boost (certainly @ 1080P), probably in the region of 5-10% in most titles.
 
Do you need usb3/sata3/m.2? If not get a xeon x5650 off the bay and throw that in until Intel/AMD bring something better to the table.
 
teenwolf said:
cpu can still cut it in gaming.

do you have an SSD ?
i would upgrade the GPU if you have to scratch that itch.
Click to expand...

Thanks everyone, as always a great response from all thoughts within this process! =)

Hey yea Ive got 2 SSD's running in the RIG
Admittedly they are bottlenecked with the motherboard been only SATA II
But none the less a massive improvement on what I had before

Games run fine, high settings in most cases without fail (unless the game is coded badly which can cause some problems I have to drop the settings slightly)
 
Blackhorse said:
Thanks everyone, as always a great response from all thoughts within this process! =)

Hey yea Ive got 2 SSD's running in the RIG
Admittedly they are bottlenecked with the motherboard been only SATA II
But none the less a massive improvement on what I had before

Games run fine, high settings in most cases without fail (unless the game is coded badly which can cause some problems I have to drop the settings slightly)
Click to expand...

X5650 and m.2 adapter with m.2 drive, 980ti or new monitor :)
 
Still can get through all the latest games pretty well though, which is amazing considering it's age.

I would guess there's going to be a difference with minimum frames versus haswell and skylake though.

My local CEX sell's 1366 i7's for 35 euro!
 
Get an X5650 as suggested and clock the nuts off it.

Awesome chip.

I bought a USB 3 card for a fiver, works a treat.
 
Armageus said:
Not sure where you think that improvement comes from then, because assuming they are clocked at similar speeds, as from Nehalem to Haswell-E there hasn't been 100% improvement in IPC that would be needed.

The improvement in architecture alone (i.e. assuming same clock speeds) is around 28% (so more than the 20% I guessed at, but nowhere near double.). A 6700k would be about 50% maybe a bit more faster in something like R15. However, presumably he has got the most out of his 920 at 4.1ghz. A 6700k would likely do 4.6ghz easily so there would be more gains to be had there.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8426/...view-core-i7-5960x-i7-5930k-i7-5820k-tested/2


Adding more cores would give some benefit in multithreaded benchmarks/apps/games, but equally a 6 core xeon could be used in the OPs current
motherboard.
Click to expand...

He was asking about upgrading. I was saying that a 5820k set up at similar clocks to his current cpu will offer double the performance in many tasks (though granted not gaming). Obviously some of that does come from the extra cores in the 5820k

Still, you only have to watch and view cpu comparisons for games like GTA V, Crysis 3, Witcher 3 etc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZ_5p9wd2dk

to see that going from a i7 920 to a highly clocked haswell or skylake cpu will give him considerable gains in those titles.

Obviously , if he is just gaming and doesn't mind the lower performance in some titles than no it isn't really worth it.

There will however be many instances ( less so in gaming though granted) where a new generation 5820k/6700k etc will be vastly superior.
 
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Blackhorse said:
Thanks everyone, as always a great response from all thoughts within this process! =)

Hey yea Ive got 2 SSD's running in the RIG
Admittedly they are bottlenecked with the motherboard been only SATA II
But none the less a massive improvement on what I had before

Games run fine, high settings in most cases without fail (unless the game is coded badly which can cause some problems I have to drop the settings slightly)
Click to expand...

Buy a usb3/sata3 controller card if you have a free pcie slot.
 
These are some tests I did before and after upgrading my pc recently.

Old system: Rampage 2 Extreme X58, [email protected], 6G DDR3, and a 680GTX, with a fairly decrepit Win7 install.
New system: Asus x99-Pro 5820K, 16G DDR4 and a 980ti, with spanking new Win10 install.

3D Mark Firestrike scores were: (G=graphics, P=Physics, C=Combined)

[email protected]+680GTX : 7163 overall, 8056G, 10556P, 3098C
[email protected]+980ti@stock: 13964 overall, 18632G, 10554P, 5840C
5802K@Stock(3.3)+980ti@stock: 16045 overall, 19141G, 14502P, 7815C
[email protected]+980ti@stock: 17034 overall, 19217G, 17840P, 8875C
[email protected]+980ti@+100C/+500M, 18158 overall, 20822G, 17948P, 9352C

I guess the Physics scores are the most relevant for the cpu mobo/cpu upgrade comparison, but the 980ti certainly kicks the 680gtx's arse to be sure.
 
If I was you OP and I'd already waited this long, I'd just hold on a lil bit longer and see what happens after AMD release their stuff late this year & how Intel respond, & if they "leak" anything that looks tasty to spoil AMD's party before then.
 
Is it mainly gaming performance you're after OP? Or do you use your PC for other things as well? You'll gain a little bit of gaming performance by upgrading, but not much, as I don't think you're currently bottlenecking that 7970 with the 920. You'd probably bottleneck any reasonably powerful modern GPU though if you do upgrade your graphics card in the future.
 
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