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Pointless Upgrade i3 530 to i5 760??

zo1d

zo1d

zo1d

Associate
Joined
18 Sep 2005
Posts
487
Hi,

Currently I'm running an i3 530 clocked to 3.9Ghz coupled with a 4850 Pro and 4GB of ram, but I'm considering an i5 760 http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-339-IN&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=1672.

The i3 was only meant to be a stop gap and to be used for a future media center upgrade however I'm considering the upgrade as 1. price seems good, 2. have a new toy to play with 3. hoping that quad core would give me a performance boost in games like Arma II

Interested in your opion, do think this would be a pointless upgrade or should I wait until next year for the next generation of Intel and AMD cpus?

Thanks,
 
Games are starting to support quad core and as you said arma II is one of them. Yes its a great cpu and you will see gains but im not sure if they will be big gains.

No doubt see what next year offers. For now i would upgrade the GPU and get a nice SSD as its not wasted.
 
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To be honest - if you want to spend that kind of money, you would be better off investing in a new graphics card. For £145 you can get a card that will wipe out the 4850 in terms of gaming performance (GTX 460/ HD 6850).

As for a CPU upgrade, the i5 760 is great, but there a few games that an i3 530 can't handle - in most situations it will be the 4850 that is holding you back.
 
Also I already have an SSD (Intel 80GB X-25M) and have budgeted for a new graphics card currently just waiting for the ATI 6950s before deciding what to buy.
 
cmndr_andi said:
To be honest - if you want to spend that kind of money, you would be better off investing in a new graphics card. For £145 you can get a card that will wipe out the 4850 in terms of gaming performance (GTX 460/ HD 6850).

As for a CPU upgrade, the i5 760 is great, but there a few games that an i3 530 can't handle - in most situations it will be the 4850 that is holding you back.
Click to expand...

1000 times this.

The I3 at 4ghz is essentially the same as the I5 at stock, that's not in all tasks! But the few I've seen. World of warcraft, etc.


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Edit just spotted what you wrote above. You have the cash for a graphics card and possible CPU upgrade(depending on whether its worth it)?
 
Agree on upgrading graphic card instead of CPU. i3 530 would be more than fine...and if you got a good enough cooler, you can overclock it to 4.2~4.4GHz which would help as well. The amount of performance boost in game with upgrading to a faster CPU will be minimum, when the graphic card itself is the weak link. I don't really see the NEED that to upgrade the CPU, unless you are going for graphic set up faster than a GTX480...upgrading graphic card will deliver greater frame rate boost than upgrading from the CPU you got now.

For example, if I was to go GTX460 SLI or xfire 5850 or 6850, THEN I would consider upgrading to a i5 760 and overclock it to 3.8~4.2GHz.
 
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If you have the money to splash out get it, and stick the core i3 530 into a media center pc case, low powered , low noise, whit either just the on board gfx in the chip or a passive 5650/5670 really cheap.

like the post above whit the 760 you can do Sli or Crossfire in the future too if want to play whit that,. and the 760 Oc to 3.7-3.8Mhz really easy and low temps.

regarding the new sandy cpu, its my understanding that, then you will need a new Mb "new socket" , new ram And new Cpu, not that cheap
 
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