Possible Upgrade

Silverberg

Silverberg

Silverberg

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Joined
25 Jan 2009
Posts
23
Location
Leeds
Hi guys, first time here.

I am thinking of doing a few upgrades to my pc. The main question is, will there be much of a performance increase compared to what i have now.

Current Build:
Intel i7-920 @ Stock speeds with standard Intel cooler
Gigabyte G1 Guerilla Motherboard
Kingston HyperX Genesis RAM 24GB
ATI 6990 4GB

This is what im thinking of changing it to:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-3820 3.60GHz (Sandybridge-E) Socket LGA2011 Processor - Retail £215.99
1 x Asus P9X79 Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard £192.98
1 x Corsair Vengeance 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual/Quad Channel Kit (CMZ16GX3M4A1600C9) £89.99
1 x Intel Liquid Cooling Solution CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1155/1156//1366/2011) £72.98
Total : £583.34 (includes shipping : £9.50).




What do you think? Any feedback would be great, thanks.
 
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What do you use your computer for? If only for gaming then maybe just have a go at overclocking your CPU as it should give you a nice extra performance boost. Also I would go for the H100 over that cooler as it will give much better performance for less than a fiver more, if you can fit it in your case.
 
How much gaming? If a fair amount then a graphics card upgrade is likely to be better.

I don't think I would bother upgrading if I were you. Wait for the next generation.
 
Get yorself a new cooler and try to overclock your processor, it should be able to do around 3GHz. This will give you a decent boost when gaming and recoding.
 
+1 for a new CPU cooler on your current system.

The i7 920 C0/C1 version can pretty reliably hit 3.6-3.8GHz with a decent cooler. The newer i7 920 D0 version can reliably hit 4.0-4.2GHz with a decent cooler. Since your X58 board is a later one then I would guess that you have a superior i7 920 D0 (if you bought the CPU at the same time as the board).

So with a new cooler and a bit of perseverance you will get a nice boost in CPU performance. Also, that motherboard you have is a nice one for overclocking.

Before, I recommend a CPU cooler - may I ask what case you are using?

Here is a review which compares the gaming performance of the i7 3820, i7 920 and new Ivy Bridge CPUs - when using an overclocked GTX 580 graphics card. As you can see, at stock clockspeeds the performance difference between the 920 and 3820 isn't massive.
 
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Would you be able to check with CPU-Z, just so you can be certain which stepping you are working with?

The case is a decent one and will fit most large CPU coolers (though not the silver arrow it seems).

The noctua nh-d14 seems to be ok (see here) as should the alpenföhn k2 (which is the same height).

Here is a review of the Alpenföhn K2 - as it is the newer cooler and the review also mentions the Noctua.
 
cpuzdm.jpg
 
Ah yes, so it is.

With that in mind I would still go with the new cooler and try overclocking it to 3.8GHz. With your board this shouldn't be too difficult and with an i7 920 at 3.8GHz you are unlikely to be CPU limited in a PC game for quite a while (with any luck, not before Intel Haswell is out).
 
Buying an upgraded system (the upgrade you are looking at) will give you approx 4 or 5 fps more. It really isn't worth it.
Overclocking the i7 is really easy. Just up the CPU voltage slightly, increase the BLK, put the ram on a divider to keep it within its rated speed and save. If all is stable, go back & up the BLK some more. Once you've tried it you'll see what I mean by easy. It is literally 3 or 4 bios settings to change, that's it. :)
 
Ok thanks a lot for your help. When the new cooler arrives (yet to decide which one) I will have a go with what you just said, although the part about the RAM has lost me completely :confused:
 
Basically when you are overclocking this CPU you increase the base clock (BCLK) frequency. This influences both the CPU and memory clockspeeds, though each of these is on their own multiplier. The stock BCLK is 133MHz, the stock CPU multiplier of the i7 920 is 20x and the stock memory multiplier of PC3-10600 RAM is 10x.

However, when you overclock the CPU on the X58 platform - so that the BLCK goes up (for example increasing it from 133MHz to 180MHz)- the 20x CPU multiplier will increase the CPU frequency to 3.6GHz (a nice overclock, so long as you provide enough core voltage to the CPU). However, this same adjustment will mean the memory is trying to run at 1800MHz on the standard 10x memory multiplier, even though it is only rated to 1333MHz (in this case, your memory may be rated higher).

Therefore, when you overclock a CPU on the X58 platform just make sure you lower the memory multiplier enough so that the memory is still running at around spec level (ideally below it so you know it will be fine).
 
cmndr_andi said:
Basically when you are overclocking this CPU you increase the base clock (BCLK) frequency. This influences both the CPU and memory clockspeeds, though each of these is on their own multiplier. The stock BCLK is 133MHz, the stock CPU multiplier of the i7 920 is 20x and the stock memory multiplier of PC3-10600 RAM is 10x.

However, when you overclock the CPU on the X58 platform - so that the BLCK goes up (for example increasing it from 133MHz to 180MHz)- the 20x CPU multiplier will increase the CPU frequency to 3.6GHz (a nice overclock, so long as you provide enough core voltage to the CPU). However, this same adjustment will mean the memory is trying to run at 1800MHz on the standard 10x memory multiplier, even though it is only rated to 1333MHz (in this case, your memory may be rated higher).

Therefore, when you overclock a CPU on the X58 platform just make sure you lower the memory multiplier enough so that the memory is still running at around spec level (ideally below it so you know it will be fine).
Click to expand...


Thank You very much! :)
 
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