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Second Rig upgrade I5 2500 to what?

funt

funt

funt

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1 Nov 2013
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As title i have a second rig sitting in my office not really doing much and i would like to upgrade it to be able to play decent games away from my main PC.

In the rig in question i have an old i5 2500 from my last build and it just doesn't seem to cope well with games at high detail. It's still on the H67 board it came with, stock cooler, has 8GB RAM 650w PSU and SSD

What i want is a noticeable upgrade as i have another Ref 290 arriving imminently and would like to put it into this rig. I'm looking for a CPU, Mobo and if within budget new RAM or new cooler. I'm looking to spend around £300 -£350 but ideally i'd like to keep the price down as it's not going to be used full time. I have been looking at the bundle deals here on OCuk but can't decide on what i want. So far in the bundles i have in mind were the following:

"Grenadier GX8" AMD FX-8 8350 Black Edition @ 4.2GHz Eight Core Gaming Bundle @£357.99

"Ranger KX7" AMD Kaveri 7700K @ 4.2GHz 12 Core* APU Gaming Bundle w/ Radeon R7 Graphics @ £340.99

and

ReFlex MSI Z97 - Intel Core i5 4690K @ 4.2GHz Configurable Gaming Bundle £365.00

Couple just above the £350 limit but i'm constantly being told not to get it prebuilt and clocked and do it myself as it's cheaper but how much? and is the saving worth it. My main rig was a prebuilt OC bundle and i just screwed it in and had no trouble.

Can anyone with a bit more knowledge than I throw together some basket items that would fit my needs? I don't mind putting it together myself i'm just a lil lazy is all hence the prebuilt options i was looking at.

cheers.
 
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What GPU is currently with the 2500? A stock 2500 shouldn't have any problems at all with a single GPU gaming, I certainly wouldn't be jumping to upgrade one just yet.
A 2500 with an R9 290 should go hand in hand and play games very well.

Also, you say OC'ed bundle, but neither the 2500 or H67 are capable of overclocking (At least, by any meaningful degree, I think you can only up a couple of multi's at best on a 2500)
 
Martini1991 said:
What GPU is currently with the 2500? A stock 2500 shouldn't have any problems at all with a single GPU gaming, I certainly wouldn't be jumping to upgrade one just yet.
A 2500 with an R9 290 should go hand in hand and play games very well.

Also, you say OC'ed bundle, but neither the 2500 or H67 are capable of overclocking (At least, by any meaningful degree, I think you can only up a couple of multi's at best on a 2500)
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It hasn't got a full GPU at the moment i was using one of the 290's i already have before i upgraded to an i7 4770k to xfire which is the bundle i was speaking of.

The CPU has been OK but it just can't handle serious games very well and the Heaven scores it gets with a 290 are not great either barely breaking 1325 but on a previous driver scored close to 1400. In catzilla the CPU scored awful .. less than 200...
 
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It's not solely Heaven that makes me want new parts, it's old out of date and as you said not worth trying to overclock. I have the money and the desire for an upgrade so even if the Heaven scores were higher i'd probably still want to change it out. I play CPU intensive games GTA 4, Planetside 2 among others and with 2500 it struggles and noticeably so compared to my main rig 1 290 VS 1 290
 
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Why bother... you can overclock to 4 bins above max turbo. That will give you a max 1 core turbo of 4.1 GHz and a max 4 core turbo of 3.8. Unless you buy a 4690k or a 4790k and OC it you will not get a faster CPU.

If your score is low in Heaven (in which the CPU speed is largely irrelevant) you have other issues, try re-installing the operating system and updating the drivers. Also make sure you're not having thermal issues that could cause the GPU or CPU to throttle.
 
JonSmith said:
Why bother... you can overclock to 4 bins above max turbo. That will give you a max 1 core turbo of 4.1 GHz and a max 4 core turbo of 3.8. Unless you buy a 4690k or a 4790k and OC it you will not get a faster CPU.

If your score is low in Heaven (in which the CPU speed is largely irrelevant) you have other issues, try re-installing the operating system and updating the drivers. Also make sure you're not having thermal issues that could cause the GPU or CPU to throttle.
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Fresh install of Win 8.1 have used every driver since R9 290 came out last year, steady decline in performance with every driver update since 14.2. In planetside 2 i am CPU limited in GTA 4 the comparison is night and day compared to my other rig on which i can run GTA 4 with Ice enhancer and all the niceties cranked up and it's butter smooth using 1 GPU, with the 2500 i struggle to get a constant 30-40 fps with no graphics mods and gameplay is uber choppy... GPU does not throttle AT ALL i have OC of 1050/1275 and clocks stay at those speeds constantly in game or in heaven.

CPU at stock with stock cooler fails stress testing,esp OCCT in under 1 minute.... can't see me getting any worthwhile OC out of it without a lot of hassle i could do without.
 
funt said:
CPU at stock with stock cooler fails stress testing,esp OCCT in under 1 minute.... can't see me getting any worthwhile OC out of it without a lot of hassle i could do without.
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I think that's your answer there, no CPU should fail OCCT at stock in under a minute. Re-seat the cooler, adjust case thermals (remove dust, rearrange cables and fans) and/or buy a new cooler.
 
A stock chip shouldn't fail an OCCT.

If you want no hassle, then the 4690K's fine as an upgrade.
I went from a 2500K to a 4670K, I probably wouldn't do it again.
 
Yeah i have had noticed this CPU issue in the past and i bought a new CPU cooler to put on it but i ended buying the i7 which has it now.
 
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