Should I upgrade?

Vipernet

Vipernet

Vipernet

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
2,895
Location
2 doors down from Subo
Ok, I've had my current pc for a little over 3 years now and only really been changing my memory and gfx card druing this time.

Processor: i7 860 @ 4Ghz using watercooling.
Mobo: 1156 MSI P55A Fuzion: Great board, dual pci-e at proper speeds too
Memory: 8gb Avexir 1600
Gfx: EVGA GTX580, with accelero air cooler
PSU: Silverstone 1200w

I do play a fair bit of games at 1920x1080 and haven't noticed much slow down even with the latest games. I use adobe creative suite a lot so the i7 is handy particularly when doing video encoding.

Is it time to upgrade?

1)Should I upgrade the cpu and mobo? (I'm still confused about the main improvements between haswell and ivybridge so would go for either)

2)Get another 580gtx? (3gb flavour?)

3)Get a 670 or similar?

4)Or get a totally new cpu, mobo and gfx setup?

5) Or wait for a bit.......
 
If your PC still does what you need it to, no need to upgrade. a lot of people get on the upgrading bandwagon for no reason...if it works fine then its cool!
 
If you're happy with perforance I would stick with what you have tbh. No point in getting a 670, it's not really a substantial upgrade in raw speed but does offer more VRAM. If your looking for a boost with encoding you could consider a Haswell i7 but it won't give much of boost in games. Your current cpu is still fairly sought after so could offset the cost of upgrading some what. Remember RAM and cpu block could probably be carried over to a new system.
 
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Hi there,

1) In CPU-heavy multi-threaded tasks a new CPU/mobo would give you a decent performance boost.

For example, The i7 860 and i7 920 when at the same clockspeed are basically identical in performance. With that in mind, this review compares an i7 920 @ 4GHz (and at stock clocks) against sandy bridge, ivy bridge and haswell CPUs (both at stock and overclocked).

Though as you can see the i7 920 (and thus the i7 860) is a fair bit slower than the newer chips - it is still posting respectable performance numbers (especially considering its age).


2) Getting a second GTX 580 wouldn't be a bad idea - as in many games you will get a big performance increase and the cost of a second-hand HGTX 580 isn't too high.

However, the downsides are that the two cards are likely to be fair bit noisier than just one of the cards, will use a lot more power, will be at the mercy of SLI scaling/drivers for good performance and take up a lot of room on you board/case.

In contrast a single GTX 670 or HD 7950 would offer a decent performance boost, more VRAM and use a lot less power.

Also, if you have a 1.5GB GTX 580 then there isn't any point buying a 3GB model for SLI as the extra 1.5GB on the second card will be unused (you would need two 3GB cards to see the full 3GB VRAM in SLI).


3) Not a bad idea (as mentioned above) - HD 7950 3GB also worth considering. It is also worth mentioning that AMD's new HD 8000 series are rumoured to arrive before the end of the year. So if you can live with your GTX 580
until then, you are likely to be able to get a better card for your money.


4) If you have the money and are willing to spend it on you PC now (~£600) - why not. But maybe think hard on the performance of your current system - I imagine it is still running pretty swiftly and that money may be better spent later (supposedly)


5) Also, a good option if you are relatively happy with your current performance and are willing to wait for tech that is a bigger performance jump from what you have. For example, if you can wait until the end of the year then you are likely to see new graphics cards and if you can wait until the middle of 2014 then new CPUs and motherboards are expected (the intel ones are rumoured to be a "haswell refresh" that is a bit faster and uses a new chipset that is incompatible with Z87).
 
Cheers guys.

Thinking it's probably best to leave it till Christmas/New Year time before I look to upgrade. I do have some spare cash just now so maybe I'll just spend it on a nice 27inch monitor instead :p
 
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