Tempted to upgrade from Nehalem to Haswell.

[Five.Stars]

Hi there, got a budget of around probably £600 to play with but not under any rush. Really fancy a new toy to go with my watercooled 7970's. i7920 has been run at 4ghz since I bought it as an overclocked bundle in November 09. So nearly 4 years and has served me well, but looking for something new and to give bit more oomph to my 7970's.

Specced myself this:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-563-AS

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-471-IN

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-150-GL

Which comes to £592 total.

Thoughts?

Also, I don't really want to de-lid so what kind of overclock am I looking at on the cpu - will be under a Raystorm cpu block and have a 240 + 360 rad with Scythe GT's cooling them. Do they get to 5Ghz under water regularly or is that massively over ambitious?

Cheers.

 

[Sycho]

I went from i7 920 at 4ghz to the same as you linked with this ram though http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-370-CS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1387 and the fps gains in games has been huge due to SLI 680s.(BF3 gained about 50-70fps more average, BL2 about 40 or more, Hitman about 20-30, Crysis 3 about 20-30 although it seems to cope real well in all these with higher msaa too now.)

I say it's definitely worth the upgrade as you are on CF 7970s also if on 120hz or 2560x1440 monitor.

Might want to consider ram i linked which is real good and it's compatible.

 

[Five.Stars]

Thanks mate, that is the input I was both looking for and dreading at same time, since now i am really tempted to pull the trigger lol.

Have got a 120hz monitor so that is good to hear there is a noticable increase in fps. Would assume it really helps with any minimum framerates as well?

Very very tempted, but just rebuilt system (including wc loop) after adding 2nd 7970 so not sure i can be bothered stripping down. Something to contemplate over next few days/ weeks.

Cheers.

 

[Alkalinepro5]

If you had a single 7970 I would say not really worth it, however with crossfire 7970's I think you will see 10-15% improvement max.

 

[Sycho]

No for newer titles the performance increase is pretty damn huge, considering a lot of these are using the cpu a great deal and with new consoles incoming it seems a logical choice upgrading to Haswell from i7 920.

I had fluctuation in some titles too where the SLI 680s were severely bottlenecked but this isn't even the case at stock on Haswell....i see none of it at all and games are extremely smooth.I am still very surprised at the peformance boost in newer titles but it probably wouldn't be so great with a single 680.

Yes my minimum fps gone up a lot....it's extremely rare in BF3 for example to go below 100fps with 4xmsaa on Ultra even.

I really like having SATA 3 now too so i can go for a 1TB Samsung EVO drive in the coming months.

 

[HankScorpio]

Get yourself a gigabyte D3H board and some Samsung green memory and overclock it to 2400Mhz to save yourself a bit of cash.

 

[Khazzer]

I went from an i7 940 (with an HD6950 and 12GB memory) to a 4770k (with Gigabyte z87-D3HP and Asus GTX780, 16GB memory) and its a great improvement. I don't regret it at all.

 

[Boomstick777]

4770K is a very nice CPU, it's performance VS it's price is epic tbh. Low power consumption, won't break the bank, def worth getting if you have the upgrade urge. The 4670K is worth a look as well, if you pair it with a cheaper board overclocking mobo like the B85's, you can get the CPU + Mobo for around £220, ridiculous value.