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Time to upgrade?

Gregry254

Gregry254

Gregry254

Associate
Joined
5 Dec 2006
Posts
607
Location
Aberdeen
I was almost set to start a new gaming build with an i7 2600k at the heart of it until I used anandtech to see a bench of the i7 against my E8600 and was disappointed to say the least! My build is like 3 years old and the i7 doesn't seem to beat it by much in games?

My current build is:

CPU - E8600
Mobo - Asus p5q pro
Ram - 4gb OCZ Reaper 1066mhz
GPU - ati 4870 1gb

I was looking for something like:

CPU - i7 2600k
Mobo - Asus P8P67 PRO??
Ram - Corsair Vengeance 12GB tri channel 2000mhz
GPU - 6950/70


Now I am considering just buying a new graphics card and an ssd to tide me over. Just looking to get some opinions.

The build is centered solely around gaming performance.
 
I think it is the case that majority of games still utilise dual CPUs.

As your gaming I would be inclined to look at the 2500k CPU, also you need to look for dual channel memory as thriple channel is used for i7 9xx range of CPUs.
 
New graphics card and maybe update the cpu to a quad core Q6600 or Q9550 or Q9650 if you can find them cheap. I would clock up some posts and setup your trust and use the members market on here. You have a good motherboard there for overclocking as you know and any of the quad cores I mention overclock very well on that board. Also adding another 4Gb of ram won't hurt if you are using a 64bit operating system.
 
CPU - i7 2600k to this 2500k
Mobo - Asus P8P67 PRO??
Ram - Corsair Vengeance 12GB tri channel 2000mhz and a dual channel 4GB or 8GB kit
GPU - 6950/70

No need for a 2600k for just gaming, a 2500k is more than enough. Also 8GB of ram will be more than enough for gaming and to future prof yourself.

Yes, I would upgrade if you have the money to do so.
 
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Any idea what my current setup would sell for? And where to sell it? lol

I have been reading even more since I posted this morning and the ivy bridge is out soon along with a new generation of graphics cards? . . . is it worth waiting for these or will it be a big price hike for not much gain?

And with the ram would I not notice the difference between 1600mhz and 1866mhz?

I just want to have a build that will last me about 3 years again. Can't believe how out of the loop I have become in 3 years lol
 
@Greg - I am in a similar position as you with the following...

Gigabyte P35c DS3R
E8500 ran at 4Ghz (8x500mhz)
4GB DDR 2 memory ran at 1000mhz
GTX 460 1GB

I bought the P35 board when it hit revision 2 and so I have had this set-up for a while, apart from the GPU which I bought recently at a good price.

I had not bothered looking at hardware "upgrades" for so long that I too was out of the loop in terms of performances etc that I could expect from a change.

You seem to be leaning towards buying into a new motherboard etc but for me I decided that the difference between my E8500 running at 4Ghz and a 2500k running at 4.6 just wasn't enough to justify spending so much money on such an small incremental change for what I use the PC for.
That disappointed me somewhat as I had not changed my board, CPU and memory for quite a while now and I would have expected to have seen much more of a benefit in making those changes.
For some people they seem content with their "upgrades" from far newer pieces of kit than I have already got but, it might have been different a few years ago, I could not spend so much money for so little perceived differences.
I have been happy though with my SSD drive as I got a Vertex 60GB 2E drive and that has been a worthy purchase.

Also you might want to consider just how close BD is to release. Whether you would want to buy into the platfor or not I do not know but at least it gives you something to compare the Intel systems to. Also it might encourage Intel to lower its prices if BD does take of and is successful. you have waited so long to think about changing then waiting another month or two isn't too long is it..?
I am also looking ahead to the x79 boards when they are released. Albeit I imagine that they will be quite expensive the amount of sata and USB ports that they come with is encouraging to me.

I do hope that you are overclocking your CPU by the way as that would certainly make a difference as mine does when running at 4Ghz.
 
I used to have it overclocked to about 4Ghz I tihnk but I read somewhere (so may be complete bs) that I would only see 1/2fps difference from overclocking so I just put it back to standard.
 
When I was in the "mood" I decided to check out the differences between mine being overclocked to 4Ghz and then ran at std. An example was playing Civ V. It made a real differences when overclocked in the time it takes between turns. I play this game quite a lot (although you wouldn't think so if you watched me) so that was good to know.
I encode a little and when I am making a home movie into a DVD compliant disc for my family that too is done quicker when overclocked.

The above for me are just two examples of what I have noticed in making a "real" difference when overclocking. Note also that I have not used FPS as a measure of those differences so that you can see you can get benefit from overclocking beyond that of just FPS in games.

Not that you would need to but if you did buy into a 2500k system it would be almost obligatory to then overclock it, especially when you consider what forum you are posting to..!
 
Another point I have been thinking about is . . . if the i5 wins over the i7 for gaming then wont the bulldozer with its 8 cores still lose out to the i5 on the gaming front?
 
Gregry254 said:
Another point I have been thinking about is . . . if the i5 wins over the i7 for gaming then wont the bulldozer with its 8 cores still lose out to the i5 on the gaming front?
Click to expand...

It doesnt really beat the i7, its just pointless spending the extra £60-£70 for hyperthreading when 99% of games cant utilise it and 90% of users wont need it.

BD is yet to be released, so the only figures we can currently go off is the stock figures. Once its released, there will be thousands of OC threads and only then we can truely compare the i5 to BD.
 
Get a S775 Quad.
Problem is you'll get less for your cpu, mb, gpu & ram than it costs to buy a 2500 alone, which leaves you spending another £300+ for the other bits. Look around, ppl everywhere jumping ship from S775 dualies which means they go for peanuts.
Nothing wrong with S775 Quad if you can get one for a.good price & clock the nuts off it.
 
It seems too late to offer alternatives as the op has already got another thread pricing up a 2500k build :)

Good luck with your build btw Greg :)
 
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