Upgrade all or GPU?

Nymins

Nymins

Nymins

Soldato
Joined
7 Mar 2007
Posts
9,917
Location
Belfast
Ok, please someone stop me going mental and doing this. I keep reading about the awesomeness of the i5-2500K and its crazy overclocking capabilities. At the minute, I'm in the mood for upgrading, but over the last few weeks I've only been looking at the GPU, as I had a 5770 and I want something a bit faster for BF3 etc etc usual stuff.

Anyway, I'm pretty set on the 6950 2Gb, with the mindset that I'll get another for Crossfire later down the line. However, is there any sense in me selling off my current processor and motherboard and going to the Core i5?

I currently use a Gigabyte 790GPT-UDH3 with Athlon II X4 640 OC'd to 3.6Ghz (max it can go). It seems fine, but I keep seeing people going up to 4.5Ghz and what not on the i5. And looking at some Anandtech benchmarks between the i5 and X4 640 (well the 645 is only listed as the closest to mine), the frame rate in games is double on the i5?! I dunno what the testing methods were, but that seems crazy!

Now, I have no idea on Intel motherboards, as I haven't had one for ages (last one was an old C2D one), so I would need advice there. Cheap but good as always!

So basically I'm asking, is it stupid to even think of going i5? Is my setup still good enough? Should I get the i5+motherboard and wait for other GPU's even though I would be GPU...less for awhile?

I think I have gone a bit insane, but I'd love to hear all your thoughts! :p
 
Gah the temptations!

Is there much difference between the P67 and Z68 motherboards? Haven't done any research yet, so I'm very new to this architecture.
 
RAM is just generic branded, Hynix I think. Not sure what voltages its running at at the minute though
 
Ok, so I got my 6950 and got it unlocked, overclocked and its all good. However, I'm feeling that my Athlon II X4 640 (@ 3.6GHz) is holding it back in CPU intensive games. Playing the Warhammer Space Marines demo, it was solid 60fps most of the time, but in the first demo mission when you get to the control room and look out the large window onto the battlefield (just before opening the door/lower bridge), the frame rate dropped to 40fps.

Checking the GPU usage with Afterburner, it was only 40-50%, so I assume the CPU is to blame. Played Hard Reset demo and again, 60fps most of the time, but dropping to the 40's in high action (although it could just be an intensive game). Assassins Creed Brotherhood is the worst, only started it and it drops to the 30's in the first small town (your "base or whatever after the first battle). Again, GPU usage was around 50%. All these were done at 1920x1080 and max with ~4xMSAA were available. Games like DiRT3 seem fine and the GPU usage is 70-99%, so no issues there. The Witcher 2 has also been greatly improved from my old 5770, with usage at 80-99% and getting 40-55fps on Ultra settings (minus Ubersampling).

I assume all this issues are due to the CPU just not being up to the power of the 6950? Always liked the look of the i5-2500k as I've said, and with Bulldozer being AWOL at the minute, it seems Intel is the way to go.

Would the i5-2500k improve things greatly? I've seen the Anandtech benchmarks and it looks impressive, overclocking as well looks great. I've seen the Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3 as well for £100, which seems decent and has the ability for 8x/8x crossfire or SLi.

As I said above, I have 2x2Gb DDR3 ram. However, its speed is 1066mhz. Is this a problem when overclocking the i5? I'm not sure if the clocks on the ram go up with the clocks of the CPU like it does with my current CPU. I know you just raise the multiplier of the i5, but does this also increase the speed of the ram?
 
I got hold of a reference 6950. I'm using Afterburner to overclock it. I have the voltage at 1.125v I think. Is that ok? I uninstalled CCC as I didn't want any conflicts, should I install it and up the Powertune and reduce my voltages?

I already have a Hyper 212+ which I used to overclock my X4, so that's ok. Budget is as low as possible whilst being decent. The i5-2500k and Z68XP can be had for £267 odd, so no more than that really.
 
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Yea I've seen the Asrock motherboard, but I dunno if its worth the extra for me. The PCI-E 3.0 isn't much too me as they still haven't utilised all of PCI-E 2.0, and the PCI-E 3.0 cards will be backward compatible with 2.0.

As for Ivy Bridge, I dunno what the situation will be there. Hopefully they won't release another socket type, but looking at the i5-2500k now, it seems pretty hard to beat, so I'm not sure what the performance/price will be like with Ivy Bridge.

I've put my X4 and motherboard up for sale on MM, so I'll see how the interest goes on them.
 
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