Upgrading from Core i5 750 -- is it worth it?

[StarSolitude]

I have a Core i5 750 @ 3.8GHz being cooled by a Corsair Hydro H50. The motherboard is an MSI P55 GD-65 socket 1156.

I need to upgrade my PC for better gaming performance.

My current graphics card is an ATI HD 5850. If I went and bought, say, an nvidia GTX 670, and used it with my current CPU (i5 750), would I still be able to play current and next-gen games at high/max framerates?

I'd rather not have to upgrade my motherboard, CPU, CPU cooler and RAM if I could just get away with upgrading my graphics card. I'd have to, however, if my old(ish) CPU would act as too harsh a bottleneck on a modern graphics card.

 

[Marine-RX179]

For most parts it should be fine, but there are some CPU demanding game (particularly mmos, strategy games that use less than 4 cores) which even the newest Haswell i5 overclocked would bottleneck the GTX670, and the bottleneck would be even greater on the first gen i5 overclocked.

I would say not to worry too much about your i5 750 bottlenecking and just grab the 670 (or 7950 even), but ideally you should overclock your i5 750 higher. With that motherboard, you should be able to hit 4.00-4.15GHz no problem.

 

[David Bisset]

I'm on a i5 750 too, though I normally run at just 3.2GHz (can get 4.1GHz stable but I don't need it and its a bit hot on my arctic freezer 7). Its fine for my 7850. Were I you I'd not upgrade at the moment, I'm thinking probably upgrade next generation. I want to upgrade.... but just can't justify it as the 750 handles everything fine. (I don't play MMOs so perhaps you'll find they give you trouble? Strategy games have been fine)

Kinda wish I was on a 2500k though just for higher clocks!

Edit: Were I to find mine struggling a bit I'd probably just get a better cooler & push it to 4.1 24/7. Maybe up the volts a bit and try for higher, I hit 4.3 and booted fine but I was too nervous to keep it there and was too hot so not sure if it was stable.... but if its going to get replaced if it doesn't handle it there is basically no downside!

Edit2: Also get yourself a 7950, I wish I had! Overclock it and it'll be sweet.... A bit cheaper and a bit more powerful than a 670. Unless of course you get a cracking offer from a mate second hand or something, in which case the 670 is great too.

 

[StarSolitude]

I'm on a i5 750 too, though I normally run at just 3.2GHz (can get 4.1GHz stable but I don't need it and its a bit hot on my arctic freezer 7). Its fine for my 7850. Were I you I'd not upgrade at the moment, I'm thinking probably upgrade next generation. I want to upgrade.... but just can't justify it as the 750 handles everything fine. (I don't play MMOs so perhaps you'll find they give you trouble? Strategy games have been fine)

Kinda wish I was on a 2500k though just for higher clocks!

Edit: Were I to find mine struggling a bit I'd probably just get a better cooler & push it to 4.1 24/7. Maybe up the volts a bit and try for higher, I hit 4.3 and booted fine but I was too nervous to keep it there and was too hot so not sure if it was stable.... but if its going to get replaced if it doesn't handle it there is basically no downside!

Edit2: Also get yourself a 7950, I wish I had! Overclock it and it'll be sweet.... A bit cheaper and a bit more powerful than a 670. Unless of course you get a cracking offer from a mate second hand or something, in which case the 670 is great too.

Thanks for the info. I plan on playing games like Rome 2 Total War and Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn (MMO). I'll look into getting a 7950. But... last itme I checked (a few years ago) Nvidia cards had a slight edge over ATIs? Wouldn't an Nvidia equivalent be better than the 7950?

 

[Hotwired]

Unless you are planning on significantly overclocking a new CPU above what you can get with your i5 750 I'd forget about a CPU/mobo change.

http://semiaccurate.com/2011/01/02/intel-core-i7-2500k-review/

Clock for clock comparison, of relevance the graph mentioning gaming performance.

 

[Marine-RX179]

Thanks for the info. I plan on playing games like Rome 2 Total War and Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn (MMO). I'll look into getting a 7950. But... last itme I checked (a few years ago) Nvidia cards had a slight edge over ATIs? Wouldn't an Nvidia equivalent be better than the 7950?

That was true up till the 500 series, but from 600 series onward, Nvidia decided to push their mid-high range cards up to sell as flagship top-end graphic card.

The GTX670/GTX680 are at best a match for the 7950/7970 (and are slower for higher res than 1920); the GTX770 is just a glorified pimped up super overclocked GTX680 asking for a ridiculous price (£330), considering you can get a equal/faster performing 7970 GHz Edition with 1GB more vram and 384bit memory bus instead of 256-bit memory bus for much less (£250); the GTX780 faster than the 7970 by a small margin, but it's asking for twice the amount (£500+) of the 7970 and more expensive than the 7990 which currently can be pre-ordered at OcUK (£469.99).

This gen's Nvidia is not about bang for bucks, but more about all out milking customers money and charging OTT premium for a card (GTX780) that's a bit faster than a card that's launched nearly 2 years ago (7970). The only thing worth considering is the occasion GTX670/GTX680 deals that OcUK themselves offer (at around £200 and £250), but the 7950/7970 are still better spec wise, and comes with better games deals (and usually cheaper as well).

 

[HangTime]

I ditched my i5-750 @ 3.8ghz for a i5-3570k @ 4.5ghz about a year ago. Worked out OK but I only did it because the cost wasn't too high (£150 for the retail cpu, mobo was ~£75 - ironically prices seem to have gone up if anything since then.

In your position I would just get the gfx card and see how you go. In the vast majority of situations games are gpu limited although something Total War series could be different.