Worth upgrading from my current spec to an I7 spec?

Serial45 · 1 Mar 2009 at 21:07

Debating upgrading my PC guys, but wondering is it really going to be that worth it?

I get the feeling that the bottleneck is definitely my cpu/memory achieving smooth frames in high resolutions.

I'm thinking of upgrading to

I7 2.66ghz

Corsair 6GB DDR3 Dominator PC3-14400C9 1866MHz (3x2GB) Triple Channel DDR3 (TR3X6G1866C9DF)

Gigabyte EX58-UD3R Intel X58 (Socket 1366) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard

Or maybe get a better motherboard, toying with the idea at present.
Will cost me around £700 to upgrade.

Will overclock it ofc.

How much extra performance will I get out of it realistically?

Eye seven · 1 Mar 2009 at 21:19

Well that would really kind of depend on what you use your PC for. If it's games then no, don't bother. If it is applications that actually use 4 cores, or video encoding then it probably will be worth an upgrade. Let us know what your issues are with your current set up and what you use it for and you will get a good idea of the best action to take.

engstrom0304 · 1 Mar 2009 at 21:20

for gaming its only really worth it if your running 2 or more gpus to stop a gpu bottleneck.

Serial45 · 1 Mar 2009 at 22:08

It will mostly be for gaming.

I run a lot of games in 2560*1600 and seem to get a much lower framerate than people running i7 setups with ddr3 memory. Talking less than half the frames in some cases.

Running games like Fallout 3, dawn of war II etc.
My PC is pretty optimised, always up to date with drivers etc.