Bought a 3770k but thinking about returning it, heres my dillema. Help

[Juster]

Ok so I pulled the trigger the morning of the 29th and ordered a 3770k from Newegg, but I am thinking I may have wasted money. My current setup seems to be working just fine so if it aint broke don't fix it right? I am working with an i5 2500k on an Asus z68 pro/gen flashed with new bios for ivy, and a GTX 680 card.

I don't plan on going SLI anytime in the near future, and all I do is game(Battlefield 3) on this machine so no real use for hyper threading. Should I just return the cpu and get refunded since my 2500k is still a performer? Also if I get refunded should I get a 3570k to take advantage of PCIE 3.0? Or is 3.0 only useful if I am using more gpu's and monitors.

I was thinking of just getting refunded and grabbing a corsair h100 to squeeze a little better oc out of this 2500k, and have some money in my pocket.

What would you guys do? Keep the i5 2500k and snag a corsair h100, refund and buy a 3570k and sell my i5 2500k, or just keep the 3770k?

Thanks a bunch in advance!

 

[nekulturny]

Yes I would return it. I don't know why you bought it in the first place if you have a 2500k.. how much improvement do you expect on perfection?

 

[Juster]

I was more worried about the pcie 3.0 for future proofing with SLI, but was a dumb mistake.

 

[brett1042002]

Keep 2500k. Return/Refund 3770k. Spend that extra cash elsewhere.

 

[Juster]

yeah gonna refund it tomorrow. Gonna get better cooling once I get the refund.

 

[ubercake]

I was more worried about the pcie 3.0 for future proofing with SLI, but was a dumb mistake.

I don't think the initial implementation of PCIe 3.0 would future proof anything. You only have 16 lanes available which equates to the same thing as 32 lanes of PCIe 2.0. We've had this much bandwidth since the X58 platform with 36 lanes of PCIe 2.0.

When Intel introduces a platform with more than 16 lanes of PCIe 3.0 available and Nvidia or AMD introduce a GPU requiring more than 8 lanes of PCIe 2.0 worth of bandwidth, then I'd start considering PCIe 3.0 important. Otherwise, there's no reason for it at this time. PCI 3.0 is not even necessary at this time with more GPUs or more than one monitor.

Stick with your 2500K. Take the money you get and consider SLI. The H100 might be OK. What kind of cooler are you using now?

 

[Juster]

hyper 212 plus. SLI probably not in my future till way later down the road perhaps.

 

[ubercake]

hyper 212 plus. SLI probably not in my future till way later down the road perhaps.

I'm not so sure you'll see great gains with more of an OC using an H100, but it would be great to find out for the science of it. Either way, this would be one of those relatively high-cost/low-reward types of things with the H100.

 

[ilysaml]

You should have read that before making the purchase;

The bottom line for enthusiasts is that Ivy Bridge’s IPC-oriented improvements alone are not compelling enough to warrant an upgrade from Sandy Bridge chips running at similar frequencies.

No need for the H100 I would personally go with the Hyper 212+.

 

[das_stig]

Thermalright Archon SB-E if you have the case and cash.

 

[neon neophyte]

2500k is better if you are a heavy overclocker, so its actually a slight step down (assuming you dont care about HT)

 

[noob2222]

I was more worried about the pcie 3.0 for future proofing with SLI, but was a dumb mistake.

This is why intel will make billions off of Ivy Bridge cpus. They have been driving attention to pci 3.0 and not the fact that the cpu runs 10-20 degrees hotter.

 

[bwrlane]

There are several reasons why you will get nothing from upgrading to Ivy from Sandy. For starters:

1. Most importantly, in games you are almost always GPU limited (even with a 680). The 2500K already has more power than a 680 can use.

2. The maximum performance increase is so small that even if you weren't limited elsewhere, you probably wouldn't notice it.

3. You are not PCIe bandwidth limited with a regular PCIe 2 on a 1155, even with 680 SLI, so PCIe 3 is of no benefit.

4. There are concerns about whether Ivy Ks overclock as well as Sandy Ks.

So yeah, it was a bit of a dumb mistake, but I've made a lot of mistakes far dumber than this.

Actually, your system is pretty much tops for gaming already.

 

[neon neophyte]

everyone was concerned about sandybridge cpus burning out from overclocking because of the die shrink. theyve proven to be tough lil buggers.

ivybridge still has to prove itself in that department, and the preliminaries arent promising with such high temperatures and an even smaller die

 

[daship]

Return shipping and a restocking fee are going to cost you a bit.