Core i7 860, what to upgrade to? Or not?

[Guest]

Hey guys, Wondered if anyone can shed some light on what I should do, I want to beef up my pc - stressfull times...

I have i7 860 at stock, 1GB Sapphire 5870 GPU,8GB Ram on a basic GA-P55-UDR3 board. I use it for games only.

I first considered doing something when I noticed cranking up all the detail in games like Batman Arkham City etc slowed the FPS down a bit, this disgusts me so I want to do something about it.

Im a newb so I figured, perhaps crossfire was the answer, but my snazzy board only has a second PCIE slot at 4x and I hear putting a card in that would probably make performance worse than better?

Should I

A) overclock the cpu and buy say a GTX580 or something and stick with the 1156 chipset IF my board is ok for it.
B) Buy a crossfire 1155 board, 2500K sandy bridge processor & pick up a second 5870 cheap -however lots of comments here & there bitch about microstuttering etc.
C)Get the 2500K and scrap the 5870 for the GTX580

On the topic of 2500k, that or FX8150?, I hear the FX Processors are getting a hard time, are they really that bad?

 

[nforce4max]

Overclock the cpu and upgrade the card. Getting a second 5870 isn't going to be easy and getting a better board will help but don't expect to be parting the seas. Going from 1156 to 1155 will be costly and up front isn't going to provide amazing gains until you overclock. In the end it depends on how much you are willing to spend for the gains you get in return.

 

[Guest]

Overclock the cpu and upgrade the card. Getting a second 5870 isn't going to be easy and getting a better board will help but don't expect to be parting the seas. Going from 1156 to 1155 will be costly and up front isn't going to provide amazing gains until you overclock. In the end it depends on how much you are willing to spend for the gains you get in return.

Thanks for input! , parting the seas lol.., yea well I don't want to spend HUGE bucks, but maybe I will go for a GTX580 and replace the cooler on the CPU as its only the standard factory one and I dont want to cook it.

 

[lilotimz]

Easiest way to improve gaming performance is via the GPU. Grabbing the gtx 580 or the new high end HD7x's will be more beneficial than upgrading the system imho.

 

[nforce4max]

Thanks for input! , parting the seas lol.., yea well I don't want to spend HUGE bucks, but maybe I will go for a GTX580 and replace the cooler on the CPU as its only the standard factory one and I dont want to cook it.

Just getting the card along with the cooler is the best choice. That cpu can overclock very nicely and is very easy to overclock to 4ghz.

 

[Raidur]

7970 + overclock. You aren't going to be bottlenecking any single GPU out there with that CPU.

Wait it out for Haswell next year.

FX CPUs aren't all that bad, however their IPC is actually lower than the previous generation (Phenom II) which is why they're getting so little love.

 

[JoMo87]

Woohoo! Topic resurrection! I have a 6870, just purchased a second. Using i7 860 oc'd to 3.3 Ghz -> tempted to go higher cause under max load for an hour it's still under 70*C... (160.66 mhz x 21.0).

Main questions at hand: Would over clocking the CPU get me any better performance, or should i be happy with 3.37 Ghz? You said that this CPU wouldn't bottleneck any SINGLE GPU, but I got a great deal for a second 6870 for 110 after MIR, so I figured, heck yes. Would there be any set backs with this kind of upgrade?

My main use for my computer is gaming. Maybe in the future a tiny bit of video editing, but really not crucial.