CPU Bottleneck?

[dredwulf]

Long time reader, first time poster. Looking for some second opinions.

This is my system as is stands now:

Zalman Z11 case
EVGA P55 FTW
EVGA Super Cooler
EVGA GTX 295 CO-OP FTW 1.79GB
Intel Xeon X3450 Engineering Sample (4 core - 8 threads) @ 3.7ghz HT on, Turbo disabled
8GB Corsair Ballistix Tactical at 1600 with 9-9-9-24 timings
OCZ Agility3 60GB OS drive
300GB Seagate Spinner
FSP Aurum Gold 750w PSU
40" Toshiba HDTV 1080p/60hz as primary monitor

Would I be better off upgrading to a new Z77 Mobo with an Ivy Bridge i5 and keeping my current GTX295 for while or simply upgrading to an HD7950 and waiting for the next best thing from Intel or AMD?

No fan boys here please. I have no problem with Intel/AMD CPU's or Nvidia/AMD GPU's. I'll go for whatever makes the most sense for my situation. This is a 90% gaming machine, no rendering or encoding is done on this PC besides the rare encoding of a movie or two.

 

[revro]

hello,

well the cpu sounds nice with 8 threads i dont see reason to upgrade. beside hasswell is near just months away and ivy is not good overclocker, you wouldnt get much help. if i wanted to switch i would go for sandy 2600/2700k with custom cooler. these you can overclock to 5ghz and have better temps than ivy

i am kindof suffering bottleneck on q9550@3.4GHz quad but only in BF3. i have 2 friends running i7-920 and 930 and they have no bottleneck on gtx 670 4gb

re 7950 well you have psu to go for 7970 there are deals for 7970 gigabyte oc for 350eur including 2 games (crysis 3 and bioshock i believe), and the sameshould be in usd in us.

if its for games you dont need to change.

best
revro

 

[J_E_D_70]

Are you having a specific issue you want to address or just have the itch for a new component?

Your system seems pretty capable for most games and apps.

 

[k1114]

The cpu is plenty capable of higher end gpus.

 

[diabedo]

J_E_D_70: Are you having a specific issue you want to address or just have the itch for a new component?

I agree with pretty much everything everyone else said, your system will be more then enough to play most all games. But if you are itching for something new, I would go for a new GPU. I'd replace that GTX 295, with a GTX 660 or better, then you'll be set for a while with your GPU and it will still be good when/if you decide to upgrade to a Z77 chipset.

My Rig:
-Intel i5-3470 Quad @3.2GHz
-ASUS P8 Z77-V LK
-12GB DDR3 (8GB,2GB,2GB) Hyper Red X
-EVGA GeForce GTX660 FTW SIG2, 2GB GDDR5 (Just upgraded from EVGA Geforce GTX650 1GB GDDR5)
-1tb Toshiba, 500gb Seagate
-8.0 Windows Game Score

My only regret about my build is getting the i5-3470 instead of the 3470K, i really would like to get it to 4GHz.