Do i have to buy new MOTHERBOARD? Intel

[Maxwell Soller Jr]

guys i have an I5-3470 and paired with ASUS b75m-a motherboard. with a seasonic m12ii evo and a Palit Gtx 960 Super jetstream.

my question is my CPU is 3rd gen. is it time for my to upgrade or does my CPU is still good? i think my MB need to upgrade also. im looking for a Z77 board

 

[bicycle_repair_man]

Your motherboard and processor are fine. You only need to upgrade to a Z77 motherboard if you have an Intel K processor or if you want to SLI your GPU.

 

[DonkeyOatie]

Your CPU is still plenty good enough for that GPU and modern games. The GPU is the limiting factor in your system. No need to upgrade unless there is something specific that you cannot do.

 

[mlga91]

A 3470 still has plenty of juce to give, the performance boost that you get from jumping from a 3xxx to a 4xxx i5 is not worth the price.

 

[Maxwell Soller Jr]

yah.. im purely at gaming... one thing i see that can benefit from buying z boards are Vertu. i just want more from my board. like i have a CRUCIAL BALLISTIX TRACER 8GB with 1866mhz. but i downclock it to 1600mhz just to run on my board... my board is realy limiting my freedom. it has no overlock feature etc.

 

[bicycle_repair_man]

Your processor doesn't have an unocked multiplier, which means that its overclocking capabilities are severely limited. If you want to start overclocking, you'll need a new processor as well as a new motherboard.

In terms of RAM speed, you're not going to notice an improvement between 1600Mhz and 1866Mhz. You only need fast RAM for an APU.

 

[Maxwell Soller Jr]

@Bicycle

is that soo... ok thank you soo much..


i can OC a bit for non K CPU. the board only limits me. am i correct?

 

[bicycle_repair_man]

You can only overclock up to the processor's Turbo Boost speed, assuming that the BIOS will allow you to adjust the multiplier. Some B75 chipsets allow it and others don't. If you do this, you should consider buying an aftermarket cooler as the standard one isn't designed to maintain Turbo Boost speed indefinitely.

Anything beyond that and yes, you'll need a Z77 chipset and K series processor.

 

[Maxwell Soller Jr]

yes... but now, here in the philippines... z77 is almost gone or absolete.. its hard to find a new z77 board.. aside fron one website where z68 is still available but only ECS.

 

[bicycle_repair_man]

A Z68 chipset will be fine for overclocking, as will a P67. Just make sure that the motherboard has heatsinks on its VRMs and preferably has a 6+2 power phase, although that's not necessary.

Z77 reached end-of-life when Intel introduced the LGA1150 socket, so the only place to find those motherboards is on the second-hand market.