How often do you upgrade your CPU

[The_Icon]

I have Intel Core i5 4570 and Sapphire TriX R9 290 OC

I hope to upgrade in the next 3 years. Now I can only upgrade 1 component, either the CPU or GPU. Which one should I go for? By the way I am a heavy gamer. How long is it until my CPU bottlenecks my card?

 

[anti-duck]

Both of those components are good for a few years yet but if you're absolutely looking to upgrade one, then I would say the GPU.

 

[The_Icon]

Both of those components are good for a few years yet but if you're absolutely looking to upgrade one, then I would say the GPU.

Not right now, I am talking about after 3 years or so. Or Should I split the money between a GPU or a CPU upgrade?

 

[snowctrl]

Three years is a long time - there's no way of knowing now what will be best to do then.... or whether your current setup will last that long

 

[Joseph DeGarmo]

It depends on the CPU. An i7 should last approximately 4-6 years before an upgrade is needed.

 

[Eximo]

3 years is about average for me. Usually by then there is a significant architecture change that I'm looking for.

Most recently Intel SATAIII Intel on board. Probably upgrade to a post Skylake computer when Sata Express/Faster SSD speeds are standardized. Not sure how long M.2 will be around, so that doesn't interest me too much.

Also waiting to see if Intel gets rid of socketed CPUs for the consumer and leaves that only for workstation/enterprise class CPUs.

 

[photonboy]

CPU future:

DX12 and Mantle use the CPU more efficiently in two ways:
1) more efficient coding, and
2) use more of its cores

Additionally, we'll see coding get moved from the CPU to the GPU as time goes on in the way that PhysX can work on the CPU or GPU in some games. We'll also be influenced heavily by the XBOX ONE and PS4 CPU capabilities as many games will be cross-platform. Your CPU probably has 2X the performance though I haven't calculated it. I'd guess it's about HALF the performance of an FX-6350 at 4GHz (has eight cores but uses only six for a game).

(Consoles are generally more optimized but the cpu performance difference is huge, plus DX12/Mantle shouldn't be too far off console performance.)

The point is that future games are likely to NOT require a better CPU.

Your CPU is likely to outlast your desire to keep that PC so my guess is well over 5 years. Perhaps even 10.

 

[snowctrl]

10!!! Wow, we'll be lucky...

 

[photonboy]

10!!! Wow, we'll be lucky...

We're not in the same situation as we were years ago. We've got more CPU power than our software can currently use until we get DX12 and Mantle to actually use it. We'll also see a lot of optimizations as well especially with the cross-platform situation since consoles use x86 CPU's that are code compatible.

Most modern games use an average of about 50% of an i5-4570's resources or less (BF4 can use a lot more but I'd argue it's not that efficient). Make the coding more efficient and the same game would maybe use 33%. Assuming we can now access almost 100% of the resources we have a lot of room to work with even if games start using more CPU calculations.

It's unlikely we'll see new consoles until after 2020, and cross-platform games are likely to be very similar.

We'll also see some calculations sent server side for MMO's such as what's happened with Titanfall to calculate peer data instead of doing it on your own computer which is why MMO's tend to need a good CPU.

Again, there are also features like physics, AI etc which are likely to move over to the GPU.

HAVOK already did a PS4 demo of physics on the GPU.

Finally, at some point we may see graphics cards include a dedicated CPU to assist or even replace most of what the main CPU does.

 

[anti-duck]

Finally, at some point we may see graphics cards include a dedicated CPU to assist or even replace most of what the main CPU does.

Hasn't that already happened with APEX PhysX processing done on the GPU taking a HUGE amount of work off the CPU (APEX PhysX is well underused). Also I heard something about Maxwell based GPU's having some kind of processing unit on board to take even more workload off of the CPU but it was around the time when the 750/ti were first released so I can't remember much about it (people were calling it a hardware solution to Mantle).

I would personally like to see hybrid PhysX support and more games with APEX PhysX support with an option to turn it on or off.

 

[The_Icon]

I am waiting 3 years as hopefully the GPU advancements will be very noticeable between then and now. And probably get the CPU in 4 years.

 

[The_Icon]

Finally, at some point we may see graphics cards include a dedicated CPU to assist or even replace most of what the main CPU does.

Hasn't that already happened with APEX PhysX processing done on the GPU taking a HUGE amount of work off the CPU (APEX PhysX is well underused). Also I heard something about Maxwell based GPU's having some kind of processing unit on board to take even more workload off of the CPU but it was around the time when the 750/ti were first released so I can't remember much about it (people were calling it a hardware solution to Mantle).

I would personally like to see hybrid PhysX support and more games with APEX PhysX support with an option to turn it on or off.

...When did i write this? lol

 

[photonboy]

Finally, at some point we may see graphics cards include a dedicated CPU to assist or even replace most of what the main CPU does.

Hasn't that already happened with APEX PhysX processing done on the GPU taking a HUGE amount of work off the CPU (APEX PhysX is well underused). Also I heard something about Maxwell based GPU's having some kind of processing unit on board to take even more workload off of the CPU but it was around the time when the 750/ti were first released so I can't remember much about it (people were calling it a hardware solution to Mantle).

I would personally like to see hybrid PhysX support and more games with APEX PhysX support with an option to turn it on or off.

1) You're likely thinking of the Denver ARM CPU which hasn't happened yet and may not for the desktop. It's currently meant more for servers.

2) PhysX can use the CPU or GPU depending on what the game allows. The frustrating thing is that it would actually make more sense to do it on the CPU for many people since they often have unused CPU cycles but the GPU is maxed out processing.

So it is more efficient on the GPU in terms of coding but you'd get a higher frame rate if you had a reasonably good CPU.

3) Not sure what you mean by "hybrid PhysX" but some games already run it on the CPU and you can disable PhysX if you want.

I think you meant CPU or GPU. I'd prefer to see the game check the CPU and GPU processing power on startup and simply use the combination that made sense. Have more CPU power than you need? Run on CPU...

NVidia is likely to push GPU PhysX, though Havok has no such agenda so it's possible we'll actually see a game offer a choice of Havok on GPU or CPU (or auto decide).

Other:
The info you "wrote" is the last part of my earlier comment. You may have tried to respond to my comment and screwed up the code. No big deal. I did something like that by accidentally writing part way into a comment.

 

[anti-duck]

10!!! Wow, we'll be lucky...

We're not in the same situation as we were years ago. We've got more CPU power than our software can currently use until we get DX12 and Mantle to actually use it. We'll also see a lot of optimizations as well especially with the cross-platform situation since consoles use x86 CPU's that are code compatible.

Most modern games use an average of about 50% of an i5-4570's resources or less (BF4 can use a lot more but I'd argue it's not that efficient). Make the coding more efficient and the same game would maybe use 33%. Assuming we can now access almost 100% of the resources we have a lot of room to work with even if games start using more CPU calculations.

It's unlikely we'll see new consoles until after 2020, and cross-platform games are likely to be very similar.

We'll also see some calculations sent server side for MMO's such as what's happened with Titanfall to calculate peer data instead of doing it on your own computer which is why MMO's tend to need a good CPU.

Again, there are also features like physics, AI etc which are likely to move over to the GPU.

HAVOK already did a PS4 demo of physics on the GPU.

Finally, at some point we may see graphics cards include a dedicated CPU to assist or even replace most of what the main CPU does.

Finally, at some point we may see graphics cards include a dedicated CPU to assist or even replace most of what the main CPU does.

Hasn't that already happened with APEX PhysX processing done on the GPU taking a HUGE amount of work off the CPU (APEX PhysX is well underused). Also I heard something about Maxwell based GPU's having some kind of processing unit on board to take even more workload off of the CPU but it was around the time when the 750/ti were first released so I can't remember much about it (people were calling it a hardware solution to Mantle).

I would personally like to see hybrid PhysX support and more games with APEX PhysX support with an option to turn it on or off.

...When did i write this? lol

You didn't lol, but it just put your name there for some reason when I quote photonboy but I couldn't be bothered editing it

 

[The_Icon]

I have Haswell i5, so I think I should be comfortable or can stretch it for 3 more years. Will get a new GPU then and get a CPU the following year.

 

[anti-duck]

1) You're likely thinking of the Denver ARM CPU which hasn't happened yet and may not for the desktop. It's currently meant more for servers.

2) PhysX can use the CPU or GPU depending on what the game allows. The frustrating thing is that it would actually make more sense to do it on the CPU for many people since they often have unused CPU cycles but the GPU is maxed out processing.

So it is more efficient on the GPU in terms of coding but you'd get a higher frame rate if you had a reasonably good CPU.

3) Not sure what you mean by "hybrid PhysX" but some games already run it on the CPU and you can disable PhysX if you want.

I think you meant CPU or GPU. I'd prefer to see the game check the CPU and GPU processing power on startup and simply use the combination that made sense. Have more CPU power than you need? Run on CPU...

Yeah, you're right about Denver, I just looked it up and people thought it was coming on the 'GTX 880' that never happened lol.

What I meant was that PhysX processing handled by the GPU is under used by developers, which would be especially handy for people with AMD CPU's or a weak Intel CPU and an AMD GPU so they could have a dedicated PhysX GPU... or they could, if Nvidia supported hybrid PhysX. Hybrid PhysX is where you have an AMD GPU(s) as your primary card(s) and use an Nvidia card for PhysX processing only.

I haven't seen a game yet that only has the option for PhysX processing on the CPU have an option to turn it off, but it would be good to have an option to be able to select the CPU, GPU or disable it. A lot of the time, PhysX adds nothing but small effects that many won't even notice but uses loads of processing power; such as in Arma 3 and there's no such option to turn it off.

 

[photonboy]

1) You're likely thinking of the Denver ARM CPU which hasn't happened yet and may not for the desktop. It's currently meant more for servers.

2) PhysX can use the CPU or GPU depending on what the game allows. The frustrating thing is that it would actually make more sense to do it on the CPU for many people since they often have unused CPU cycles but the GPU is maxed out processing.

So it is more efficient on the GPU in terms of coding but you'd get a higher frame rate if you had a reasonably good CPU.

3) Not sure what you mean by "hybrid PhysX" but some games already run it on the CPU and you can disable PhysX if you want.

I think you meant CPU or GPU. I'd prefer to see the game check the CPU and GPU processing power on startup and simply use the combination that made sense. Have more CPU power than you need? Run on CPU...

Yeah, you're right about Denver, I just looked it up and people thought it was coming on the 'GTX 880' that never happened lol.

What I meant was that PhysX processing handled by the GPU is under used by developers, which would be especially handy for people with AMD CPU's or a weak Intel CPU and an AMD GPU so they could have a dedicated PhysX GPU... or they could, if Nvidia supported hybrid PhysX. Hybrid PhysX is where you have an AMD GPU(s) as your primary card(s) and use an Nvidia card for PhysX processing only.

I haven't seen a game yet that only has the option for PhysX processing on the CPU have an option to turn it off, but it would be good to have an option to be able to select the CPU, GPU or disable it. A lot of the time, PhysX adds nothing but small effects that many won't even notice but uses loads of processing power; such as in Arma 3 and there's no such option to turn it off.

1) You can choose PhysX on your CPU or GPU in the NVidia Control Panel but that's a global thing so it applies to all games. I'm not certain what restrictions that imposes if you use CPU only, such as disabling higher level PhysX or disabling any PhysX option at all.

2) You can use a secondary NVIDIA card as a dedicated PhysX processor but not AMD (without hacked drivers). You also need to be careful because if the second card isn't powerful enough the main card ends up waiting for it to finish so you slow things down.

It varies by the game, and some games even have three PhysX settings (low, medium, high) but generally you need a minimum of a card with half the processing power. It also adds to the noise/heat and since it may only make a 10% difference in the frame rate it's not really worth it.

3) CPU PhysX only: I'm fairly certain that if you disable PhysX in some games it uses the CPU instead but usually at a lower level and possibly less features get enabled. I don't think I've ever seen a "CPU or PhysX" option in a game directly.

Other:
DX12 and Mantle do open up the doorway to utilize mixed cards in non-SLI by rendering some components on one card and other components on the other card but considering the amount of work that's likely to create I wouldn't hold my breath.

 

[VenBaja]

If you're a heavy gamer you will probably be doing a full upgrade (CPU, Motherboard, RAM, etc...) around every 3 years.