i3-4350 upgrade path?

[ArgentDawns]

I am looking to upgrade my i3-4350 to a quad core i5 because i would like to increase my frame-rate on games such as Arma 3 which are very cpu intensive. I am pairing the cpu with a gtx960. i would like to find a cpu for somewhere around $100 and i am willing to buy used. i found a new i5 4460 for $85 free shipping and i am wondering if this would be my best bet? any other suggestions?

 

[Redmonster]

If you are limited to your budget, go for it. Gtx960 + 4460 wont bottleneck each other.

 

[geofelt]

How well threaded is arma3?
Single thread performance is what most games need most.
I3-4350 has a passmark rating of 5302 and a single thread rating of 2133.
I5-4460 is 6638 and 1947.

Be careful how you interpret task manager cpu utilizations.
Windows will spread the activity of a single thread over all available threads.
So, if you had a game that was single threaded and cpu bound, it would show up on a quad core processor as 25%
utilization across all 4 threads.
leading you to think your bottleneck was elsewhere.
It turns our that few games can usefully use more than 2-3 threads.
How can you tell how well threaded your games or apps are?
One way is to disable one thread and see how you do.

You can do this in the windows msconfig boot advanced options option.
You will need to reboot for the change to take effect. Set the number of processors to less than you have.
This will tell you how sensitive your games are to the benefits of many threads.
If you see little difference, it tells you that you will not benefit from more cores.
Likely, a better clock rate will be more important.

Unless you can consistently utilize all 4 threads, you may find a I5-4460 to be a wash.


I5-4460 will be a wash

 

[velocityg4]

Looking at sold prices on eBay. You aren't going to get a better used CPU for under $100. Let alone new.

 

[David093]

^ What this man (geofelt) says. Also, Arma 3 is a poorly optimized title, it struggles to keep 60fps even on very high end builds, so if you are upgrading mostly to see an improvement on that game, then i7 is the (only) way to go. I would advise you to get the best locked i7 (cos I supose u don't overclock or even have a compatible MoBo to do so) that u can afford. 2nd hand market is crazy sometimes, maybe you could scratch an i7 4770 -i've seen em on ebay for about 200$ with the "buy now" option, so if u get lucky maybe you could find one of those for less than 200$.

 

[geofelt]

What is your motherboard?
If you can overclock, with a Z motherboard, a I5-4690K goes for around $200. I7-4790K about $300.
4790K is good without overclocking because of the high 4.0 base speed.

 

[jwcrellin]

My vote goes for the i7 4790. It'll be competitive for another 3-4 years. This year, get the i7. Closer to next year, get a high end graphics card.

 

[MrN1ce9uy]

I was going to say the only upgrade path from an i3-4350 is an i7.

 

[ArgentDawns]

What is your motherboard?
If you can overclock, with a Z motherboard, a I5-4690K goes for around $200. I7-4790K about $300.
4790K is good without overclocking because of the high 4.0 base speed.

Well the build i am referring to in this thread is my build i take with me when i travel so it only has an h81m-p33 board.

 

[geofelt]

Your strongest upgrade will be to a I7-4790K even if you must run it at stock clocks of 4.0 with turbo.

Would not a good laptop be better for travel?

 

[ArgentDawns]

Your strongest upgrade will be to a I7-4790K even if you must run it at stock clocks of 4.0 with turbo.

Would not a good laptop be better for travel?

Well good gaming laptops are often way too pricey for the performance delivered and this is the build I will take to buddy's houses, lans, longer stays away from home and okay thanks for the suggestion!