Is it worth upgrading my CPU in my current build

[johnnydangerx2]

Hi Everyone,

In December 2017 I built the PC that I'm using now. The specs are as follows:

Motherboard - ASUS Prime Z270-A
CPU - Intel i5-7600k
Video Card - AMD RX Vega 64, but now I have a EVGA RTX 2080 (won it in a contest)
Memory - Corsair Vengeance RGB 16gb (2x8gb) DDR4 3000 MHz
Cooler - Corsair H100i V2
Power Supply - EVGA 850W Modular BQ
Hard Drives - 250GB SSD (OS), 2x 1TB Hard Drives

Im started to game more on my PC. I was mainly gaming on consoles, but Im starting to switch to PC gaming. Im playing on a ACER 27" 2560x1440 144Hz Monitor. Most of the time Im getting great frame rates, but I would really like to play at max settings in most to all games. I was playing the Anthem Demo and at Ultra Settings was achieving 60-70 FPS. Would upgrading my CPU help achieve much higher frame rates? I've been considering upgrading my CPU to an i7-7700k. If I were to upgrade, would that help? If so, would it be an upgrade that is worth it? I dont really want a marginal increase. I would like to get 100fps or more in most games at 2560x1440 Ultra settings. If there is something else that would be a better upgrade, I'd definitely like to know also.

Any information that can be provided would be greatly appreciated.

 

[mdd1963]

The 7700K still does pretty well in *non-streaming* gaming scenarios, as evidenced it giving some 90-95% of an 8700K's frame rates in most games, and, often defeating all Ryzen entries...(It would be difficult to say 90 fps is slow compared to 100 fps, for instance!

here is an '7700K revisited' video from GN...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rOVfeujof4&t=566s

(On the negative side, however, the 7700K is a bit expensive, as it's the 'last stop' for many 100/200 series board owners looking to stretch out their current systems...)

 

[extreme_noob]

At this point, 7700K pricing is really similar to 8700K pricing, but of course an 8700K requires a mobo swap because it needs a z370 chipset.
I don't really know the increase in performance from the 7600k to the 7700k.

 

[johnnydangerx2]

Thanks to both of you for the info. Im trying to avoid a mobo swap as I just dont feel like going thru that big of a system upgrade right now. Im going to check out that youtube video and see if it will give me a good idea what to expect. Thanks again for the info.

 

[extreme_noob]

https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-7700K-vs-Intel-Core-i5-7600K/3647vs3885

The 7700K has the same amount of cores with a higher clock speed, but the 7600K has a slightly better value

 

[Gmoney06ss]

I posed a very similar question not long ago(6600-7700) and the answer was a solid not worth the money to upgrade. Especially since the 7700k will probably run you near enough $300 used.

Just overclock the 7600, you should be able to get 4.7 easy, very possibly higher. The cooler you have is good for it and maybe more.

 

[extreme_noob]

I posed a very similar question not long ago(6600-7700) and the answer was a solid not worth the money to upgrade. Especially since the 7700k will probably run you near enough $300 used.

Just overclock the 7600, you should be able to get 4.7 easy, very possibly higher. The cooler you have is good for it and maybe more.

I concur. The 7600K can overclock past the 7700K's stock clock speed. The cooler is more than enough for overclocking a 7600K, and it also saves you 300-400 dollars.

 

[johnnydangerx2]

Ive never overclocked before. It just makes me nervous. Then I remembered ASUS has the included software to do the OC for me, so I just tried it. This is what it came back with. Does this mean Im now 28% overclocked? When I check my system information it still shows 3.8GHz. Does the OC info just not show in windows? If I am in fact overclocked then I think I will just use my system like this and see how it performs, rather than getting a new CPU. If anyone can tell me if I am overclocked based on the screen shot, Id appreciate it.

Thanks

 

[Gmoney06ss]

Asus aisuite III? Don't recommend using that, it tends to overvolt the system and imo isn't entirely reliable. Yes windows will still show stock clock speeds. Download hwinfo(hwmonitor) and cpu-z. Very handy tools for overclocking. Don't be scared, just be patient!! Google some YouTube videos or tutorials with your board/cpu combo. Asus boards are usually very simple to navigate.

You'll need some handy tools/apps. Download aida64. There s a free version and it's a very good cpu stress testing tool to test stability. Cinebench R15(also free) is another quick way to load up the cpu and test. Get cpu-z, a must imo as well as hwinfo for temperature/voltage/clock speed monitoring.

Take small steps and monitor temps. First raise your speed to the boost clock settings and leave voltage alone. Stability test. Then raise speed with stock voltage until it crashes, then slowly raise voltage.

My 6600k is currently at 4.6 and 1.28v. I'm slowly working up and have set a comfortable limit of either 1.35v or 80c under load, whichever happens first.

I'm sure there are plenty of very good overxlockers on here that would be more than willing to help you through it. You'll get much better and more stable results via a manual oc vs the Asus built in program.

 

[Gmoney06ss]

Screenshot says you're running at near 5.0ghz!! It definitely did something.

 

[johnnydangerx2]

Asus aisuite III? Don't recommend using that, it tends to overvolt the system and imo isn't entirely reliable. Yes windows will still show stock clock speeds. Download hwinfo(hwmonitor) and cpu-z. Very handy tools for overclocking. Don't be scared, just be patient!! Google some YouTube videos or tutorials with your board/cpu combo. Asus boards are usually very simple to navigate.

You'll need some handy tools/apps. Download aida64. There s a free version and it's a very good cpu stress testing tool to test stability. Cinebench R15(also free) is another quick way to load up the cpu and test. Get cpu-z, a must imo as well as hwinfo for temperature/voltage/clock speed monitoring.

Take small steps and monitor temps. First raise your speed to the boost clock settings and leave voltage alone. Stability test. Then raise speed with stock voltage until it crashes, then slowly raise voltage.

My 6600k is currently at 4.6 and 1.28v. I'm slowly working up and have set a comfortable limit of either 1.35v or 80c under load, whichever happens first.

I'm sure there are plenty of very good overxlockers on here that would be more than willing to help you through it. You'll get much better and more stable results via a manual oc vs the Asus built in program.

Sounds good. I think do some research and go about overclocking the way you say. Thanks again everyone for all the assistance. Looking forward to seeing what I can push my system to do.

 

[extreme_noob]

Ive never overclocked before. It just makes me nervous. Then I remembered ASUS has the included software to do the OC for me, so I just tried it. This is what it came back with. Does this mean Im now 28% overclocked? When I check my system information it still shows 3.8GHz. Does the OC info just not show in windows? If I am in fact overclocked then I think I will just use my system like this and see how it performs, rather than getting a new CPU. If anyone can tell me if I am overclocked based on the screen shot, Id appreciate it.

Thanks

4.9 GHz is quite the OC!

 

[hang-the-9]

A quick and dirty way to find out if the CPU is a bottleneck is a game is to watch the CPU and video card usage. If CPU is always close to 100% and video card is low, say 50%, there is a CPU bottleneck. This is not a rule for everything, but a general thing. Same thing going the other way.

Upping resolution and refresh rate is mostly dependent on the video card anyway. Once you get past what a game engine needs for a CPU, you will be limited by the video card. Some games can't hit high frames on any platform, you can feed them a $500 video card or a $1,000 video card and the fps will hardly budge.

 

[johnnydangerx2]

So something is not stable with the overclock that was done. I couple of times my system has restarted when this has never happened before. Maybe I cant trust the ASUS software. Going to see if I can lower the overclock percentage, hopefully my system becomes more stable.

 

[Gmoney06ss]

It's doubtful you'll be able to adjust anything lower in the program. As Asus thinks that's what's "safe". It doesn't allow for much manual adjustment, it's there, but I question it's effectiveness. Though if I remember correctly there is a section where you can adjust the multiplier. As it's 49 now, you may want to try 47. Use some kind of monitoring app other than the Asus one to double check the actual voltage.

 

[johnnydangerx2]

What I did is went to the bios and set the default settings. In the bios there are three options. Ive never paid attention to them, but one was essentially low power, one is normal and one is optimal. I selected optimal and it changed the OC to 18%. Going to try that out for a while and see what happens. Then maybe try to do things manually. As long as it doesnt destroy anything besides my CPU, than I'll be ok with it. I mean, I was just ready to buy a new CPU anyways, right.

 

[johnnydangerx2]

I think I messed something up because I just came home after being gone for a while and my system is still restarting. Hopefully I can figure out whats going on. Im going to completely turn off the OC and see what happens.