Ivy bridge upgrade, is it worth it?

[uhh3000]

I'm currently running an AMD Phenom II x4 965 oc'd to 3.9 ghz. With this overclock, I experience a very, very slight bottleneck on my gtx 670 ftw, but overall am quite pleased with my computer, as there are little to no games I can't max out. However, I'm tempted to save up and buy an i5 3570k to maximize performance. My question to you is, will the performance gain be worth the extra ~$350 (I'm not gonna skimp on a motherboard) and give me an appreciable fps boost in games like WoW, GW2, and BF3, or would I be better off spending that money elsewhere (new ssd, better heatsink, possibly a second gpu, etc.)?

 

[djangoringo]

If you have the money to spend why not? that cpu is bottlenecking the card, get the i5-3570k + z77 mobo, it will definitely boost the performance overall of the pc, it's worth.

 

[rudi95]

its really worth it because any further upgrades would be kind of wasted due to the cpu already bottlenecking your system , and trust me there is a huge boost of performance i went from a phenom ii x4 955 (gxz) to an i5 3450 and even that is a huge performance boost

 

[suddenstop]

I did this exact upgrade with that video card. Basically computer felt exactly the same, wasn't any more snappy etc. But - i did get a very solid FPS increase in games. Rift in particular over doubled.

My phenom 2 x6 was at 3.8 GHz and my 3570K is at 4.4.

Worth it - yes, especially when i don't think there is much more performance coming in the desktop space. Its all about mobile and power consumption now. Haswell will be 10-15% more than ivy now.

 

[uhh3000]

Okay cool. I figured this was the case, just wanted a little reinforcement. As far as z77 mobo's go, I've been looking at the Gigabyte GA-Z77-UD5H or the Asus P8Z77-V LGA. At this price range of ~$180-200, which of these are better, or is there another board that is better than either?

 

[uhh3000]

I should also mention that I want a board that overclocks very well, and would prefer to stick with my current blue color scheme, although it's not absolutely necessary.

 

[djangoringo]

I like this one : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130660

There's also a good gigabyte : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128558&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=

But if you want cheap mobos z77 but also as good as that ones, go with the asrock z77 extreme 4 or 6.

 

[uhh3000]

Best answer selected by uhh3000.