Revamping an i7-860 for gaming. Is it worth it?

[g725s]

I have an older i7-860 home build that has a BioStar
Socket : 1156
T5XE CFX-SLI Ver. 5.x
Here is a link to the motherboard on the BioStar website:
http://www.biostar-usa.com/app/en-us/mb/introduction.php?S_ID=445
It only has 8gb of ram but I could upgrade that to 16gb.
It has a 550w power supply currently.

It would be for my son. He currently has a Dell 660 i5-3330 300GHz, with a Nvidia GTX-760 with 8gb of ram. That is the max ram for that Dell. But probably could put in a slightly better GPU, but the power supply is 450w.

Could I make the i7-860/BioStar into a decent gaming rig using Crossfire or SLI? Could it be better than the Dell he has? Would the cost to revamp it be worth it?

I looked up the comparison between the two processors and they are fairly close:
http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i7-860-vs-Intel-Core-i5-3330
and
http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/376/Intel_Core_i5_i5-3330_vs_Intel_Core_i7_i7-860.html
and
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_lookup.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7+860+%40+2.80GHz

I have no idea about the maximum level of GPU I could put in the the BioStar. But could putting in more Ram and Crossfired or SLIed graphics cards and maybe an SSD for the Windows 7 Ultimate OS? And the BioStar is only SATA2.

Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Vexillarius]

I'd keep the Ivy Bridge to be honest. That i5 is still a good CPU, singlethreaded performance is significantly better than with a first-gen i7. 8GB of RAM is perfectly fine, it's the recommended amount for gaming at the moment.

The only upgrade worth doing I see here is maybe getting a GTX970 or something similar. Should work fine on that 450w PSU since it uses ridiculously little power (less than the 760 actually!). It's a great performer though, and at a good price too.

Crossfire and SLI setups that are actually worth getting would require a bigger PSU.

 

[logainofhades]

Not sure if it is really worth it. 8gb is still plenty for gaming. If the Dell can handle the length, you could go with a GTX 970. Their power consumption is really close.

 

[g725s]

Thanks so I get that it is not worth the upgrade. Well keep the i7 as is and decide on something else for one of my sons Christmas presents.

I was just hoping that a Crossfire or SLI setup might be better in the i7-860 setup, and that I could add more ram. As I don't mind getting a larger PS for the i7 if it would be a significant enough improvement.

I did ask about the card for the Dell 660 when deciding on the graphic card to get:
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2010279/dell-inspiron-660-graphics-card-pick-psu-fit-mintower-hep.html#12841454

There it not a whole lot of room in the Dell 660

 

[Vexillarius]

What kind of GPU do you have with the i7 currently?

More RAM isn't going to do anything unless you do things like rendering on the system. You can put in 16GB, but games still wouldn't put usage above 8GB, so it won't make any difference whatsoever.

EDIT: Just to add, since that previous thread Gigabyte has released a tiny GTX970: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5252#ov
In case you're interested.

 

[logainofhades]

Oh yea forgot about that Gigabyte 970. That would be the card to get, for that Dell.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 4GB Video Card ($339.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $339.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-12-12 14:26 EST-0500

 

[g725s]

What kind of GPU do you have with the i7 currently?

More RAM isn't going to do anything unless you do things like rendering on the system. You can put in 16GB, but games still wouldn't put usage above 8GB, so it won't make any difference whatsoever.

EDIT: Just to add, since that previous thread Gigabyte has released a tiny GTX970: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5252#ov
In case you're interested.

How much better is that card than the one I previously got for my son? Would it be a worthy Christmas present?

And I don't have any graphic card to speak of in the i7 build I put together years ago now. There is something in there but I forget. Not a gaming card. I would still like to consider vamping up the i7 so if a friend of his came over they could play games together on separate computers. I've got a new i7 PC myself and don't know what to do with the old i7

And what PS wattage would be best for this card you suggest?

 

[Vexillarius]

The GTX970 is an amazing card. It's on par with or better than the R9 290X and even close to the GTX780 Ti. It crushes the 760. You can't get anything better at that price point.

Here's a thought: if you get that 970 you could put the 760 in the other system and SLI it. That would get you great performance on that system as well. You'd need a PSU in the neighbourhood of 700w though. If a new 760 would put you over budget you can probably get a cheap second hand one.

EDIT: A GTX970 will run fine on a 500w PSU. If the 760 works then the 970 will definitely work too.

 

[g725s]

The GTX970 is an amazing card. It's on par with or better than the R9 290X and even close to the GTX780 Ti. It crushes the 760. You can't get anything better at that price point.

Here's a thought: if you get that 970 you could put the 760 in the other system and SLI it. That would get you great performance on that system as well. You'd need a PSU in the neighbourhood of 700w though. If a new 760 would put you over budget you can probably get a cheap second hand one.

EDIT: A GTX970 will run fine on a 500w PSU. If the 760 works then the 970 will definitely work too.

And to SLI the 760 in the i7 860 that would mean I'd need to get another identical card right?

So another more powerful PS and another card.

And how would the performance of the revamped i7 with these cards in SLI compare performance wise to his current setup?

 

[Vexillarius]

You'd need another GTX760. The brand and clockspeed can be different, as long as it's a GTX760. I'd also get one with the same amount of VRAM, because SLI'ing cards with different amounts of VRAM doesn't seem to always work.

Performance depends on the specific game's SLI implementation, but on average SLI'd 760s perform about the same as or slightly better than a 780.

The i5 plus GTX970 would outperform the i7 plus SLI'd 760s, but not by a huge margin.
The i7 with SLI'd 760s would perform significantly better than the current i5 and single 760, except in up-to-4-threaded programs that rely heavily on the CPU.