[SOLVED] Should i upgrade cpu or ram?

JovanDrukara

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Jul 31, 2019
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Hello everyone. I have a i5 3570, gtx 970 and 12gb of ram at 1400mhz. I experience some stutters in games like cod wwii and battlefield 1. Should i upgrade to i7 3770 or 16gb 1600mhz ram?
 
Solution
I do not see a useful upgrade.
I5-3570 has 4 threads and a passmark rating of 4880.
That is when all 4 threads are fully utilized.
The single thread rating is 2041. That is most important to cpu centric games where the performance of the single master thread is all important.
games
A upgrade to i7-3770 would get you 8 threads and a rating of 6371/2073.
A plus, but not a significant one. good, though if you play multiplayer games where extra threads can help.

On ram, 1400 speed is strange. Perhaps you meant 1600.
12gb indicates mismatched ram and 4gb will be in single channel mode.
Intel will not be impacted much by ram performance,
I would think that 12gb is enough.
Look at your task manager memory tab.
See if you have any...

punkncat

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How much longer do your project to keep this rig?

It's well outdated, as you are aware. A 3770 is likely to cost upwards of $80+ and DDR3 has been getting higher as well. Assuming you could find both used for $150 (which I think is low) that is money that could go towards something newer. Even if you went with a 'lowly' i3 it would match or outperform either of those CPU.

To be helpful and answer the question, I would probably be inclined towards 16GB of matched 1600mhz RAM first.

I (semi recently) sold off a group of 3770 on Craigslist and readily got $100 each for them, tested and working. I also sold off a great deal of Samsung and Crucial 8GB sticks for $25+ each.
 

JovanDrukara

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Jul 31, 2019
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I still don't have my own money becouse i am only 16. I was planning to buy a used i5 4690k (or i7 4790) and z97 board but that would likely cost me not less than 150$ here in serbia but i don't have money. I just want to make something that'l serve me well for a year or two more, then i'll buy a new pc.
 

punkncat

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I still don't have my own money becouse i am only 16. I was planning to buy a used i5 4690k (or i7 4790) and z97 board but that would likely cost me not less than 150$ here in serbia but i don't have money. I just want to make something that'l serve me well for a year or two more, then i'll buy a new pc.


Gotcha. Unfortunately have no real idea as to what the landscape is for used equipment in Serbia.
The 3770 is going to bring 4 more threads, where your current i5 doesn't multithread. The speeds of them are similar enough that in (some) things you would probably never know IMO.

I personally feel that having matched RAM capacity running in dual channel would benefit you more, immediately. In the case that you are keeping this for a while I tend to lean towards @ohio_buckeye opinion, as the i7 will buy you some time.

Without knowing exactly what you are working with, make sure to do your due diligence that your motherboard supports the 3770.
 
I do not see a useful upgrade.
I5-3570 has 4 threads and a passmark rating of 4880.
That is when all 4 threads are fully utilized.
The single thread rating is 2041. That is most important to cpu centric games where the performance of the single master thread is all important.
games
A upgrade to i7-3770 would get you 8 threads and a rating of 6371/2073.
A plus, but not a significant one. good, though if you play multiplayer games where extra threads can help.

On ram, 1400 speed is strange. Perhaps you meant 1600.
12gb indicates mismatched ram and 4gb will be in single channel mode.
Intel will not be impacted much by ram performance,
I would think that 12gb is enough.
Look at your task manager memory tab.
See if you have any significant hard fault page rate. If you see 1 per second it will indicate that you are short of ram. If you have a hard fault, it will be resolved some 40x faster if the page file is on a ssd.

If your C drive is on a HDD, the best performance upgrade will be to a ssd.
Such an upgrade can be carried forward to a future build.
 
Solution
I did not sit through all games.
Some had parity between 3570 and 3770.
All had reasonable frame rates in the 60+ range.
I noted that the graphics settings were set to minimum.
That makes the game more cpu limited, but for most, the graphics settings will be normal or high, making the graphics card the more restrictive component.
 

Bazzy 505

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Jul 17, 2021
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One other cheaper option to consider could be something like Xeon E3 1231 v3 (Hashwell-WS), at stock requencies it preforms rougly the same i7 4790k.
These are not particularly popular on second hand because, like other xeons, they cannot be overclocked and lack IGP, but they can
be purchased on a dime as they are often found on small servers life System X by IBM/Lenovo that are just about reaching the end
of useful life and being tossed to the bin en mass right now.

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/u...n-processor-e3-1231-v3-8m-cache-3-40-ghz.html

it's a 4 core 8thread, 3.4ghz base clock, 3.8ghz 2cores , 3.6 all cores


The only real downside is that they will only work on C200 or Z97 chipsets ( if i remember correctly).
 

TommyTwoTone66

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Apr 24, 2021
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Upgrade to 16GB ram, a matched pair of 8GB sticks. It will help a lot more than changing to an i7 in games.

Upgrading to SSD will also help a huge amount and costs very little right now. You can find a fast 240GB SSD for $30 or so.
 
Hello everyone. I have a i5 3570, gtx 970 and 12gb of ram at 1400mhz. I experience some stutters in games like cod wwii and battlefield 1. Should i upgrade to i7 3770 or 16gb 1600mhz ram?
Hi JovanDrukara.

** cpu **
Since your existing Intel core i5-3570 is LGA 1155, then I would recommend upgrading the it to a Xeon E3-1240 v2; it's equivalent to the i7-3770, but only has a 100 Mhz lower base and boost clock. There are a bunch of these available on Ebay US for $45 USD, so perhaps you can find them in your region as well?

List of LGA 1155 socket CPUs
https://www.cpu-world.com/Sockets/Socket 1155 (LGA1155).html

** ram **
Instead of purchasing a new kit, I would simply add another 4GB to bring your system RAM up to 16GB; hopefully it'll than be in a dual channel configuration.
 
Not so simple. Three diverse sticks making up 16gb is asking for trouble.
Ram must be matched. It could work, though, if the new ram can be returned.

On the Xeon, if it requires c200 or Z97 motherboards, that is a no go, the OP has B75 chipset.

On a budget, any upgrade is a problem.
 

TommyTwoTone66

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Not so simple. Three diverse sticks making up 16gb is asking for trouble.
Ram must be matched. It could work, though, if the new ram can be returned.

On the Xeon, if it requires c200 or Z97 motherboards, that is a no go, the OP has B75 chipset.

On a budget, any upgrade is a problem.
Also the Xeon chips from this era are no faster than the 3570 and will actually perform worse in games. Xeon CPU is a terrible recommendation.

Upgrading CPU to current gen will help, but isn’t the huge leap some might imagine. The 3570K is still in the same league as, for example, a 11600K. The newer chip is only 60-70% quicker, so in most games you’re only looking at 10-20% improvement in FPS on the same GPU from upgrading it. Certainly nothing earth shattering, and definitely not worth the cost of a new motherboard, ram, cpu and cpu cooler.

Ideally you would upgrade GPU first, CPU last, but at the moment due to the chip shortage and crypto miners going nuts, no GPU under $300 is worth buying. You need to wait around 2 years, for a used RTX 3070 to cost that much. At the moment we are all just hanging on to the GPUs we have and praying they don’t break.

So that only leaves you with RAM, PSU, Storage, cooling and case to consider upgrading.

PSU update is only needed if the system is unstable, cooling only needed if something is overheating, and case only needed if something doesn’t fit into the existing case…

So that only leaves RAM and storage, both of which I would upgrade. The 12GB, mismatched sticks are an obvious quick win and DDR3 is pretty cheap atm. I don’t know what storage OP is using but I’d bet a decent amount that it’s a 7200RPM HDD.