Should I upgrade my Processor?

[Outlier_81]

Right now I'm using:

Intel Core i5-750 Lynnfield Quad-Core 2.66GHz LGA 1156 95W

I'm also using an older graphics card:

Radeon HD 5850 (Cypress Pro) 1GB

I was thinking of just upgrading the graphics card and not the processor for now. After reading new gaming builds most of them recommend the Haswell i5's over the i7's saying that most games can't utilize the extra cores.

Is this the same for Photoshop, or the rest of the Adobe suite?

Also, how big of a performance upgrade will I notice jumping from my Lynnfield i5 to the Haswell's to warrant the extra $250~

Thanks in advance!

 

[jaguarskx]

Going from a 1st gen to 4th gen is a decent jump in performance. Overall average performance gains are as follows assuming the same clockspeed:

Lynnfield -> Sandy Bridge = 12%
Sandy Bridge -> Ivy Bridge = 6%
Ivy Bridge -> Haswell = 6%

That works out to about a 26% increase in average performance. Don't forget that going from 1st gen to 4th requires a new motherboard because of the different socket.


However, while the Radeon HD 5850 was great when it was new, it is a bit dated as well. Personally, if gaming is more important, I would upgrade the GPU now and then next year upgrade to Intel's Skylake CPU. No real performance info has been released yet, but people are hoping for a 10%+ performance increase going from Haswell to Skylake. Note that Skylake will be using a new socket.

 

[Thunderballs]

Why not wait a few months for Skylake ?

Buy a second hand graphics card and resell it in a few months. Youl;ll lose a lot of cash buying new graphics atm.

 

[Archgaull]

Honestly, although there would be a good jump from your CPU in upgrading, you'd be better served getting a different GPU first.