[SOLVED] Should I upgrade?

May 26, 2020
3
0
10
This question is probably asked often but I could not find one with my question. I am running a i5-3570K. I have had it since 2012. I upgraded my gpu from a gtx770 to a 970. i am running 16gb ddr 3 1330 ram.

Honestly its chugging along fine. I don't game much currently but I did just load Witcher 3 and I was thinking I might play CyberPunk.

Upgrading my graphic card in a no brainier for Cyberpunk. But do I need to upgrade the CPU?

What is the difference between a 4 core 3.4 ghz cpu from 2012 and from 2018. The mesurement of performance is is the ghz and the cores correct?
 
Solution
My question really is what is the difference in generations CPU's. That really was watered down by mentioning gaming.

If a CPU is 3.4 ghz quad core from 2012 what is the difference between it and a CPU from 2018-19 with a 3.4ghz clock speed and 4 cores and 4 threads.

A cpu is measured by GHZ, Cores and threads correct regardless of its age? Or is there something I am missing? Keep in mind I am a novice builder. I do a build every couple years. this is the longest I have gone without upgrading my CPU. I am trying to understand why I should upgrade for .3 ghz and two more cores.
Since no one really addressed this question directly, I'll answer it. :D

Ghz isn't just Ghz. There's a lot more efficiencies along the way that will...
We don't know the actual required minimum specs for Cyberpunk, some think the i5 4670k could be.

Consoles are about to get a really nice hardware upgrade with the new platforms. The X Box will have an 8 core cpu.

If you don't really game that much and your PC is fine and performing to your standards, save your money.

Cyberpunk is going to take some serious horsepower, cpu and gpu.

If you want to upgrade to a new pc, what's your budget and where do you live?

Due to Covid most of the AMD motherboards are out of stock pretty much everywhere.

Intel just released new cpu's and AMD will later this year.

Nvidia and AMD to release new products in a few months too.

Currently AMD is the best price to performance, it's been a long time but AMD is back and giving Intel a run for the money.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RodroX
May 26, 2020
3
0
10
My question really is what is the difference in generations CPU's. That really was watered down by mentioning gaming.

If a CPU is 3.4 ghz quad core from 2012 what is the difference between it and a CPU from 2018-19 with a 3.4ghz clock speed and 4 cores and 4 threads.

A cpu is measured by GHZ, Cores and threads correct regardless of its age? Or is there something I am missing? Keep in mind I am a novice builder. I do a build every couple years. this is the longest I have gone without upgrading my CPU. I am trying to understand why I should upgrade for .3 ghz and two more cores.
 

Zerk2012

Titan
Ambassador
My question really is what is the difference in generations CPU's. That really was watered down by mentioning gaming.

If a CPU is 3.4 ghz quad core from 2012 what is the difference between it and a CPU from 2018-19 with a 3.4ghz clock speed and 4 cores and 4 threads.

A cpu is measured by GHZ, Cores and threads correct regardless of its age? Or is there something I am missing? Keep in mind I am a novice builder. I do a build every couple years. this is the longest I have gone without upgrading my CPU. I am trying to understand why I should upgrade for .3 ghz and two more cores.
If it still plays everything OK then their no need to upgrade. Don't upgrade for a upcoming game just wait and see how your PC runs it then decided.
 

Zerk2012

Titan
Ambassador
We don't know the actual required minimum specs for Cyberpunk, some think the i5 4670k could be.

Consoles are about to get a really nice hardware upgrade with the new platforms. The X Box will have an 8 core cpu.

If you don't really game that much and your PC is fine and performing to your standards, save your money.

Cyberpunk is going to take some serious horsepower, cpu and gpu.

If you want to upgrade to a new pc, what's your budget and where do you live?

Due to Covid most of the AMD motherboards are out of stock pretty much everywhere.

Intel just released new cpu's and AMD will later this year.

Nvidia and AMD to release new products in a few months too.

Currently AMD is the best price to performance, it's been a long time but AMD is back and giving Intel a run for the money.
The cores in a X box are nothing near the cores in a PC.
 

Karadjgne

Titan
Ambassador
I'm biased. Having simultaneously owned an i5-3570k (which absolutely refused to OC stable past 4.3GHz) and an i7-3770K (still gaming!) there's a very sizable difference between the 2. For online and multi-player and cpu intensive games. For instance, skyrim I had loaded on both. The i5 would only handle @ 70 mods and stayed around 50-60fps. The i7 currently has 170 mods and rarely ever dips to 59fps. Papyrus scripts are brutal to a cpu.

I also play a lot of Starwars: The Old Republic. With 8man team, no issues, 16man can get laggy in boss fights with all the AI involved. 24man World Boss is brutal, far too much AI from the other players, my fps drops to 5fps at times. SwTOR is a 7 year old game.

CSGO is a joke on the i7, was a joke on the i5, max settings and easily clear refresh rates by a lot.

So priorities, where do they lay. The i5 was sold complete, it failed 2 out of 3 games totally. The i7 is still good, mostly. I just have to refrain from 24man teams.

You are looking at upgrading and while budget is always a point, you'll need to decide what the value is worth. For modern games, a strong 4c/8t or 6c/12t is a must for multi-player/online. For single player, you can still pretty much squeek by with the quad. I'd use Witcher3 as the basis, if you are on medium-low settings and barely making monitor refresh, chances are good Cyberpunk will be unplayable. If you are pushing ultra and over your monitor refresh, chances are good Cyberpunk will be playable unless there's a specific lockout like with gta5.

But between covid supply/demand stupid greed on what little stock is available and Cyberpunk not released yet, now is not the time for rash impulse buys, I'd wait until you know what you need, what you want and if it's even doable and worth it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: GarrettL and RodroX
The Witcher 3 does run fine with your system, if you don't play very often and you are waiting for the new CyberPunk, I would said wait till is out and then see/read a lot of reviews to understand whats need it for it to run smoothly.

Once you have all that info then you can start thinking about what to upgrade first (GPU or CPU), or if you will need a complete platform upgrade (Motherboard+CPU+RAM)

If you will tell us I don't mind upgrading, I have the money and is this xxxx much, and also my platform is getting old, my USB port are failing or dont have enough speed, I dont have any M.2 slots and I want them for new storage, I could use onboard WiFi, Im into RGB, etc. then that will be a diferent story.

In any case Im with logainofhades on that c4/4t gaming is getting to a dead end soon for most newer titles. Right now, as soon as you step on a newish game, let say SOTR and beyond, then the amount of cores and threads would really hurt the gaming experience if they are not enough. It wont be imposible (on most cases for now) to play, but it wont be great either.
 
May 26, 2020
3
0
10
Thank you everyone for your prompt and detailed answers. I think I'll hold tight. The reason its itching right now is that intel has put all there current CPU's on sale. I'd like to take advantage of the sale but I'm asking myself is saving $40-$60 worth it. Maybe just wait for the new line of CPU's and GPU's and upgrade with then new stuff.
 

Zerk2012

Titan
Ambassador
I would say yes, it is time to upgrade. 4c/4t gaming is dead.
I would say it depends on the game. My son's hand me down 2500K @5.0 still runs (most) games fine paired with my old 980. But again depends on the game.

Tomorrow I upgrade to a 10600K and he gets my 4790K that I have really no reason to upgrade but to go ahead and give him a boost.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: logainofhades
My question really is what is the difference in generations CPU's. That really was watered down by mentioning gaming.

If a CPU is 3.4 ghz quad core from 2012 what is the difference between it and a CPU from 2018-19 with a 3.4ghz clock speed and 4 cores and 4 threads.

A cpu is measured by GHZ, Cores and threads correct regardless of its age? Or is there something I am missing? Keep in mind I am a novice builder. I do a build every couple years. this is the longest I have gone without upgrading my CPU. I am trying to understand why I should upgrade for .3 ghz and two more cores.
Since no one really addressed this question directly, I'll answer it. :D

Ghz isn't just Ghz. There's a lot more efficiencies along the way that will make a newer processor generally perform better and with less power consumption.

Let's look at some 4ghz cpus from 2014 to 2019:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compar...-i7-6700K-vs-Intel-i9-9900KS/2275vs2565vs3593

Now, in this comparison, the power usage actually went up, but so did the cores, so the power per core actually went down. But what's more important is the speed at which each core can process information, the 'single thread' performance, went up dramatically, where a system from 2019 is 20% faster just on the single thread performance alone.

And if we take this back into the 3.4Ghz era and your 3570k, you'll see how the single thread performance inches up year by year:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compar...tel-i5-4670K-vs-Intel-i5-7500/828vs1921vs2910

(Today there aren't any 3.4ghz and more 3.5/3.7ghz processors so there wasn't anything modern to really compare with.)

So Ghz aren't just Ghz. Now that being said, up your Ghz just by 20% and you're running with the stock speeds of the next two generations. ;) And this is one of the reasons a 2500k at 5ghz is still viable today. :)

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compar...ntel-i5-7500-vs-Intel-i5-2500K/828vs2910vs804 -- and that OC 2500k has a single thread performance ~2542, which is even faster than the i5-7500.
 
Solution

Zerk2012

Titan
Ambassador
To
My question really is what is the difference in generations CPU's. That really was watered down by mentioning gaming.

If a CPU is 3.4 ghz quad core from 2012 what is the difference between it and a CPU from 2018-19 with a 3.4ghz clock speed and 4 cores and 4 threads.

A cpu is measured by GHZ, Cores and threads correct regardless of its age? Or is there something I am missing? Keep in mind I am a novice builder. I do a build every couple years. this is the longest I have gone without upgrading my CPU. I am trying to understand why I should upgrade for .3 ghz and two more cores.
Answer that Passmark gives a decent idea you can see the overall and single core difference.

You can just Google 2 processors and add passmark benchmark looking like this.

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Intel-i5-3570K-vs-AMD-Ryzen-5-3600/828vs3481
 

Karadjgne

Titan
Ambassador
Ghz isn't just Ghz. There's a lot more efficiencies along the way that will make a newer processor generally perform better and with less power consumption.
Correct. There's also IPC, instructions per clock cycle. Which has generally increased 5-10% roughly with every generation of chips released. Comparing 2nd Gen to 9th gen that's @ 40% increase in IPC. Translate that to fps and it doesn't look good for the 2500k, averaging @ 40-60fps lower in just single player games. Intense cpu online multi-player games will be all bit unplayable.
 

InvalidError

Titan
Moderator
Honestly its chugging along fine.
There is your answer.

I'm still using an i5-3470 with 32GB of RAM and doing well enough for my liking in most cases. Although I would like to upgrade, I am in no particular hurry to do so, especially at currently inflated prices across the board and the US-Canuckistan exchange rate. I contemplated upgrading to a Ryzen 3600 last year but lack of B550 boards at the time was a deal-breaker for me. Doubt I'll be in an upgrading mood again until Ryzen 3 and Rocket Lake launch.
 
There is your answer.

I'm still using an i5-3470 with 32GB of RAM and doing well enough for my liking in most cases. Although I would like to upgrade, I am in no particular hurry to do so, especially at currently inflated prices across the board and the US-Canuckistan exchange rate. I contemplated upgrading to a Ryzen 3600 last year but lack of B550 boards at the time was a deal-breaker for me. Doubt I'll be in an upgrading mood again until Ryzen 3 and Rocket Lake launch.
I was also thinking of upgrading but your answer changed my mind... guess i will wait too...
 

Karadjgne

Titan
Ambassador
I just sold my house (yes, in the middle of covid, go figure) and naturally my wife is buying new drapes, rugs, knick-knacks, furniture, paint, shrubs, and other associated stuff I really could care less for 😘, but my concession was a new pc. So I built what I could justify to myself spending. Got everything sitting here at the house already except 1 thing. The motherboard. (Gah!). So far, that ITX mobo is for sale (new open box) on eBay for $700. The ONLY other place in the US is Amazon 3rd Party Shiesters whom are asking $684-$931 for new open box-new. It's staggering the greed and temerity these ppl are getting up to for a $249 mobo.

Long story short, if you don't have to build, I'd advise not to, just sit it out and wait. Sooner or later ppl will get over the rush to build (because they are back at work, not sitting around the house all day) and competition will put prices back where they belong, affordable.