SOLVED I7 860 still enough for gaming?

[NicRoss]

Hi everybody

I've been using the same rig for about 4 years now and I'm starting to upgrade it. The primary usage is gaming for games like Skyrim, Shogun 2, BF3, Rome 2 when it comes out.

The rig is as follows:

CPU: i7 860 overclocked at 3.8 ghz
GPU: Radeon 5870 vapor x
RAM 8gb of ripjaws God knows what reference
MB: Gygabite P55UD3-R
PSU: Corsair something 650 watts

I've started by upgrading the monitor going for a 2560x1440 (I know: very clever to an upgrade with something which will require even more performance) and I'm now about to order a 7970 GHZ to replace the GPU.

I was wondering if was a good idea to replace the CPU (and thus the MB) right now? To me it seems that it is still enough for my usage (I don't really know the importance of the CPU when it comes to gaming). Does anybody have an advice?

 

[FinneousPJ]

No, I don't think it's worth it for you yet. You will know more when the new GPU arrives, though.

 

[muttley89]

The i7 860 is still a very capable CPU. No doubt the bottleneck in your current system is your GPU. If I was you, I'd keep what you have now and do some testing with your new GPU. You should see a big performance increase with that upgrade.

Are you running your games on an SSD? Upgrading to an SSD could boost your performance in games like Skyrim where constant loading of textures can see a performance decrease on mechanical HDDs.

 

[NicRoss]

Thank you for your answers! I've got a Vertex 3 but I reserved it for the system (it's a 128gb). It's to small for my whole steam folder and I don't think it is possible to install only ONE of my steam games on another drive...

Maybe I should consider buying another ssd for my games?

 

[imomun]

In modern games CPU intensive (eg. crysis3 skyrim moded ARMA3 etc) you might see occassional bottoleneck with the 7950
Im saying might as your planing to game on 2560x1440 @ that resolution The GFX power is more important than the CPU. And your i7 860 still capable of decent framerates. Most of the games in market @ present will run very fluent with all bells and whistles on

 

[NicRoss]

are you saying my future 7970 ghz edition could be a problem? (you wrote 7950)

 

[logainofhades]

It won't be enough of a problem that you would even notice. That chip is plenty capable still.

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

Today I am going to replace my Intel® Core™ i7-860 on my home system with an new Intel® Core™ i7-3770K. The Intel Core i7-860 still doing a good job but I just got to good of a deal not to upgrade right now. My old system is going to a friend as a gaming system and they will pick up a major upgrade to it.

 

[imomun]

are you saying my future 7970 ghz edition could be a problem? (you wrote 7950)

Not at all bro go with the 7970 even better

 

[muttley89]

Thank you for your answers! I've got a Vertex 3 but I reserved it for the system (it's a 128gb). It's to small for my whole steam folder and I don't think it is possible to install only ONE of my steam games on another drive...

Maybe I should consider buying another ssd for my games?

Steam will let you set up a secondary folder on another drive. I have a 120GB SSD and what I do is install Windows on there along with any frequently used applications. That leaves me with about 50-60GB free. Any games that have a lot of big texture files loading (e.g. ARMA 2 and Skyrim) get installed in the secondary steam folder on the SSD. This makes for much more fluid gameplay as it gets rid of any stuttering caused by HDD load times.

Also the HD 7970 is an absolute beast so you will be by fine at that resolution with todays games.

 

[NicRoss]

allright thank you everybody for your precise answers!

 

[BexStar]

Out of interest have you upgraded your CPU yet? I'm in exactly the same position at the moment. To upgrade the 860 or not....