Upgrade an i7 950? And what to?

[drojman]

Hi all,

I currently have an i7 950 3GHZ in my PC, OC'd to 3.7. I'm wondering if it's now time to upgrade, my performance in some games is not what I'd like, (Far Cry 3, Watch_Dogs, Wolfenstein etc) If so what would be a good jump?

For reference the rest of my PC is:

Rampage II Extreme Motherboard
12GB 1600mhz RAM
2x 7970 3GBs 1TB HDD
60 GB SSD
Window 8.1

 

[logainofhades]

What is your budget for upgrade?

 

[drojman]

Ah sorry, of course.

Hmm, I'd probably go to around £600 at most, but I could stretch if there was something worth it.

 

[Dylzan]

4770K/4790K or 4670K/4690K?

Though for £600 you could get the 4930K.

 

[logainofhades]

I would just wait till Haswell-E.

 

[drojman]

With regards to Hex core and Quad, are Hex Cores viable yet, or are Quads still more than good enough?

 

[Obnoxious]

With regards to Hex core and Quad, are Hex Cores viable yet, or are Quads still more than good enough?

It's mainly AMD utilising six and eight cores, however their single-core performance is not as great as Intel, regardless AMD's 6-core offering does perform outstandingly, whereas the FX 8-core are not as great (the FX-8 series are actually quad-core with 8 threads/logical cores.) A quad-core processor is still viable, however more performance can be gained through more cores; regardless Intel has opted to stick to four/quad-cores, and another 4 via Hyper Threading: 4 cores and 8 [hyper] threads, thus the OS sees 8 "cores." Keeping in mind, Intel does provide a better performance over AMD even with quad-core and 8 threads; heck, even the i5's outperform most of AMD's offering.

Intel i3's are dual-core with Hyper-Threading (HT) thus, 2 cores 4 threads (OS sees 4 cores.)
Intel i5's are quad-core with 4 threads (OS sees 4 cores.)
Intel i7's are quad-core with HT thus, 4 cores and 8 threads (OS sees 8 cores.)

However having a core is better than a thread, hence an i5 performs much better than an i3. If Hyper-Threaded, a single core has 2 threads. Regardless for gaming, an i5 is more than enough but you can bump up to i7's or Intel Xeon E3's (the Xeon's are almost similar in performance to i7's, but at a fraction of the cost) if you desire. If you go with Xeon, which are designed for servers, hence have no integrated GPU, you'll need to install a dedicated GPU (which you already have.)

If you're going to upgrade, I'd replace your motherboard, CPU and GPU (GPU if you desire.) In my opinion, you should keep the rest of your hardware, as long as you have a decent PSU. I would recommend AMD for keeping your CPU costs low, so you could spend more on a GPU, but unfortunately AMD haven't been able to compete with Intel as of late. So an Intel CPU and a GPU would be the best way to go. Unfortunately however, I find that components costs more in the United Kingdom, compared to the US so you can't always get the best bang for your buck/pound; I'm from the UK too.

You may keep your GPU's in crossfire if you like, or you can get a new single GPU if you desire. I mainly believe it's your CPU holding back performance. If you're willing to spend £600, and replace your existing GPU's, you could go with this (using your current components, except for motherboard, CPU and GPU):

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i7-4770 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£211.19 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H97-D3H ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£79.57 @ Dabs)
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon R9 290 4GB PCS+ Video Card (£295.19 @ Aria PC)
Total: £585.95
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-06-03 22:37 BST+0100)

All the best.

 

[drojman]

Wow, thanks for the detailed answer. The processor is my priority, but GPU's are something I can see myself changing at Christmas/early next year.

Would you recommend definitely sticking with AMD for GPU's? I've been considering going Green for a while now.

Thanks again.

 

[Obnoxious]

No problem at all, it's my pleasure.

Yes I didn't really have a problem with your GPU's, I think they're pretty much top-end as it is. If you'd like to stick with them, I can agree with that. CPU in my opinion should be your priority, as you have already declared, in that case it's not necessary to spend £600, haha.

Please just let me know if you plan on overclocking your CPU or not, and I'll try and recommend you something better/more appropriate.

I actually prefer Nvidia myself, however AMD GPU's can be just as powerful whilst being cheaper. The Radeon R9 290 is similar to the GTX 780 in performance, the R9 290 is slightly better but you most likely won't notice the difference. The R9 290 costs £295.19 which is the 4GB PCS+ version from PNY, whereas the GTX 780 (Gigabyte 3GB VRAM) costs £365.99.

Of course at times you may find that Nvidia may be cheaper, if so it's completely your choice whether you go Nvidia or AMD. As stated I prefer Nvidia but I don't have a high-end card at all, and if I was to look for serious gaming graphics cards, I wouldn't mind going with either; of course that's my personal opinion.

If you're not planning to overclock your CPU, you should go with something like this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790 3.6GHz Quad-Core Processor (£215.99 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: ASRock H97 PRO4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£74.59 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Total: £290.58
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-06-03 23:14 BST+0100)

All the best.

 

[drojman]

I'm not desperate to OC my CPU, but it's something I end up usually doing, as I have done with my i7 950. Do you think that CPU would be a noticeable improvement from the one I have now?

As for AMD, I have for the most part been really pleased with them, although I've found frustrations with games focusing on Nvidia, and running much more smoothly on Nvidia hardware. I'm in no rush to change, but whenever I do, it will be to go Green, I'm sure of it. I had an 8800GTX back in the day and that thing served me beautifully.

Again, thanks for the help.

 

[Obnoxious]

Yes, upgrading to a 4th generation i7 will definitely boost your performance in games, especially in Watch Dogs over your current CPU. In general tasks however, such as web browsing, you won't notice a difference. Upgrading your CPU may also reduce a little bottleneck caused with your current CPU.

If you're going to overclock, you'll need a motherboard begining with the letter Z, preferably a Z97 to support future CPU's. In addition you'll also need a k edition CPU (i.e. i7-4770k), which has an unlocked multiplier, hence designed for overclocking.

Here's what I found if you're going to overclocking:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£233.99 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: ASRock Z97 PRO4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£80.08 @ Dabs)
Total: £314.07
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-06-04 03:35 BST+0100)

If you're willing to wait in upgrading your current CPU, you could purchase a Devil's Canyon CPU once available in retailers. They are an improved iteration over the current 4th generation Haswell CPUs; but if you don't want to wait, you could go ahead and purchase the i7-4770k which is Haswell. Devil's Canyon doesn't bring much improvement over Haswell anyhow.

I agree that some games focus more on Nvidia, hence why I've stuck with Nvidia; I used to have a GeForce 6800. Yet the price and performance of AMD can't be rivaled, but I guess it's down to preference.

Upgrading your CPU for now should improve gaming performance in my opinion, especially in Watch Dogs, which requires a powerful CPU and GPU.

All the best.

 

[drojman]

Thanks a lot, feels like I will get the Devils Canyon as long it's not prohibitively expensive, as I have to wait 1-2 weeks anyway so that looks good to me.

This is another total noob question, the cooler I have on my PC right now, is a Coolermaster V8. Is that at all usable with the new CPU or will I have to buy one seperately to replace the stock?

Thanks again.

 

[Dylzan]

Thanks a lot, feels like I will get the Devils Canyon as long it's not prohibitively expensive, as I have to wait 1-2 weeks anyway so that looks good to me.

This is another total noob question, the cooler I have on my PC right now, is a Coolermaster V8. Is that at all usable with the new CPU or will I have to buy one seperately to replace the stock?

Thanks again.

If it came with fittings for S1150 then it will work fine.

 

[logainofhades]

Thanks a lot, feels like I will get the Devils Canyon as long it's not prohibitively expensive, as I have to wait 1-2 weeks anyway so that looks good to me.

This is another total noob question, the cooler I have on my PC right now, is a Coolermaster V8. Is that at all usable with the new CPU or will I have to buy one seperately to replace the stock?

Thanks again.

If it came with fittings for S1150 then it will work fine.

Or 1156/1155 fittings. They hole pattern is the same for them as well. 😉

 

[drojman]

Excellent

One more thing (the last I promise), will it be sufficient to carry on using my Corsair HX750w? Never been any issues so far, I would assume it'd be ok.

 

[Dylzan]

Excellent

One more thing (the last I promise), will it be sufficient to carry on using my Corsair HX750w? Never been any issues so far, I would assume it'd be ok.

It's very good. That one is made by Seasonic.

 

[logainofhades]

Yea, should be fine. I have been using my Gen1 TX 750 for over 5yrs now and it has seen several different build configs during that time. 😀

 

[Duckhunt]

With regards to Hex core and Quad, are Hex Cores viable yet, or are Quads still more than good enough?

I will have crash in the party and mention that if your board is compatible with xeons. It might be better to go for a hex-core xeon with lga1366. There are many second hand and much cheaper and they do make a difference in highly threaded applications.

Then the benefit is 90W TDP compared to your 130W TDP.