upgrade CPU help?

[Richard Graham]

I currently have an Intel Sandy bridge 2500. Had it since they came out. And I'm looking to upgrade my rig. Are the new Intel's good? I also heard their new ones are coming soon, skylakes? Was curious if it worth the wait or not for a 4 year old machine

 

[Whateverworks_19]

The current Haswell microarcitecture from Intel is worth investing in now. Tell us your needs. Are you only going to do office work? Gaming? Rendering and video editing? Give us some needs and a budget, and we can suggest you quality builds, Sir.

 

[Richard Graham]

I multi task a lot as of now. Watching blue ray movies while doing video conversions,playing runescape. I mostly play kinda high demanding games. Mostly Battlefeild and Crysis. Other games as well. My current setup is the sandy bridge 2500 CPU, gigabyte mobo,16gb of ddr3 ram, SLI evga 550's. 1000 watt power supply, with a fresh clean install of windows 7 on an ssd (have other drives for storage ssd is only my os). Budget wise roughly $500 or so for a CPU and about $350ish for mobo. I still want to run SLI GPU

 

[kevinubxd]

You don't need to spend that much for a mobo, you only need a decent mobo for overclock and a little extra features you like.
Quick Question are you going to be overclocking?

 

[kevinubxd]

Honestly if i were you, i would just pick up a i7 4790k for ~$320 and a decent mobo with features you want (Example) Like a Z97 Mobo

 

[projx]

Parts aren't cheap, you like SLI and finding a board with true X16 PCIe rails are spendy, then because you have that sweet board yer gonna she'll out $600 for that sweet 6 core i7 with another $350 for DDR4.

Best bang for the buck it GPU update, you can use them if you build a new PC and new card will not be affected by the PCIe 2.0. They are likely more power efficient too so your existing PSU will work. You current processor is great for gaming or multitasking but you probably see issues when doing both. When you do upgrade consider HT technology (i7=4 cores 8 threads) and enjoy the horsepower.

 

[Archgaull]

Projx, I don't know where you're pulling $600 for an i7, unless you're thinking something crazy up there like a i7-5930K, which is $550 and way excessive for his needs. The i7-4790k is $340, and would still exceed anything he needs to do, but is way closer to his needs

 

[projx]

Projx, I don't know where you're pulling $600 for an i7, unless you're thinking something crazy up there like a i7-5930K, which is $550 and way excessive for his needs. The i7-4790k is $340, and would still exceed anything he needs to do, but is way closer to his needs

I'm still rock my old rig, i7 980x on an Asus p6t 12 Gb Ram dual R9 290X and 1000 watt Thermaltake Toughpower in an Aerocool Strike-X open chassis

When you spend the right money upfront you can outperform the fads that come along for many years!

 

[Archgaull]

I have no clue what you are trying to say or replying to, did I miss something?

 

[kevinubxd]

i7 4790k is all he needs. There is really no point in wasting money on performance he isnt going to need. Like I said if he has the money, 4790k and a decent mobo that supports sli and features he is looking for z97

 

[Whateverworks_19]

I multi task a lot as of now. Watching blue ray movies while doing video conversions,playing runescape. I mostly play kinda high demanding games. Mostly Battlefeild and Crysis. Other games as well. My current setup is the sandy bridge 2500 CPU, gigabyte mobo,16gb of ddr3 ram, SLI evga 550's. 1000 watt power supply, with a fresh clean install of windows 7 on an ssd (have other drives for storage ssd is only my os). Budget wise roughly $500 or so for a CPU and about $350ish for mobo. I still want to run SLI GPU

Get a i5-4690k. i7-xxxxK is not necessary for your needs per sé. The difference between an i5 and i7 is essentially hyper-theading (HT) and a bigger cache. Now HT may be of interest to you, if you do loads of multiple high-load tasks simultaneously, else the extra 100 dollars is simply not worth it.

Get a motherboard with the Z97 chipset, if you wanna run SLI with some of the newest GPU's, buy a new PSU as well. (granted I do now know your current PSU's quality, you could already have a decent one). You can go well under 1000W, just make sure that the quality is sufficient. I would not go below 700ish W, if you go with SLI 960, 970, 980. The good thing about these GPU's though, is that they are based on the Maxwell microarcitecture, which greatly improves upon efficient power-consumption.

 

[Richard Graham]

I don't plan on over clocking at all. Intel turbo boost has always served my good. I been looking at the Asus sabertooth z97 mark 2 for a mobo. It sounds like a nice mobo to use for SLI. For CPU I'm looking at the i7 4790k. Does the CPU only support 1600Mhz? I was gonna upgrade my ram to what my new mobo can handle.

 

[kevinubxd]

Ram doesnt affect performance much. Just pick up a i7 4790k and the motherboard you are looking at and you are fine

 

[kevinubxd]

if you want faster ram the cpu can def handle it. most motherboards can handle it too

 

[kevinubxd]

i would recommend 2133mhz with low cas latency or a 1800 with low cas