Upgraded processor and no visible benefits.

[Phosfr]

Hi everyone,

I have a quick question. I've recently just upgraded my processor from an i5-7500 to an i7-7700K, and I'm not seeing any performance increase. No faster to load anything up (it's still fast) and no more FPS in-game. I would think I'd see a modest amount of performance boost upgrading to the i7. Is there something I need to do to make it performance better? Or have I just wasted £300?

Computer specs:
i7-7700K
GTX 1060
ASUS z270 Mobo
16gb hyperX RAM
1tb HDD

 

[Paul NZ]

An SSD would help with loading whatever. Did you reset the BIOS settings then reconfigure them after you installed the new CPU?

 

[R_1]

if purchased just for gaming alone, it might have been a waste until you play a game that can actually tax more threads. now you can game and...
the and bit is important, gaming can max the 4-6 cores but other things can now run without hampering the gaming.
now you can game and stream
now you can game WHILE rendering something or trans-coding something. AND. the 7500 was gaming ONLY, the 7700 is gaming AND (insert application here).
now your ready for what will come gaming more-core wise. with only 4 cores you would be boned when 6-8 core needy game come out.

 

[Solandri]

Much of the i7 being "the best" processor in Intel's lineup is marketing hype. Over the i5, the i7 gives you:

• 
  ■Slightly higher clock speeds
  ■A bit more L3 cache (8MB vs 6MB)
  ■Hyperthreading

The higher clock speeds should have the most pronounced effect on CPU-bound tasks. Unfortunately most games are not CPU-bound.

The larger L3 cache is nice if you're doing number crunching or data processing (e.g. compression, encryption) on large data sets. For more everyday tasks including gaming, The L1 and L2 caches usually take care of about 95% of memory fetch requests. And the extra L3 cache makes very little difference.

Hyperthreading is substantially overhyped IMHO. Yes hyperthreading allows the CPU to run 8 threads instead of 4. But the problem is those 4 virtual cores can only use parts of the CPU not being used by the 4 physical cores. The vast majority of CPU-limited tasks are limited because they need to use the same part of all cores. e.g. If you're doing extensive floating point calculations, then the floating point unit is the limiting factor, and only 4 threads can use the FPU at once on a 4-core CPU even if it has hyperthreading.

It takes a very eclectic task to really get good mileage out of hyperthreading. Something which needs to do lots of different operations at once. In terms of real-life tasks, this is pretty much limited to video rendering, data compression, and to a lesser extent encryption. Those can get about 30%-40% more mileage out of hyperthreading. So a 4-core CPU acts more like it has 5-5.5 cores. Outside of those tasks, you'll only get about a 5%-10% improvement from hyperthreading. And in some cases hyperthreading will actually make things slower (part of a sequential task gets assigned to a virtual core, and cannot complete in time causing delays compared to using only physical cores).

There are a few games which get good mileage out of hyperthreading, but they are the exception, not the norm. Sorry this lesson cost you £300. I agree with the first response that a SSD would've been a better upgrade. And do not try to render while gaming, unless you can manually assign the render to only virtual cores while the game runs on physical cores. The thread assigner in Windows doesn't seem to distinguish between real and virtual cores, and can end up assigning time-critical game threads to virtual cores, while the non-time-critical render can hog up physical cores.

 

[sizzling]

The 7700k in games shows its extra muscle when trying to achieve high fps. If paired with a GTX 1070 /1080/1080Ti and a 1080p or 1440p 144Hz or greater monitor the 7700k will perform noticeably better in modern cpu heavy games. As you are running a 1060 though I assume you are running 1080p 60Hz or even if you are running a higher Hz monitor the 1060 isn't really powerful enough to use the extra cpu power. Bottom line is your gaming performance is most likely limited by your gpu, therefore upgrading the cpu didn't change this limitation.

 

[Phosfr]

An SSD would help with loading whatever. Did you reset the BIOS settings then reconfigure them after you installed the new CPU?

No I didn't do any of that. When I first installed it was only using two cores and I had to go into msconfig to change that

 

[Paul NZ]

Resetting the BIOS settings may or should fix it. Then reconfigure the settings. Dont use msconfig, it can screw things up

I had the same thing here. I replaced a dual core with a quad core. It was showing 2 cores after.

So I went into the BIOS reset the settings, reconfigured the settings, saved them.

Rebooted voila 4 cores were showing. In the end I did a clean install when Windows 10 Fall update came out

 

[Phosfr]

Resetting the BIOS settings may or should fix it. Then reconfigure the settings. Dont use msconfig, it can screw things up

I had the same thing here. I replaced a dual core with a quad core. It was showing 2 cores after.

So I went into the BIOS reset the settings, reconfigured the settings, saved them.

Rebooted voila 4 cores were showing. In the end I did a clean install when Windows 10 Fall update came out

I'm not going to lie, I don't really know what I'm doing in the bios. I've just set everything to Auto

 

[Phosfr]

"The 7700k in games shows its extra muscle when trying to achieve high fps. If paired with a GTX 1070 /1080/1080Ti and a 1080p or 1440p 144Hz or greater monitor the 7700k will perform noticeably better in modern cpu heavy games. As you are running a 1060 though I assume you are running 1080p 60Hz or even if you are running a higher Hz monitor the 1060 isn't really powerful enough to use the extra cpu power. Bottom line is your gaming performance is most likely limited by your gpu, therefore upgrading the cpu didn't change this limitation."

I have a 27" 1440p monitor, I'm guessing a 1060 just isn't powerful enough?