Worth it to go from i7-2600 to i5-4690k ?

[ArponFlux]

Hello, i have an i7-2600 with dell motherboard, 8gb ram (4x2gb), 240gb ssd, xfx ts 550w (+12@45Amp), and xfx r9 380.

I can have i5-4690k, asus rog maximus vi hero, 16gb ram (2x8gb), 240 ssd, xfx ts 550w sitting in an nzxt s340.

basically since this consist in some kind of trade it would cost me only $140 usd.
I usually just play games and dont do video editing or photoshop and wont do.

my main concern would be that i play planetside 2 and its pretty cpu hungry, other than that i dont have any worries.
I plan to get a cooler down the road and overclock hence the motherboard.
im happy the way my pc performs, but im willing to update since it wont cost me 600+ in a new system, is it worth it? let me know what you think

 

[Joseph DeGarmo]

For games like Planetside 2, GTA V, and Crysis 3, it's better to invest in an i7-4790k, i7-6700k (requires DDR4 RAM), or Xeon E3-1231 v3.

 

[ArponFlux]

thanks for your input, is your answer based because of hyper threading ability or because higher cache of the i7.
Knowing that you prefer i7's, if you had to pick one of the two systems above which would you pick?
also, wouldn't the i5 system perform better than my current i7 in games like planetside?

 

[spentshells]

For gaming it would be huge waste of money to move to another processor. Spend your 340 on a gigabyte g1 gtx 970

 

[Joseph DeGarmo]

Unless being stuck on PCI-E Gen 2 bothers you, it's not worth it to upgrade. Going to a Skylake build will increase performance, but it's not really worth the costs of getting a new motherboard, CPU, and DDR4 RAM. Unless, of course, you want to use M.2 SSDs for faster Windows performance and read/write speeds along with USB 3.1.

 

[spentshells]

GTX 980 takes a 10% hit on a 16x pcie 2 16x times slot / 8x pcie 3

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GTX_980_PCI-Express_Scaling/22.html

This makes the 970 a perfect match for your system. Essentially saturating the available bandwidth of the slot.

 

[ArponFlux]

hey thanks for the answers, but im not planning on spending $340+

Basically I would only pay 140 including the i5, the motherboard and the ram. Yeah ill be doing many "favors" for my friend, but it just involves building his system and updating some other stuff and i have fun doing it so i dont see it as a downside 😀 Also, im giving him a 2tb hhd that doesnt hurt me giving up and of course my case, mobo, cpu, and ram.
the processor would be bought new so i could have the option of throwing an extra $100 for a total of $240 but i dont see the point of it for gaming purposes.
http://www.hardwarepal.com/planetside-2-cpu-benchmark/

 

[Joseph DeGarmo]

Does the motherboard support crossfire? If so, then you might be able to run an 850w PSU and get a second R9 380 for crossfire. Since it's a Dell motherboard, the possibility of it is iffy, though. A motherboard swap will "unlock" the PC by giving it the ability to run any PSU and SLI / crossfire and overclock the CPU without any restrictions. The only caveat, though, is needing a new copy of Windows. That's the biggest advantage of building your own PC rather than buying a pre-built one. If you could find a Z77 motherboard online for a low price, then you could go that route.

 

[ArponFlux]

sadly it does not support crossfire.
Also, i did looked into a motherboard upgrade before posting here.
asus z75 pro 3 runs for $86 with shipping from newegg and i would need a case since the proprietary connectors on the dell case. this means that i would need a new case (around $60 for one with 120 or 140mm fans for quieter operation).
which brings me back to the same $146 it would cost me to have pci 3.0, sli or crossfire, usb 3.0, and overclocking available if wanted at the cost of a cpu with higher threads (i could overclock i7 an extra 400mhz from stock since its limited unlocked).. hence this post 😀

 

[ArponFlux]

i don't really NEED to buy a new case, but then again i just want to save me headaches from pulling pins and mapping out each individual connector to fit a new mobo

 

[Joseph DeGarmo]

A Micro ATX motherboard should be able to work in the Dell case. At least I know that HP has cut some slack as far as OEM build compatibility is concerned; I was able to install a Micro ATX motherboard into an HP case. Double check to make sure the case holes will match the screws for a Micro ATX motherboard by looking at and comparing images online.

 

[ArponFlux]

I didnt had a chance to reply since i've been crazy busy but i ended up finding a deal on craigslist and bought an Asrock z77 extreme 3 (usb 3.0, pci 3.0, sli, crossfire) and a Gygabite HD 7870 Ghz edition for $80. I bought the video card since he would only take $55 for mobo lol. now i can probably sell video card and pay for the mobo upgrade^^ I ended up getting an NZXT S340 in white cuz it looks amazing.

These were my temps after two and a half hours of planetside marathon^^ on stock cooler. Fan noise wasn't annoying but would like to make it quieter (max cpu temp for this chip is 72C) how many extra degrees can i increase and still be conservative about temps? Also, im pretty rock solid at 60 fps now (57 avg in FRAPS) @ ultra with v sync and shadows in low, so I wont need a new GPU