2500K vs E8400-Upgrade?

[clok1966]

I havent upgraded in about 3 years, My e8400 OC'ed to 4.2 has been great. But the Bug to upgrade has hit me the last few days with Christmas bonus, tax money etc..

I'm wondering what if any speed increases will I see? I will OC the 2500K. I am primarliy a game player and normally upgrade about every 2 years, this chip has lasted 3 and has been strong enouhg the I7 stuff hasnt interested me to much. Anyboyd upgrade forma E8400 to the new sandybridge stuff? I do some encodeing and ripping so I suspect there will be some noticeable change there. I currently run a 5870 and was thinking of another with the new chip. I also plan on going with a SSD (I know this would be a nice boost in either system).

I just want sombody to tell me I will notice the difference, get me off this fence.. or worst case make me decide to put it off longer.. Logic will work ( i think)

opionions, advice?

 

[IGemini]

You'll see performance increases in differing amounts.

With gaming you'll see better performance on games that are designed for threading. Your 5870 is still a really good card, you likely won't need to update that. What sort of games do you play?

Ripping itself is as fast as it will ever get, that's limited by read/transfer speeds.

You'll probably see the biggest increase in encoding. Even when encoding using Sandy Bridge's raw CPU power, four cores will encode much faster than two (75%+ faster). If you manage to make use of the new QuickSync feature, it's at least 3x faster than that, though it won't work if there's a dedicated graphics card on the current SB chipsets. Depending on how much encoding you do, it might be worth it to wait a couple months for the Z68 chipset to come out.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Probably little or no difference in most games, most are not highly threaded enough to use the extra 2 cores much.

In your shoes I'd wait at least another month or two -- if you go into the Motherboards forum you'll see many people having problems with the brand-new motherboards. In 2-3 months the initial bugs will be worked out.

 

[SlitheryDee]

I made the exact upgrade you're contemplating. There were some game that I played that worked alright, but there was just a bit of noticeable jerkiness. Grand Theft Auto 4 and Prototype are two that come to mind. The 2500K smoothed those out quite noticeably.

I put my old system in another case as a secondary computer, so I'll probably do some testing to see just how much speed I gained when I have time. My video encoding speed for 1080P content seems to have roughly doubled in handbrake just going by my general impression. All the same, I greatly wish that I could use quick sync. If video encoding is important to you, you might do well to wait for Z68 for quick sync alone. I'd say that it's certainly a worthwhile upgrade even now though.

 

[jimhsu]

Same upgrade here. Some boosts in FPSes (which I don't play), significant boosts in RPGs and RTSes (which I do play). Can you list the games that you are playing?

 

[clok1966]

I am a bit suprised that a 3 year + old chip cant be beat (in a very tangible way) yet... All these answers are not helping hehe (but only becuase I dont like the answers.. to much what I feared they would be).

I play alot of L4D2/ TF2 (both of which play perfect on my current system) I currently play with a 26" in 1900X1200. I am a bit of a gameing addict so I play pretty much anything new, and yes, some of the online FPS, COD:BO, BF2BC, MNCombat, etc... I am a RTS player also so play most if not all of them too (well except SC II, not a fan, the day/night/ lava/ground gimic, it was old and sad when it was used in the 80's on games). I am a Crysis fan (one of the few games I couldnt run with all settings maxed). And yes the RPG's, Dragons Age, etc.. I alos do ALOT ( far to much) MMORPG's.. Last Night I had Champoions Online (it went free last night) and noticed at 1900X1200 outside it played fine, but in buildings (missions) it was stuttery, so I had to drop it a res to smooth it out... suprising as that game is not a graphic pig I didnt think.

one thing I seldom use AA settings on Video cards as its such a slow down when maxing other settings. I am assuming I may be able to do more with this?

Still on the fence... dang it keep the responces coming.

 

[Zargon]

BC2 will see huge improvements with the jump.

 

[SlitheryDee]

I am a bit suprised that a 3 year + old chip cant be beat (in a very tangible way) yet... All these answers are not helping hehe (but only becuase I dont like the answers.. to much what I feared they would be).

I play alot of L4D2/ TF2 (both of which play perfect on my current system) I currently play with a 26" in 1900X1200. I am a bit of a gameing addict so I play pretty much anything new, and yes, some of the online FPS, COD:BO, BF2BC, MNCombat, etc... I am a RTS player also so play most if not all of them too (well except SC II, not a fan, the day/night/ lava/ground gimic, it was old and sad when it was used in the 80's on games). I am a Crysis fan (one of the few games I couldnt run with all settings maxed). And yes the RPG's, Dragons Age, etc.. I alos do ALOT ( far to much) MMORPG's.. Last Night I had Champoions Online (it went free last night) and noticed at 1900X1200 outside it played fine, but in buildings (missions) it was stuttery, so I had to drop it a res to smooth it out... suprising as that game is not a graphic pig I didnt think.

one thing I seldom use AA settings on Video cards as its such a slow down when maxing other settings. I am assuming I may be able to do more with this?

Still on the fence... dang it keep the responces coming.

Most of the problems you're citing here sound like they would be alleviated more by a graphics card upgrade than a CPU upgrade. In certain game I definitely was CPU limited. I know that because reducing the resolution or graphics detail settings didn't significantly increase performance in those games. When you say that reducing the resolution smoothed things out for you, that indicates to me that it was your graphics card that was bottle necking you rather than the processor. Crysis will largely be GPU limited as well.

In Grand Theft Auto 4 my old rig would really start to chug in sections and reducing the resolution to 800x600 didn't even help. I don't really even play GTA4 that much, but it still bugged the shit out of me. The 2500K completely eliminated that, but it's honestly the only game I can cite as being drastically better as a result of my upgrade. One thing worth mentioning is that when OCed to 4.2 ghz, my 2500k is fast enough to run Batman Arkham Asylum with the nvidia hardware physx turned on even though I don't have an nvidia card to assist in the calculations. That's pretty significant, I'd say.

 

[Zargon]

he can't be *THAT* GPU limited with a 5870.

l4d2 and tf2 will likely see no increase on anything they are older and optimized.....

 

[clok1966]

Well even though I should know better, I bite the bullet and ordered it.
Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD4
2600K (decided if i was doing it, may as well jump one step higher)
Gskill ripjaw 8 GB
Crucial SDD 300-128GB
Antex 900 case

Already have watercooling kit form old days i have upgraded over time, the old parts will go back in old machine and all newer upgraded parts will go in new machine except the waterblock (camer with the gigybyte water cooling kit) so ordered another Block and mounting hardware for the CPU (apogee XT).

I will post my thoughts on the differances once its all put togther. Still would like to hear form anybody else doing this.

And I agree I shouldnt be limited card wise the 5870 (gigybyte OC) should be fine.. I may SLI it sometime...oh... crossfire

And before anybody mentions it.. gigabyte.. um ya.. alot of thier parts.. not consciously, it just happned that way, watercooling kit was a review item I got for $50, card was a newegg deal (card and 1TB drive for $230, just recently actually) as for the MB, it seems that or the ASUS p67 PRO but my reading on it it has some issues yet (and gigbyte does too it seems).. just hte one I went with after my reading..

 

[Zargon]

sounds nice!

 

[SlitheryDee]

he can't be *THAT* GPU limited with a 5870.

l4d2 and tf2 will likely see no increase on anything they are older and optimized.....

Well he probably isn't in most games, and certainly not in L4D2 and TF2. I'm not familiar with how Champions Online runs, but wouldn't you also think the graphics card is the limiting factor when reducing the resolution smooths out gameplay? I'm not actually recommending that he go out and buy a new graphics card BTW, just that he not have any misguided expectations about what this upgrade is going to do for him.

 

[jimhsu]

I'd expect to see large increases in Dragon Age, your RTSes (do you play Supreme Commander?). Not sure about the MMORPG; suspect you're IO limited there (so upgrade to a SSD).

I upgraded from a E8400 and 8800GTS 512 so my experiences are a bit different. Your graphics card is fine.

That's all I can think of right now.

PS Saw the SSD in your shopping list ... you'll enjoy it. That has the potential for more "perceivable" performance improvement than anything else in your current or future build right now. You'll want windows and certain apps ON it, games OFF of it except for RPGs, MMORPGs, or anything that you get unexplainable stuttering in.

 

[clok1966]

Slith- it may just be video card related in Champions. I was very suprised it ran so smooth outside where you can see the whole city, but when I went inside and instacne , just me and the NPC in smaller rooms it had issues. And dont worry I have no false impressions its going ot be any huge change. Im sure in some things nothing I will notice in other more and in some stuff alot.

JimHu- yes, SC (first one) is one I very much enjoy. The SDD is a bit exciting, I already run volacoraptors one for my OS and one for a few much played games (wow) but sadly the speed increase just makes me sit and wait for others to zone

I think the PC tech bug hit me harder than any performance problems. Wasnt to bad a upgrade. About $1000 (SDD drives are kinda expensive ) and my old machine is spoken for so that cuts $400 out.. maybe should piece it for a littel more cash but..ehhh 3 years of use.. I got my money out of it.