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C2D Q9400 OC3.8G VS i5 2500K OC 4.4G

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liyi0522

Junior Member
I am using Q9400 OC to 3.8G and pair with GTX 560Ti, running game @1900x1200. How much performance I can gain if I upgrade to i5 2500K and OC to 4.4? Does my CPU become GTX 560Ti's bottleneck? I already skipped the first gen SB, I am looking for 100% performance boost, waiting IB is better idea?
 
I am using same MB ASUS P5Q Pro, need all game max out, but this MB doesn't support SLI, That's why need upgrade.
 
That makes a little more sense then. Unfortunately your CPU is still good enough that games will remain GPU-limited with a 3.8 GHz Q9400 for a long time. Clearly what you are experiencing is that the 560Ti isn't cutting it for you, and a 2500k isn't the answer. Your best bet for the cheapest, most practical gains in high-res games is a dual-chip GTX 460 2Win for $390 or GTX 560 Ti 2Win for $528 or GTX 590 for $742 which would be substantially absorbed if you could bring in $200 for your current card. If you want 100% gains in games from a CPU, you could be waiting 10 years, but dual-chip cards can give you close to 50-95% performance gains in games and you will not have to spend $400+ on a new 2500k setup.

Ryan Smith did a review of the 560 Ti 2Win and it scales very well.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5048/evgas-geforce-gtx-560-ti-2win-the-raw-power-of-two-gpus/4
 
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The guy wants more FPS in his games. Read the review and you'll see the 2Win cards deliver more FPS/$ than a CPU upgrade or single GPU upgrade, and if SLI is too chancey for you, which I think these days should be a personal decision, a single GPU upgrade would still be considerably more effective and economical than a CPU upgrade.
 
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alyarb said:
The guy wants more FPS in his games. Read the review and you'll see the 2Win cards deliver more FPS/$ than a CPU upgrade or single GPU upgrade, and if SLI is too chancey for you, which I think these days should be a personal decision, a single GPU upgrade would still be considerably more effective and economical than a CPU upgrade.
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I am not comparing it to a cpu upgrade or even directly to another gpu. and perhaps you only read the parts of the review that sounded good to you. overall though for over 520 bucks its NOT worth it because in many of the games where you need more gpu power, you will also need more than 1gb of vram to use it.

Wrapping things up, the only aspect I feel that EVGA has left underdeveloped on an otherwise very strong card is VRAM. As a result of SLI 2Win is a $520 card with 1GB of effective VRAM. We’ve already seen 1GB of VRAM pose limitations in a couple of our tests, and going forward it’s only going to get worse.
 
toyota said:
I am not comparing it to a cpu upgrade or even directly to another gpu. and perhaps you only read the parts of the review that sounded good to you. overall though for over 520 bucks its NOT worth it because in many of the games where you need more gpu power, you will also need more than 1gb of vram to use it.

Wrapping things up, the only aspect I feel that EVGA has left underdeveloped on an otherwise very strong card is VRAM. As a result of SLI 2Win is a $520 card with 1GB of effective VRAM. We’ve already seen 1GB of VRAM pose limitations in a couple of our tests, and going forward it’s only going to get worse.
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I checked newegg.com, that card has 2gb VRAM.
 
liyi0522 said:
I checked newegg.com, that card has 2gb VRAM.
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did you even look at the review? even if you didn't, I quoted it right there in front of you. that card only has 1gb of usable vram. its basically sli on a single card and in sli the vram is just mirrored.
 
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toyota said:
did you even look at the review? even if you didn't, I quoted it right there in front of you. that card only has 1gb of usable vram. its basically sli on a single card and in sli the vram is just mirrored.
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You think sell my GTX 560Ti and get 2 ATI 6870 or 6950 CF will be better?
 
liyi0522 said:
You think sell my GTX 560Ti and get 2 ATI 6870 or 6950 CF will be better?
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6950 2gb crossfire would be a great setup and then next year you could get Ivy Bridge cpu. 6870 2gb in crossfire would not be too bad either though. again just make sure they are 2gb cards.

unless you are really suffering, you might want to wait about 2 months as the AMD 7 series gpus are probably getting close to release.
 
2 6870 2gb cards are the answer. They will give you extra memory and run neck and neck with 2 gtx560ti's in sli.

Best thing they are only 179$ AR on Newegg.
2 of them will save you over 100$ compared to a 6950 setup and with our cpu's/resolution it wont make much difference really.

I have basically the same setup as you and the cards are a perfect match for my cpu.

My setup runs very smooth, I dont see any microstutter yet.
 
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Let me get this: You guys all agree, Q9400 OC 3.8G upgrade to i5 2500K OC 4.4 won't gain a lot performance increase. (gaming wise) Also spent $400 is not worth to gain few FPS upgrade CPU and MB, if I keep the GTX 560Ti.

Because of my P5Q Pro's limitation, I can't run SLI. So I'd better sell my GTX 560Ti, to get EVGA 560 win 2 or CF 2 ATI (6870 OR 6950 2GB). Or matbe wait ATI 7000, Nvidia 600 and IB.

I don't want to start with ATI vs Nvidai again, but I like Nvidia better, I may just get GTX 660, I like medium and OC them.

Thank you guys!!!
 
liyi0522 said:
Let me get this: You guys all agree, Q9400 OC 3.8G upgrade to i5 2500K OC 4.4 won't gain a lot performance increase. (gaming wise) Also spent $400 is not worth to gain few FPS upgrade CPU and MB, if I keep the GTX 560Ti.

Because of my P5Q Pro's limitation, I can't run SLI. So I'd better sell my GTX 560Ti, to get EVGA 560 win 2 or CF 2 ATI (6870 OR 6950 2GB). Or matbe wait ATI 7000, Nvidia 600 and IB.
Click to expand...

EDIT: Doh I see your res on the first post. I'm blind..

Upgrading your CPU right now won't gain much, as already stated. But consider, once you start upgrading the motherboard, you are throwing more money after old technology. So consider it first.

I do not agree with buying the win 2 card, that is a waste considering you _already_ own a 560 Ti, any way you cut it. You'll lose some money selling your Ti to buy another card with 2 x Ti. 1GB VRAM will be ok for 1920x1200 in my experience. So don't write off 1GB cards. In any case, the Ti 2 Win card is not a value card and won't add up dollar-wise.

You are in a bind, sort of, because you have a pretty good card already, so your only single GPU options above the 560Ti are out of the value category and into the premium category (570, 580 or 6970). So its either spend money on premium cards, or SLI or Xfire, so look at your options:

1) Buy an SLI capable LGA775 motherboard + a 2nd 560Ti for a massive performance boost for $330 total minus selling old motherboard for $40 = $290 total
2) Buy a higher end, single GPU card (570) for maybe 10fps increase for $300 minus selling 560ti = $120 total
3) Buy the single slot Ti 2 Win card for $550 minus selling 560ti = total expenditure $370 total

So there you are. (1) will net you a huge boost for $290, (2) will net you a minor boost for only $120, and (3) will net you the same as (1) but for $80 more.
 
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Can you get your hands on another 560ti? Or even two other Nvidia cards? Your mobo supports Crossfire @8x 8x Which means it SHOULD run SLI just fine with the HyperSLI Patch or the older slipatch. Theres quite a few other users of the P5Q Pro or P5Q variant that run it just fine with 460's and 560's all the way up.
Ive ran it myself just recently on my P5B Deluxe Crossfire board with two 8800GTS 512's with out a prob so I'd say give that a shot perhaps and see how it goes as your Quad,as others have mentioned is just fine for gaming.
Can grab the HyperSLI Patch from techpowerup

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=153046&page=22

Good luck an Cheers!

**Edit If interested, newegg and/or Tigerdirect have the Gigabyte on for 234$ W/Batman Arkham, not too bad of a price if do decide to pick up a 2nd one. Maybe even check the marketplace here or else were as well for a 2nd hand one at a cheaper price to make it even more worthwhile!
 
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I'm kinda surprised you really need to upgrade tbh. Your specs are similar to mine and I still run everything well at 1920x1200.
 
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