core i5 haswell to core i7 haswell

[elkido122]

i currently have an i5 4440 and was wondering if its worth the upgrade to an i7 for gaming purposes. i have 12gb ram an ssd and an r9 290 already. thanks

 

[elemein]

Depends on the games you're playing, but the answer is likely no, it wouldn't be worth it.

 

[elkido122]

titanfall, tomb raider, firefall

 

[elemein]

titanfall, tomb raider, firefall

Then no, your i5 will do just swell.

 

[elkido122]

awesome thanks man.. maybe a motherboard upgrade then so i can run faster ram.. is that worth it.. mine maxes out at ddr3 1600.. looking for best bang for my buck over what i currently have

 

[elemein]

awesome thanks man.. maybe a motherboard upgrade then so i can run faster ram.. is that worth it.. mine maxes out at ddr3 1600.. looking for best bang for my buck over what i currently have

No that won't really be necessary. 1600 MHz is suitable for pretty much all games nowadays. Your setup is basically perfectly suited to 1080p gaming. If you wanted to play games above that like at 1440p or even 4K, then perhaps I'd consider a different GPU or something, but otherwise your build is good :thumbsup:

 

[daveybrat]

Nah, don't waste your money on a new motherboard just for ram speeds. You'll get very negligible returns on faster speeds.

I'd rather see you get a Devil's Canyon i5 4690K or i7 4790K over a new motherboard.

 

[elkido122]

but i seem to only get around 45-50 fps on 1080 fully maxed out on 2013 tomb raider.. this seem normal?

 

[elemein]

but i seem to only get around 45-50 fps on 1080 fully maxed out on 2013 tomb raider.. this seem normal?

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-290-review-benchmark,3659-11.html

Thats the GPU's fault. Maybe a bit on the CPU and RAM, but mostly CPU. Either way, thats still pretty good.

Edit: Woops my bad, read the chart wrong. Yeah, you are getting a bit low, but I really can't bring myself to say it's the CPU. I doubt your usage is 100% all the time you run the game.

 

[elkido122]

i thought it seemed low and no idea whats causing it. also who knows what cpu toms used for that benchmark.

 

[elemein]

i thought it seemed low and no idea whats causing it. also who knows what cpu toms used for that benchmark.

They used an i7-3970X @ 3.5-4.3 GHz. So, by architecture and in STP, it's slower than your CPU, though I can't really how many threads Tomb Raider can take good advantage of and the clock rate of your CPU.

 

[escrow4]

Depends on the games you're playing, but the answer is likely no, it wouldn't be worth it.

A 4440 runs max turbo boost at a slow 3.3GHz max, a 4690 runs max turbo at 3.9GHz. That is a 600MHz difference and will be felt in games. This is not even mentioning overclocking. Heavy games like Crysis 3 and Watch Dogs will be slightly held back. New games do take advantage of more than 4 threads too, especially towards the end of 2014 - Unity say can use 6 cores, Ryse Son of Rome is another.

 

[elemein]

A 4440 runs max turbo boost at a slow 3.3GHz max, a 4690 runs max turbo at 3.9GHz. That is a 600MHz difference and will be felt in games. This is not even mentioning overclocking. Heavy games like Crysis 3 and Watch Dogs will be slightly held back. New games do take advantage of more than 4 threads too, especially towards the end of 2014 - Unity say can use 6 cores, Ryse Son of Rome is another.

Hrm so the difference is 600 MHz. That can be significant sometimes. Perhaps a new CPU wouldn't be a bad idea, but it may not be a bad idea to wait a bit just to stretch the longevity of your current system; unless you just arent satisfied with what you're getting.

 

[elkido122]

might have to look into a 4790k then

 

[flexy]

Ridiculous. A 4790k for Tombraider....

Edit: And no you don't need an i7 for gaming purposes, not at all.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Stay with the CPU and no need to change memory either. Also you didnt tell us the rest of your specs. What GPU are you using?

 

[JWade]

I went from a sandy bridge i5 to a sandy i7, turbo taken into account, there is a 500mhz difference, I don't notice it though. I got the i7 for a really good price so not too let down about it.

 

[Yuriman]

IMO, the only thing you might consider is a second 290 for Crossfire. Otherwise, don't bother.

 

[PG]

but i seem to only get around 45-50 fps on 1080 fully maxed out on 2013 tomb raider.. this seem normal?

If by fully maxed out you mean you have TressFX enabled, then you should not be surprised.

http://www.dsogaming.com/pc-performance-analyses/tomb-raider-pc-performance-analysis/

"Tomb Raider is a GPU bound game. Even without TressFX enabled, our GTX690 was used to its fullest. "

"We also tried to see how a single GTX680 performs, and things are not looking good for those interested in enabling TressFX with AA. Tomb Raider’s benchmark ran with 34fps (TressFX with 2xSSAA) and its minimum framerate was 24fps. "


I don't think your numbers are bad, just look at a few other reviews:

TressFX disabled, higher frame rates:
http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/radeon-r9-290-review-benchmarks,20.html

TressFX enabled, lower frame rates:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-290-review-benchmark,3659-11.html

 

[Techhog]

Does the R9 290 have a "quiet" mode?

 

[georgi984]

12gb of ram on a dualchanel board is somewhat strange number.
usualy it's either 8gb or 16gb. Maby you'r ram configuration is the problem.
sry for the bad english

 

[ctsoth]

12gb of ram on a dualchanel board is somewhat strange number.
usualy it's either 8gb or 16gb. Maby you'r ram configuration is the problem.
sry for the bad english

+1. Are you using 3x 4gb sticks? If so you're ram configuration is slowing you down as you are not running in dual channel.

 

[sm625]

If you are wondering what effect a cpu clock speed upgrade will have, just downclock your curent cpu by the same amount and you can measure the step change in performance for a decent approximation of what the improvement would be. For example if your stock clock is 3.1GHz and you are looking to upgrade to 3.6 GHz then downclock to 2.6GHz. If you are getting 45 FPS @ 3.1GHz and you get 41 FPS @ 2.6GHz, then you can assume that you will get 49 FPS @ 3.6GHz.

 

[elkido122]

thanks everyone for the responses.. im not sure it has a quiet mode.. not sure exactly how to tell or what to do if it does.. also for the ram situation, i have gskill 1600, it is 2x2gb sticks and 2x4gb sticks same ram just different capacity i guess.. hope this helps thanks

 

[elkido122]

i mean i wouldnt be getting it just for tomb raider,, i get fps drops in titanfall all the way down to 30 fps fully maxed out