CPU For Video Card

[Haider]

Hi,

System Specifications:

I. Processor/CPU:
Intel Core i3-3240 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) or Intel Core i5-3330 3.00GHz (Ivybridge)

II. Current Graphics Card:
None. MSI HD 7870 Hawk 2048MB Core: 1100MHz, Memory: 2048MB 4800MHz GDDR5, Stream Processors: 1280 is in the frame.


III. Display Resolution:
1080P only.

IV. Power Supply Unit Specification (Brand, Wattage, Ampage, Age). If possible, please provide a link to a website containing the power supply specifications:
Not really decided

V. Case Specifications(N/A, Model, Length, Low Profile, Cooling, HTPC, Water, Silent):
Not really decided

Purchase Details:

I. Budget? Please be sure to include currency (If not USD), retailer preferences & specify whether rebates are a viable option.
£500 sterling for motherboard, CPU, video-card and RAM

II. Any particular preferences (Manufacturer[nV or AMD], Brand[XFX, Sapphire, EVGA, etc], Cooling Solutions)?
NO

III. Do you plan to have any Multi-GPU solutions such as Crossfire or SLI?
No

IV. Have you previously looked at a product(s) which you feel would fit your needs?
Intel Core i3-3240 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) or Intel Core i5-3330 3.00GHz (Ivybridge)?

V. What are your needs for this GPU? Which games(If any)do you intend to play? If you have this information at hand, what are the desired detail levels?
Sega Rally Revo, Dirt 3, Supreme Commander, Supreme Commander 2, Deus EX human revolution, Call Of Duty Modern Warfare, Crysis (see what all the fuss was about) and other new games

VI. Do you plan on overclocking the card you intend to purchase?
No

Additional Notes
Oh can it run Crysis 3?

I am trying to determine what CPU I need to balance the video card MSI HD 7870 Hawk 2048MB Core: 1100MHz, Memory: 2048MB 4800MHz GDDR5, Stream Processors: 1280

Any advice would be gladly received. If you think I'm barking up the wrong tree let me know.


Thanks
Haider

 

[Jaydip]

Dude this should go to the CPU forum.But I would go with the Core i5-3330

 

[Ken g6]

The best value these days in the USA is the Core i5 3470. Which is cheaper than the 3330 on Amazon.co.uk as well.

 

[Haider]

Dude this should go to the CPU forum.But I would go with the Core i5-3330

I can see your perspective. My thinking is that the CPU guys will know about CPUs but not much about video-cards. Video-card guys will know about CPUs as video-cards depend on CPU. My question is what speed CPU do I need to make sure the video-card is not bottle-necked by it.

Thanks
Haider

 

[Haider]

The best value these days in the USA is the Core i5 3470. Which is cheaper than the 3330 on Amazon.co.uk as well.

Thanks I'll look at that.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Don't go for anything lower than 3570k if possible.

The 7800 seems okay, though 7950 is better. But this system will only handle Crysis 3 at 1080p medium settings. If you are lucky then med to high at most.

 

[Haider]

Don't go for anything lower than 3570k if possible.

The 7800 seems okay, though 7950 is better. But this system will only handle Crysis 3 at 1080p medium settings. If you are lucky then med to high at most.

Even with a i3570K & AMD 7950?

 

[Greenlepricon]

Even with a i3570K & AMD 7950?

I don't think anything is going to effectively run that game max for a while. Expect less than thirty fps on anything higher than medium or possibly high.

 

[lehtv]

If you don't OC, get an i5-3470 to i5-3570 non K and a H77 board. If you do OC, get a basic Z77 board, i5-3570K and an aftermarket cooler like Hyper 212 EVO that will take you to 4.2.

Overclocking helps remove CPU bottlenecking, but with a 7870 it's not really an issue in all but the most demanding online titles. BF3 and Planetside 2 will benefit from overclocking. In PS2, I see a 5 fps increase on busy servers with i7-3770K @ 4.7GHz versus 4.2GHz, and I'm still sometimes CPU limited. Graphics card is 7950 @1100.

 

[Haider]

I don't think anything is going to effectively run that game max for a while. Expect less than thirty fps on anything higher than medium or possibly high.

Jeez!!! I personally reckon they should go back to assembler all this Java and C/C++ has done is increase hardware requirements...

 

[Haider]

If you don't OC, get an i5-3470 to i5-3570 non K and a H77 board. If you do OC, get a basic Z77 board, i5-3570K and an aftermarket cooler like Hyper 212 EVO that will take you to 4.2.

Overclocking helps remove CPU bottlenecking, but with a 7870 it's not really an issue in all but the most demanding online titles. BF3 and Planetside 2 will benefit from overclocking. In PS2, I see a 5 fps increase on busy servers with i7-3770K @ 4.7GHz versus 4.2GHz, and I'm still sometimes CPU limited. Graphics card is 7950 @1100.

Looking at it to get an effective system to run the next-gen of titles looks like you need to OC. I am now leaning to getting a motherboard with SLI/Xfire now and next summer add a second video-card. I have been offered Gigabyte GTX680 OC edition for £265.

 

[Haider]

Ho hum this has put things in flux, I am going to try and digest this and redesign. The thing is, this is meant to be my social PC, first one is beefy as it does video editing and compression to HD. It's plugged into various things so it's a chore to unplug it all and bring it down to the lounge. That's why I have to try and hit a budget too. It's too plug in my Plasma and live downstairs...