Current PC worth upgrading everything or only the GPU?

[nombrecinq]

My current desktop is probably around 6 years old now. Here are the basics:

Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield Quad-Core 2.66 GHz
ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard
EVGA GeForce GTX 275 896-P3-1170-AR 896MB

An obvious pain point is the hard drive, so I'll be definitely doing a fresh install of Windows on an SSD.

I'm asking mostly in terms of gaming, if whether the mobo and CPU are fine even though they're not the latest and greatest. For example if I were to get the latest nVidia 1080 card, would that bring this machine up to date in terms of gaming? I know that of course a newer CPU would speed up any kind of processing in terms of photo or video editing, but how important is CPU in terms of games?

 

[UsandThem]

CPU and GPU are the two things that are important for gaming.

It depends on what you want to do as far as gaming goes. It depends on the game, the resolution, and the settings.

If you are gaming at 1080p, you will be fine for a while on most games.

Going from your CPU to a 6700k, is roughly a 35% - 50% increase in performance. You will definitely be CPU limited with a GTX 1080. If it's in the budget, you might want to upgrade your system.

 

[vailr]

A Skylake chipset board is going to be much more energy efficient, not to mention other improvements included along with newer hardware.
Or: you could consider (and do some research on the possibility of) simply replacing the CPU with a used (same socket) Xeon CPU from eBay.
However: not all x58 boards are capable, even if the bios firmware is flashed to the latest version on the ASUS web site. Don't know any specifics for the ASUS P6T Deluxe V2.

 

[lakedude]

Depending on your budget you might just stick a GTX 1070 in there. If Us/Them is to be believed you are looking at a 50% improvement upgrading to a modern CPU. Upgrading the GTX 275 to a GTX 1070 will give you something like a 1000% improvement.

 

[UsandThem]

Depending on your budget you might just stick a GTX 1070 in there. If Us/Them is to be believed you are looking at a 50% improvement upgrading to a modern CPU. Upgrading the GTX 275 to a GTX 1070 will give you something like a 1000% improvement.

I based the improvement % off of:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/47?vs=1543

http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i7-920-vs-Intel-Core-i7-6700K

and

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9483/intel-skylake-review-6700k-6600k-ddr4-ddr3-ipc-6th-generation/23

Overall, Skylake is not an earth shattering leap in performance. In our IPC testing, with CPUs at 3 GHz, we saw a 5.7% increase in performance over a Haswell processor at the same clockspeed and ~ 25% gains over Sandy Bridge. That 5.7% value masks the fact that between Haswell and Skylake, we have Broadwell, marking a 5.7% increase for a two generation gap.

and

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/...core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested/20

In all but the heaviest threaded applications, Sandy Bridge is the fastest chip on the block—and you get the performance at a fairly reasonable price. The Core i7-2600K is tempting at $317 but the Core i5-2500K is absolutely a steal at $216. You're getting nearly $999 worth of performance at roughly a quarter of the cost. Compared to a Core i5-750/760, you'll get an additional 10-50% performance across the board in existing applications, and all that from a ~25% increase in clock speed. A big portion of what Sandy Bridge delivers is due to architectural enhancements, the type of thing we've come to expect from an Intel tock. Starting with Conroe, repeating with Nehalem, and going strong once more with Sandy Bridge, Intel makes this all seem so very easy.

And my favorite one :

http://www.pcgamer.com/intel-skylake-i7-6700k-tested-a-smart-upgrade-despite-small-gaming-gains/

Is it worth upgrading from Nehalem? Hell yeah. That 2008 chip is ancient at this point: you’ll be running at far faster and more efficient base clocks, be able to overclock far more, and run far faster RAM. Circa-2008 boards also may be lacking USB 3.0 ports and SATA 6Gb/s, which modern SSDs are now fully saturating. Boy oh boy, are you ready for an upgrade.

 

[Ken g6]

A fast GPU ensures a good average frame rate. A fast CPU ensures there are no freezes at critical points.

Have you tried overclocking your current CPU, though? Do you have a nice aftermarket cooler on it? If you ever plan to overclock, a nice cooler wouldn't be wasted; you just might need new brackets on a newer CPU.

A downside to your current system is the low amount of RAM. :hmm:

 

[frozentundra123456]

I would not pair a 1080 with that cpu. A 1070 maybe, or a close out on one of the current gen cards when the new cards hit the market in good supply. (current cards I would consider 970, R9 380/x, 390/x.)

Actually, the AMD 480x might be an ideal card for you if the price/performance is as being rumored. It is supposed to launch end of this month, but might be hard to get if the price is as promised.


Edit: as others have said, you really need to overclock that cpu. If you can get it to 3.5 ghz you are still looking at a 25% deficit in clockspeed and another 25% deficit in ipc to an overclocked 6700K.

 

[MongGrel]

A Skylake chipset board is going to be much more energy efficient, not to mention other improvements included along with newer hardware.
Or: you could consider (and do some research on the possibility of) simply replacing the CPU with a used (same socket) Xeon CPU from eBay.
However: not all x58 boards are capable, even if the bios firmware is flashed to the latest version on the ASUS web site. Don't know any specifics for the ASUS P6T Deluxe V2.

You could slap a X5650-5670 in a P6T Deluxe V2 easily for cheap, many people have done it with that board as long as the bios is up to date.

Use one with a X5650 for a HTPC myself.

 

[lakedude]

UsandThem I was not questioning your specs, just being too lazy to verify myself, hence the disclaimer.

Of course a whole new system would be better but a new GPU (and SSD) would help much more than a new CPU and wouldn't cost much.

If the OP is really green the new stuff can't be beat for efficiency.

If money is not an issue might as well spring for a new system but waiting till 14-16nm cards are more available.

If money is tight the GTX 1070 or even AMD's new 14nm RX 480 would give a huge boost for little outlay.

 

[UsandThem]

UsandThem I was not questioning your specs, just being too lazy to verify myself, hence the disclaimer.

Of course a whole new system would be better but a new GPU (and SSD) would help much more than a new CPU and wouldn't cost much.

If the OP is really green the new stuff can't be beat for efficiency.

If money is not an issue might as well spring for a new system but waiting till 14-16nm cards are more available.

If money is tight the GTX 1070 or even AMD's new 14nm RX 480 stuff would give a huge boost for little outlay.

What I posted in response to your post wasn't for a "I'll show him!" type thing. After seeing your post I remembered I didn't link any references for the OP.

A lot of people claim something that isn't necessarily accurate when it comes to performance, so I just posted them for the OP to read and decide. I generally post links in most of my posts, but I typed my original response on mobile and didn't have time to include the links.

I generally stay in the computer help and general hardware area, so I already had the Anandtech articles saved in my favorites because a lot of people ask what they should expect performance wise when deciding if they should upgrade their systems.

I agreed with what you said. He could slap a newer card in his system, like the GTX 1070, and be good to go for a few more years if gaming at 1080p. Add in a SSD, and it would also help.

I just simply lay out the facts so someone can make the right decision for themselves and their situation. I try to help people regardless if they are running a Pentium 4 system, or some high-end beast with 4-way SLI.

 

[tbob18]

You could slap a X5650-5670 in a P6T Deluxe V2 easily for cheap, many people have done it with that board as long as the bios is up to date.

Use one with a X5650 for a HTPC myself.

This. Very inexpensive way to get the build pretty much up to date. A x5670 at around 4.2ghz would be ideal with the P6T Deluxe v2 as it can't use turbo multipliers full time like some other boards can (22x185 would be a good start).

The x5670 will actually be a bit faster at the same clocks versus a 6700k in (non avx) multi threaded applications, it will be about 35% slower in single threaded applications. With DX12, single threaded performance is going to less important.

Power consumption on a newer generation is much less, but to make up the difference it would take a long time to pay off the difference between a 6700k and a x5670 unless for some reason you are paying crazy rates.

There are other good reasons to go with a newer platform though, like native USB3/3.1, SATA3, UEFI, and the feeling of having the latest and greatest is nice .

If I had a tight budget and wanted to update a system like that, I'd drop a x5670 ($65-75) in there with a decent cooler, clock it to 4ghz+, get a 8gb RX 480, at least 16gb of memory, and maybe a PCIE SSD for a few games/OS to get the full speed (a SATA SSD is fine too, it'll just be limited by the SATA2). :thumbsup: