g860 crossfire

[dragantoe]

i have a g860 and an hd7870, I can upgrade this christmas, and i'm choosing between another 7870 or upgrade to a 3570k, only problem is if I want to seriously overclock I will need a new mobo due to my h77 chipset and a heatsink as well. But, as it stands I'm very unhappy with dual core performance and need to know which upgrade would give me the biggest in game performance hit, I play planetside 2, metro 2033, farcry 3, and emulators

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

Are you running on a single monitor at 1920 x 1080 or less? If you are I would think that you should find that the performance boost by going Xfire isn't as good as what you would get from the upgraded processor. I think you will find going with the Intel® Core™ i5-3570K will be your best bet over going Xfire. While you will need a new 3rd party HSF (heatsink/fan) before you start to overclock you can wait hold off and use the stock cooler until you do.

 

[SunnyD]

But, as it stands I'm very unhappy with dual core performance and need to know which upgrade would give me the biggest in game performance hit, I play planetside 2, metro 2033, farcry 3, and emulators

Depending on which emulators you use, odds are your biggest upgrade at least with them is going to be the CPU. A lot of newer emu's are multithreaded, so more cores WILL help. And for the most part with emulators the GPU is nearly irrelevant.

Planetside 2 is mostly CPU bound, so a better CPU definitely will help things along there, though it's not currently optimized for multiple cores at all. (They're working on this for the future though).

Metro & FarCry will probably benefit more from the CPU at this point since the 7870 is no slouch.

Overall, I'd go with a CPU upgrade. Best bang for the buck (since it's free) upgrade there for you. Another thing I'd suggest if possible is drop another 8gb of ram in the machine. Especially with these newer games coming out... the motto is more ram = better. And ram is pretty cheap.

 

[dragantoe]

alright would it be worth it to get a non-k cpu? my mobo doesn't let you overclock much so would I see a benefit from the k?

 

[Termie]

You are probably already seriously CPU-bottlenecked in just about every modern game with that setup. You shouldn't even consider 7870 crossfire with that CPU. Furthermore, you'd need a new motherboard to run crossfire if you have an h77 - that's what you say you have (although your sig says z77). If you're on a budget, buy this i5-3450, currently on sale for $180: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116506

If you're not on a budget, there's no reason not to buy the 3570k - even if you don't overclock, it will have much better resale value and you can choose to OC it later on a new board.

By the way, you've already said you're very unhappy with dual-core performance, so you had your answer before you started the thread!

 

[dragantoe]

You are probably already seriously CPU-bottlenecked in just about every modern game with that setup. You shouldn't even consider 7870 crossfire with that CPU. Furthermore, you'd need a new motherboard to run crossfire if you have an h77 - that's what you say you have (although your sig says z77). If you're on a budget, buy this i5-3450, currently on sale for $180: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116506

If you're not on a budget, there's no reason not to buy the 3570k - even if you don't overclock, it will have much better resale value and you can choose to OC it later on a new board.

By the way, you've already said you're very unhappy with dual-core performance, so you had your answer before you started the thread!

I understand but the only thing i have to point out is that h77 boards are easily capable of crossfire, my brother is using xfire 6970's on an h77 board very similar to mine, but thanks for the input, however, wouldn't a 2500k be better? I hear the 3570k is much hotter and can't oc as high

 

[SunnyD]

I'm confused. Is this the same machine that's in your sig? Cause your sig says z77.

I'd go with the 3570k personally.

 

[Termie]

I understand but the only thing i have to point out is that h77. H77 boards are easily capable of crossfire, my brother is using xfire 6970's on an h77 board very similar to mine, but thanks for the input, however, wouldn't a 2500k be better? I hear the 3570k is much hotter and can't oc as high

It would help if you'd actually list the motherboard you have.

Using h77 to run crossfire is far from ideal. You'll be running one card at PCIE 2.0 x4. Huge loss of bandwidth, but as I said, the cpu is the only upgrade to consider.

And no, don't get the 2500K, because even if it overclocked better, which it doesn't if you consider actual performance, you don't have an overclocking motherboard.

 

[dragantoe]

It would help if you'd actually list the motherboard you have.

Using h77 to run crossfire is far from ideal. You'll be running one card at PCIE 2.0 x4. Huge loss of bandwidth, but as I said, the cpu is the only upgrade to consider.

And no, don't get the 2500K, because even if it overclocked better, which it doesn't if you consider actual performance, you don't have an overclocking motherboard.

Oops, I fixed it

 

[Denithor]

Any chance of selling your G680 + H77 together? Then buy a Z77 + 3570K together.

No sense buying a K processor with an H motherboard.

And don't listen at all to the crap about Ivy chips running hotter than Sandy. If you aren't into really serious overclocking it's simply not an issue.

 

[daveybrat]

Just get the 3570K processor, you won't need to overclock coming from a G860 cpu. It'll be night and day faster overall.

Your frame rates should go up significantly and let that nice video card breath finally.

By the way, the 3570 and 3570K are both $215 on Amazon, so just get the K version:

http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Core-i5-...rds=intel+3570

 

[dragantoe]

Any chance of selling your G680 + H77 together? Then buy a Z77 + 3570K together.

No sense buying a K processor with an H motherboard.

And don't listen at all to the crap about Ivy chips running hotter than Sandy. If you aren't into really serious overclocking it's simply not an issue.

I could sell them but the motherboard part is what keeps me from doing it, because what will I use in the meantime?

 

[dragantoe]

Just get the 3570K processor, you won't need to overclock coming from a G860 cpu. It'll be night and day faster overall.

Your frame rates should go up significantly and let that nice video card breath finally.

By the way, the 3570 and 3570K are both $215 on Amazon, so just get the K version:

http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Core-i5-...rds=intel+3570

my fps almost never hits blow 50, only in planetside 2, far cry 3 and battlefield 3 do i get crap fps, also, I will probably buy from newegg just because they have awesome shipping

 

[Puppies04]

I could sell them but the motherboard part is what keeps me from doing it, because what will I use in the meantime?

Assuming you don't have the cash spare to just buy a Z77 board and a 3570K without first selling your existing setup you would be without a pc for 3-4 days or less depending on where you are going to get the new items from. Hell if you managed to sell your existing setup locally for cash and have a microcentre of other decent priced hardware store nearby you could be back up and running on the same day.

 

[lehtv]

I'd just upgrade to i5-3xxx non K and keep the board. Add an SSD if you don't have one yet

 

[dragantoe]

Assuming you don't have the cash spare to just buy a Z77 board and a 3570K without first selling your existing setup you would be without a pc for 3-4 days or less depending on where you are going to get the new items from. Hell if you managed to sell your existing setup locally for cash and have a microcentre of other decent priced hardware store nearby you could be back up and running on the same day.

there's no microcenter for about 4 hours from where I live, also, I can't go a few days without a computer due to school

 

[dragantoe]

I think I'm just going with a 3570k, I can theoretically overclock it to 4.1 ghz on my board, but I've never seen any posts of anyone actually doing it

 

[SPBHM]

I think I'm just going with a 3570k, I can theoretically overclock it to 4.1 ghz on my board, but I've never seen any posts of anyone actually doing it

you can't, you can't overclock in anything other than p67, z68, z75 and z77

some boards may give you the option on the bios, but if it's not based on the chipsets I mentioned it simply doesn't work, as soon as you load the 4 cores the clock will go to default clock (with the +100 of turbo for most CPUs)

 

[lehtv]

I think I'm just going with a 3570k, I can theoretically overclock it to 4.1 ghz on my board, but I've never seen any posts of anyone actually doing it

You're probably confusing that with combining a non-K i5 with a Z77 board. Only Z77 allows overclocking, and the non-K i5's are only partially unlocked, they allow the turbo multi to be increased by four. Combined with boosting the BCLK a little bit, 4.1GHz is achievable

 

[dragantoe]

You're probably confusing that with combining a non-K i5 with a Z77 board. Only Z77 allows overclocking, and the non-K i5's are only partially unlocked, they allow the turbo multi to be increased by four. Combined with boosting the BCLK a little bit, 4.1GHz is achievable

no, on an h77 board you can increase the multiplier with a k series
http://communities.intel.com/thread/29206

 

[dragantoe]

you can't, you can't overclock in anything other than p67, z68, z75 and z77

some boards may give you the option on the bios, but if it's not based on the chipsets I mentioned it simply doesn't work, as soon as you load the 4 cores the clock will go to default clock (with the +100 of turbo for most CPUs)

theoretically you can change the multiplier on k series, however no one has posted results as far as I've looked
http://communities.intel.com/thread/29206

 

[SPBHM]

theoretically you can change the multiplier on k series, however no one has posted results as far as I've looked
http://communities.intel.com/thread/29206

the answer provided is incorrect, you cannot go over default +100 of turbo with h77 when loading all the cores.

only with p67, z68, z75 and z77.

some hXX boards will even do strange things like allow you to lock the 1c load turbo clock in idle, but that's not really overclocking and as soon as you load all the cores it will be at the default clock +100MHz (or just the base clock for the CPUs like the 3350p)

 

[dragantoe]

well, how did I do?
i5 3570k

Zalman's best heatsink

asrock pro3 z75

I haven't purchased the motherboard yet, but will be in a few hours, so If you know of a better overclocking board under $100, that can hold a constant 4.5 ghz on the cpu, please tell me, also I got that heatsink because I have vengeance ram and a noctua just won't fit with it, so this was the best choice.

 

[skipsneeky2]

All looks great but you could save some serious coin ditching that zalman cooler for a 212+ or even the 212 evo.

Zalman used to make some awesome coolers but the 212+ really is the bang for buck king.

 

[dragantoe]

All looks great but you could save some serious coin ditching that zalman cooler for a 212+ or even the 212 evo.

Zalman used to make some awesome coolers but the 212+ really is the bang for buck king.

I already bought it, and I got it on sale for $40 at ncix,
plus it gets better temps than the 212 evo and if you look here you'll see it outperforms just about every high end air cooler