help me convince a friend to keep his quad-core i5 from 2012

[soccerballtux]

what's a good source to show in a lot of games his CPU isn't the bottleneck?

 

[master_shake_]

let him sell it.

buy it off him dirt cheap cause it's old.

 

[Ken g6]

what's a good source to show in a lot of games his CPU isn't the bottleneck?

I can't say it isn't without more info. Is it an overclockable i5? What's his video card? What's his monitor resolution? Any particular games?

 

[soccerballtux]

..

 

[soccerballtux]

I can't say it isn't without more info. Is it an overclockable i5? What's his video card? What's his monitor resolution? Any particular games?

ok he has a corei5-4430 that he hasn't overclocked.

1080P.

He has a GTX 760 2GB.

He wants to far cry 4/shadows of mordor at max, or as close to max settings as possible.

I told him he doesn't need another CPU, he should overclock his to 4ghz if he wants to (but doesn't need to yet), and should get a GTX 970 or R290/X.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Not that I want to turn this into a CPU thread or anything, but how exactly is he going to OC that i5 to 4 ghz? It's locked, and the max turbo is 3.2 ghz. 105 bclk will get him 3.36 ghz . . .

 

[soccerballtux]

Not that I want to turn this into a CPU thread or anything, but how exactly is he going to OC that i5 to 4 ghz? It's locked, and the max turbo is 3.2 ghz. 105 bclk will get him 3.36 ghz . . .

oh. it can't? ok. I guess that changes things a little. just a little. not much. IE I still think he'd be fine with a 290x or 970 for 2 years.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

what's a good source to show in a lot of games his CPU isn't the bottleneck?

Show him the game benchmarks on gamegpu.com. They bench CPUs for most games and the i5-2500k and i7-2600k are always really strong performers.

 

[96Firebird]

I'd say his i5-4430 is pretty close to an i5-2500k at stock, so with that in mind...

Far Cry 4:

Assuming he is playing at 1080p, he is by far GPU-bound rather than CPU-bound. When enabling all the more graphic intensive features further (what GameGPU calls Ultra+), it gets even worse:

Same situation with Shadow of Mordor:

Edit - Beat by Steve, by 2 minutes!

 

[Hitman928]

He could gain some performance in some games by going with a faster cpu.

But, he could gain significant performance and longevity if he took that money and put it toward a faster gpu with more VRAM, especially with next gen API's coming out that will require less powerful cpu's.

 

[Seba]

ok he has a corei5-4430 that he hasn't overclocked.

Core i5 4430 is Haswell. That is the current i5, not an old one. Multiplier is locked on this CPU.

It can not be from 2012. It was launched in Q2, 2013.

 

[Deders]

Yep that CPU will be fine, it's a GPU with more Vram he needs. 3GB should do it apart from the 4K texture setting in Mordor that wants 6GB.

 

[Mushkins]

I still rock an ivy bridge i5, OCed it to 4Ghz and it devours anything I throw at it, even CPU intensive games like MMOs.

There honestly just haven't been very many performance increases since Sandy Bridge. They've been focusing almost entirely on TDP and die shrinking. Would I buy a Sandy Bridge over a Haswell today for a new build? Of course not, but I'm not going to gain $300 in tangible increased performance if I upgrade from my SB to whatever the latest and greatest is. Might run a little cooler and save me a few dollars in electricity over a year, but that's not worth the cost of a new processor and motherboard.

 

[Morgoth780]

I still rock an ivy bridge i5, OCed it to 4Ghz and it devours anything I throw at it, even CPU intensive games like MMOs.

There honestly just haven't been very many performance increases since Sandy Bridge. They've been focusing almost entirely on TDP and die shrinking. Would I buy a Sandy Bridge over a Haswell today for a new build? Of course not, but I'm not going to gain $300 in tangible increased performance if I upgrade from my SB to whatever the latest and greatest is. Might run a little cooler and save me a few dollars in electricity over a year, but that's not worth the cost of a new processor and motherboard.

I'm in the same situation you are. I think you sum it up nicely.

Maybe tell your friend that if he wants a worthwhile processor upgrade he's going to have to go x99? Since it's the only thing I'd upgrade to, but, of course, is prohibitively expensive for a lot of people.

 

[Super56K]

My build is that i5-4430, plus 8gb ram, 240gb SSD, and a tri-x 290. It's a beastly gaming PC for 1080p. Your friend needs a new GPU, and maybe a slap upside the head.

 

[TeknoBug]

The i5 4430 isn't from 2012, it's fairly new. An i5 from 2012 would be the i5 3550 or 3570, even my 3550 can play modern games fine (well, OC'd to 3.9GHz).

 

[Greenlepricon]

The gpu should definitely be a priority, but with that being said, I think most of us on this forum like new and shiny tech. If he has the money and wants to have fun OC'ing or anything else, he could very well get a good increase in CPU performance with an upgrade. If he doesn't have that kind of cash or at least isn't looking to spend twice as much money, the gpu is by far a larger bottleneck.

 

[Headfoot]

I know the Sandy Bridge (maybe Ivy too?) locked processors still let you overclock 4 bins. I've got a system with an i5-2400 running at 3.8 between the 4 bins, and a little blck overclocking. On stock cooling too

 

[Stuka87]

That CPU is from 2013, not 2112. Its a Haswell, so is techincally still current generation as there are no broadwell desktop chips out.

There is zero reason to upgrade unless he really wants to push for really high FPS or SLI/CF GPU setup.

Throw a 290X in there and call it done.

Or if he just wants something new, sell that CPU and throw a 4690K/4790K and set it for 4.5GHz and call it done.

 

[DrMrLordX]

I know the Sandy Bridge (maybe Ivy too?) locked processors still let you overclock 4 bins. I've got a system with an i5-2400 running at 3.8 between the 4 bins, and a little blck overclocking. On stock cooling too

Wasn't that accomplished by pushing the chip to its max turbo multiplier? The max turbo multi for the i5 mentioned by the OP is 32x. Best you can do is 32x multi and maybe 105 mhz blck for 3.36 ghz.

 

[RaistlinZ]

Meh, let the guy upgrade if he wants to. It's his hobby, his money after all. As long as he enjoys it, what difference does it make?

 

[lehtv]

Wasn't that accomplished by pushing the chip to its max turbo multiplier? The max turbo multi for the i5 mentioned by the OP is 32x. Best you can do is 32x multi and maybe 105 mhz blck for 3.36 ghz.

No, they actually allowed +4 turbo bins over stock turbo. You could push regular i5 Ivy Bridge over 4GHz with +4 turbo bins and some BCLK raise.

 

[lehtv]

Meh, let the guy upgrade if he wants to. It's his hobby, his money after all. As long as he enjoys it, what difference does it make?

That's a ridiculous stance to take. Why should you let a friend make a stupid purchase which will not meet his expectations, when you can instead give him advice which he'll thank you for?

 

[Silverforce11]

760 isn't gonna max many games at 1080p. Especially the ones you've mentioned. Even a 980 isn't enough to max them.

 

[DrMrLordX]

No, they actually allowed +4 turbo bins over stock turbo. You could push regular i5 Ivy Bridge over 4GHz with +4 turbo bins and some BCLK raise.

Huh, didn't know that. Are Haswell i5's similarly capable?