i5-760 to i5-4690K, worth the upgrade?

[Deders]

EDIT: Did you install Shadow of Mordor on an SSD? Mine is installed on a typical 3TB harddrive.

I initially put it on an SSD but almost immediately put it back on HDD as there wasn't any noticeable benefit. It is a 2TB WD RE4 so it's optimised for streaming.

The only reason I mention the motherboard is before my current one I had an Asrock Extreme 4 or something similar but that was much jerkier in games, especially with SLI. I changed it within a week and things have been much smoother since.

 

[sm625]

1. Where did you get the idea or info that having more RAM will cause stutters and significant FPS drops in games? Because I've never come across this piece of information or idea before. A source would be helpful.
2. How does a game go from using 10Gb RAM to only 5Gb RAM without any reduction in performance or graphics?
3. Have you actually travelled the same upgrade route or merely speculating about the Nehalem to Haswell performance increase?

1. If a game engine is coded to make use of as much available RAM as possible, according to some equation such as "use 60% of available RAM no matter what" then in theory it could simply spend too much time loading data into RAM, and if poorly coded could actually hurt performance. Obviously it would have to involve poor coding.

2. When a game is using 10GB, it is very likely that most of that memory will not ever be used, it will end up being flushed out by new data before being used. Games are designed to be able to run on much lower specs. So when the game sees that much memory, it is jsut goign to fill it with what amounts to junk. Sometimes it helps, like when you are walking back and forth between to separate "zones" that would otherwise have to be loaded each time on a lesser machine.

3. I went from a mildly overclocked lynnfield i5 to a 4.5GHz G3258. In my case the performance is much better, with some obvious multithreading caveats. But I gained 1.5GHz. I would not have made that move had my lynnfield been running at 4GHz. It used to run at 3.8, when I first got it, and it was fine. But at 3.2GHz it just wasnt enough.

 

[Ryanrenesis]

1. If a game engine is coded to make use of as much available RAM as possible, according to some equation such as "use 60% of available RAM no matter what" then in theory it could simply spend too much time loading data into RAM, and if poorly coded could actually hurt performance. Obviously it would have to involve poor coding.

2. When a game is using 10GB, it is very likely that most of that memory will not ever be used, it will end up being flushed out by new data before being used. Games are designed to be able to run on much lower specs. So when the game sees that much memory, it is jsut goign to fill it with what amounts to junk. Sometimes it helps, like when you are walking back and forth between to separate "zones" that would otherwise have to be loaded each time on a lesser machine.

3. I went from a mildly overclocked lynnfield i5 to a 4.5GHz G3258. In my case the performance is much better, with some obvious multithreading caveats. But I gained 1.5GHz. I would not have made that move had my lynnfield been running at 4GHz. It used to run at 3.8, when I first got it, and it was fine. But at 3.2GHz it just wasnt enough.

I don't think your first two points are very convincing but to each his own.

I agree with your 3rd point though. my i5-760 at 4Ghz was a totally different beast than when it was at 2.8Ghz stock.

 

[Deders]

I just want to clarify that I'm not running Ultra textures with this game, but the OP did say he was getting the same slowdown even with high textures, whereas during the first part of the game i'm getting constant 60fps, and around 45 for the 2nd map.

Edit: Ryan, did you notice any difference in texture quality when you tried going from Ultra to High textures?

I seem to remember you need to restart the game before changing texture settings actually makes a difference in the Ram and Vram footprint, even if it doesn't mention it in game.

If this is the case and you had the same ram now as you did before I would suggest that PCIexpress 3 is actually helping your performance as texture information is swapped between Vram and system ram with more than double the bandwidth of PCIe2.

 

[Ryanrenesis]

I just want to clarify that I'm not running Ultra textures with this game, but the OP did say he was getting the same slowdown even with high textures, whereas during the first part of the game i'm getting constant 60fps, and around 45 for the 2nd map.

Edit: Ryan, did you notice any difference in texture quality when you tried going from Ultra to High textures?

I seem to remember you need to restart the game before changing texture settings actually makes a difference in the Ram and Vram footprint, even if it doesn't mention it in game.

If this is the case and you had the same ram now as you did before I would suggest that PCIexpress 3 is actually helping your performance as texture information is swapped between Vram and system ram with more than double the bandwidth of PCIe2.

Honestly, I couldn't really notice much difference between Ultra and High.

The game does "restart" itself quickly when I changed textures from Ultra to High, and it was notable in the amount of RAM it consumed on my system. Ultra = 10Gb RAM, High = a mere 4.5GB RAM. The difference was pretty drastic in the numbers, but my FPS barely increased.

So I went back to Ultra.

 

[Deders]

Yeah there isn't much of a difference, but you might notice it if you compared screenshots.