i5 vs i7 in BF4?

[skipsneeky2]

Giving much thought to a i7 3770 non k upgrade over my i5 2500 non k, the big game i play is BF4 and i have heard a mix between i5/i7 and the benefits.

System i current run has a i5 2500 non k,8gb of ddr3 1333 and a 2gb gtx770 running 1080p and Windows 7 running 337.50 drivers.

Any decent gain to be had over swapping in a i7? Given some thought to a used 290 off ebay as well but not sure yet considering they have been used hard most likely for mining.

Mostly looking to increase minimums and averages as well,i run high settings no msaa and find myself often times cpu limited still running lower fps then i care too.

 

[erunion]

Why not try to find a cheap i7 2700k used?

Or if you have the money for a new board too, you could wait to see if the 4790k rumors are true. That CPU should last a long time.

(I have a 2500k mildly OC to 4.2, and ill stick with it until skylake)

 

[skipsneeky2]

Why not try to find a cheap i7 2700k used?

K model wouldn't work for me, have a h61 board. Ebay prices for used i7 2600 chips aren't all that great and i rather have a Ivy bridge chip.

 

[skipsneeky2]

Anyone thinking a i5 4690+ h97 would be a more fruitful upgrade if any over a locked down 3770? Big plus over just the chip upgrade for me is sata 6 since i have a sata 6 ssd locked to sata 3 speeds........h61+i5 2500 non k does seem ancient overall.

Big con over this is how the chip would run on ddr1333?If a difference over 1600?

 

[erunion]

K model wouldn't work for me, have a h61 board. Ebay prices for used i7 2600 chips aren't all that great and i rather have a Ivy bridge chip.

As far as I know, the K SKUs will work fine. You just can't OC on your board.

Why do you want IVB? Your board wont support PCI 3. So there isn't much advantage with going IVB over SNB

 

[skipsneeky2]

As far as I know, the K SKUs will work fine. You just can't OC on your board.

Why do you want IVB? Your board wont support PCI 3. So there isn't much advantage with going IVB over SNB

A bit more nervous about buying used over new pc parts, i usually buy my stuff off newegg and well the 3770 non k is the cheapest unless i go with a xeon e3-1230 v2 which is a i7 in itself and much cheaper and close to msrp of a newer i5.:thumbsup:

 

[erunion]

Anyone thinking a i5 4690+ h97 would be a more fruitful upgrade if any over a locked down 3770? Big plus over just the chip upgrade for me is sata 6 since i have a sata 6 ssd locked to sata 3 speeds........h61+i5 2500 non k does seem ancient overall.

 

[AtenRa]

Upgrade to Win 8.1 64bit first, BF4 works much better with Win 8.1. Then get an Ivy Core i7 3770.

Another alternative will be to keep the Core i5 and change the GPU to a custom R9 290 and use Mantle. There is no better upgrade currently for BF4 than Mantle.

 

[AtenRa]

With Mantle Core i5 2500 reach the performance of Core i7 4770K in D3D.


http://gamegpu.ru/action-/-fps-/-tps/battlefield-4-naval-strike-test-gpu.html

 

[skipsneeky2]

I tend to run settings good enough to get my 60+ minimums, this chart does seem to show a fps boost good enough for me to consider a cpu swap but how accurate it is after 337.50 has yet to unknown as the chart predates that driver version. I noticed a slight fps boost but nothing wow worthy on 337.50.

This chart alone has me thinking the swap is great as i have seen much of this chart but who knows.

 

[Denithor]

Why not go a slightly different direction?

Pick up a Z68/Z77/Z78 motherboard, swap onto that, then turn up your i5-2500 to 3.9GHz? On "Z" chipset boards, non-K chips can be overclocked 6 speed bins (6 x 100MHz or 0.6GHz) over their stock speed. Plus for this mild of an OC you likely won't even need anything more than the Intel HSF (assuming you're still using stock).

 

[skipsneeky2]

Why not go a slightly different direction?

Pick up a Z68/Z77/Z78 motherboard, swap onto that, then turn up your i5-2500 to 3.9GHz? On "Z" chipset boards, non-K chips can be overclocked 6 speed bins (6 x 100MHz or 0.6GHz) over their stock speed. Plus for this mild of an OC you likely won't even need anything more than the Intel HSF (assuming you're still using stock).

Thought about this, i do want to get out of this dated h61 board for certain as well.

 

[SlickR12345]

Giving much thought to a i7 3770 non k upgrade over my i5 2500 non k, the big game i play is BF4 and i have heard a mix between i5/i7 and the benefits.

System i current run has a i5 2500 non k,8gb of ddr3 1333 and a 2gb gtx770 running 1080p and Windows 7 running 337.50 drivers.

Any decent gain to be had over swapping in a i7? Given some thought to a used 290 off ebay as well but not sure yet considering they have been used hard most likely for mining.

Mostly looking to increase minimums and averages as well,i run high settings no msaa and find myself often times cpu limited still running lower fps then i care too.

Is this a joke or do you really believe the 2500 is limiting your performance?

And no, you won't see any noticeable difference between 2500 and 3770 or even 4770 in BF4 or any other game for that matter because the speed increase for the 3770 over the 2500 is about 10 to 15%.

Even in encoding and decoding you would see a slight 10% increase in performance from the 2500 to the 3770.

I don't see how its worth it.

 

[toughtrasher]

I upgraded from an i5 rig to the same rig with i7 and saw some nice improvements. Graphic wise I ran extra settings that I had turned off with the i5.

I got the i7 for free from someone that I had traded earlier so I'm not sure if it's worth it for you

 

[skipsneeky2]

Is this a joke or do you really believe the 2500 is limiting your performance?

Yup sure do, gpu usage bouncing all over while my minimums half the time are when my gpu usage is low or not pegged. All my cores hit pass 95% usage quite often as well in-game while at those moments my gpu usage isn't close to being pegged.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I think someone else mentioned this, but if your primary concern is BF 4, you might be better off to upgrade you gpu to an amd card that supports mantle. There aren't many games that support it, but BF4 is the poster case for mantle. I am pretty sure that a2500k with mantle will be smoother than a 3770k in dx. As much as I still dislike the interface, you also might get considerably improved performance if you "upgraded" to win 8.

 

[skipsneeky2]

I think someone else mentioned this, but if your primary concern is BF 4, you might be better off to upgrade you gpu to an amd card that supports mantle. There aren't many games that support it, but BF4 is the poster case for mantle. I am pretty sure that a2500k with mantle will be smoother than a 3770k in dx. As much as I still dislike the interface, you also might get considerably improved performance if you "upgraded" to win 8.

Got a massive fps boost in 8.1 preview during the beta as before on W7 i had the same issue as now. Got a buddy with a Windows 8 rig i could try my 770 and BF4 and see where it goes. If it goes good i would just upgrade the os and be done with it.

Hope its that simple cause this issue drives me nuts.:awe:

 

[Techhog]

Is this a joke or do you really believe the 2500 is limiting your performance?

And no, you won't see any noticeable difference between 2500 and 3770 or even 4770 in BF4 or any other game for that matter because the speed increase for the 3770 over the 2500 is about 10 to 15%.

Even in encoding and decoding you would see a slight 10% increase in performance from the 2500 to the 3770.

I don't see how its worth it.

*points to the various charts in this thread*

There are exceptions to every rule. BF4 efficiently uses more than 4 threads. I'm also pretty sure that you're flat-out wrong on the encoding part.

EDIT: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/288?vs=551 Well, you were right for two of the encoding tests, though one of them was obvious (single-threaded).

 

[skipsneeky2]

Well it looks like i don't need a new cpu period, a simple installment of 8.1 practically solved the issue. Still some slight dips but possibly cause my 2gb gtx770 is overkill for high 1080p no motion blur or msaa.

Those charts above look about right for my cpu, drop the resolution enough and run ultra no msaa and i hit about 61-62 minimum on siege but try those settings at 1080p and my card tanks into the 40s sometimes which is why i run high.

Do want to get a new board though, pushing my chip a bit further on Z77 would be nice while gaining usb 3.0+ sata 6 as i already got a sata 6 ssd capped to 3gbos.

Thanks everyone for participating in this thread and helping me out.:thumbsup:

 

[Gikaseixas]

Why not go a slightly different direction?

Pick up a Z68/Z77/Z78 motherboard, swap onto that, then turn up your i5-2500 to 3.9GHz? On "Z" chipset boards, non-K chips can be overclocked 6 speed bins (6 x 100MHz or 0.6GHz) over their stock speed. Plus for this mild of an OC you likely won't even need anything more than the Intel HSF (assuming you're still using stock).

Fully agree with this
Buy a Z77 or Z78 board and OC your i5. You would get access to more features too