Is there any point to an upgrade? Desktop CPU ?

[BurnItDwn]

So I have 2 Desktops at home.
I have my gaming box, which is an i5 2500 with Radeon 290 and 8gb of ram. It seems fast enough for everything except for dwarf fortress which can kill any CPU.

My other box is hooked up to my projector, mostly Its playing netflix, but I also game on it soemtimes. Its a phenom 2 945 with a radeon 6870 and 4GB of ram. Just about every game plays well expect for watch dogs or other current gen game (but I dont play much "new" games). I'd like something faster, but I just cant justify to myself the cost and the time investment ...


I just upgraded video cards this month (was running 6870 in crossfire in the gaming/eyefinity box, and then 4870 in basement HTPC)

Maybe replacing the 945 with an Intel 4690 i5 would be a nice jump, but, Its not really that much faster than my if 2500, and honestly, when I build the 2500 box, I didnt notice much vs the old phenom 2 box...

I know intel released some notebook and tablet CPUs for 5th gen i5, but what about desktop?

I want to wait, but I dont want to wait forever, PC/desktop sales are slow, because they are no longer obselete each year, people can build a PC and keep it for 5-10 years before needing to replace... Its like how car sales declined when cars lasted longer...

I miss the new CPU every year ...
But I guess it will be nice to save the $$$

So, anything in the pipeline worth waiting for? or its always a good time to buy?

 

[Burpo]

You can get I7 2600k for $200 & sell the I5 2500 @ $100+ for a cheap upgrade that'll last you another yr or two..
Replacing the AMD is a good idea tho..

 

[ninaholic37]

So, anything in the pipeline worth waiting for? or its always a good time to buy?

Probably not until something replaces silicon I think. 2026 is when things might get interesting again I'm told...

 

[DrMrLordX]

So, anything in the pipeline worth waiting for? or its always a good time to buy?

Broadwell-k might be interesting. If there's anything "in the pipeline" worth waiting to see, it's that.

Otherwise, it's a matter of budget. Most of what you see on the market today is a known quantity. There are some great deals out there, relatively speaking, but the real question is: how much are you willing to pay for an upgrade, and what are your ultimate goals?

 

[BurnItDwn]

Broadwell-k might be interesting. If there's anything "in the pipeline" worth waiting to see, it's that.

Otherwise, it's a matter of budget. Most of what you see on the market today is a known quantity. There are some great deals out there, relatively speaking, but the real question is: how much are you willing to pay for an upgrade, and what are your ultimate goals?

It would be nice to run Dwarf Fortress with 150+ dwarves on 10x10 maps without lag ... but that would take a current gen CPU running at like 50ghz which is not going to happen...

Otherwise, I was just thinking to replace the AMD for something quieter, cooler, and faster... though the GPU is the culprit behind most of the noise, heat, and power usage, and since I switched from a dusty ancient 4870 to a less aged 6870, its been a lot better with the noise...

Otherwise, I'll probably pick up an SSD in the near future. I have a 256gb SSD in the HTPC, but my gaming box I'm still running a 500gb raptor... I was waiting for 1TB SSDs to drop in price, but, I may just pick up a 250 or 500 GB SSD and use that for OS and main Apps, then keep the raptor for Steam

I don't have a budget set really. The less I spend on hardware, the more extra principal I can pay off of my mortgage, or the more I can throw in the stock market or I can put it in the rainy day/travel fund ... I don't want to spend money if I don't get much out of it ...


Burpo, That would get me a bit of a bump, but the i5 is plenty fast for anything I use, it's the AMD which I'd like to replace sooner or later ... I just haven't found a good reason (yet) so I'm trying to justify it to myself

 

[2is]

On your projector machine you use for Netflix, I personally would replace that. Wayyyy to power hungry for something that's used to play Netflix. I'd get something with an i3 and just use integrated video. It'll have all the hardware acceleration you need and I'll bet at an absolute minimum it will use 70 watts less, probably even more.

 

[escrow4]

A 4690 in a HTPC would sip power and have the balls for any gaming new and old so its a decent choice. Haswell can and does support 4K + 3D + x265 hardware decode at a 23.976 lock so no real reason to say no.

 

[BurnItDwn]

On your projector machine you use for Netflix, I personally would replace that. Wayyyy to power hungry for something that's used to play Netflix. I'd get something with an i3 and just use integrated video. It'll have all the hardware acceleration you need and I'll bet at an absolute minimum it will use 70 watts less, probably even more.

I play netflix on it, but also game at 1080p and occasionally run dedicated game servers off of it... that said, an i3 with the 6870 wouldn't be too bad

 

[BSim500]

So I have 2 Desktops at home.
I have my gaming box, which is an i5 2500 with Radeon 290 and 8gb of ram. It seems fast enough for everything except for dwarf fortress which can kill any CPU.

A lot of people are going through the same thing. I haven't swapped out my i5-3570 @ 4GHz for any Haswell / Haswell refresh simply because I don't own any games or applications that will make any practical difference. If Broadwell is only +5% ish I'll probably skip that too and wait for Skylake. Only sane advice is "buy what you need when you need it". If a bunch of games are slow then upgrade. However, I'd be wary of upgrading just for one older 2006 era single-threaded game though as a few will saturate any CPU. I own a couple myself (eg, single-threaded Operation Flashpoint will still saturate a Haswell i7 core when set to 5km view distances on a "heavy" map as will some "epic" sized Neverwinter Nights community mods where everything is loaded into one Chapter). I probably would swap the HTPC for a more energy efficient one though (both CPU & GPU).

PS: Even if your CPU is just a "vanilla" i5-2500 (non K), you can still OC its Turbo setting from 3.4/3.5/3.6/3.7 to 3.8/3.9/4.0/4.1GHz with a Z motherboard (and potentially a maximum of 4.1GHz under all loads with Multicore Enhancement), so if you haven't done that already, an instant +10-20% boost on your main rig is there for free.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Since power usage seems to be a concern, I'll not recommend overclocking, at least not when replacing your Phenom II.

Nearly any Haswell chip @ stock is going to use less power than that Phenom II.

As for Dwarf Fortress, your best budget bet there is a G3258, overclocked all to hell and back, but really you wouldn't do much worse with a 4790k or 5820k. It's just a matter of budget, really.

 

[BurnItDwn]

Thanks all,

I think I will hold out to see what Broadwell K brings to the table, if the die shrink proves to make higher clocks too challenging, then I'll maybe pick up Haswell.. i5, i7, or i3, I don't know, I will have to wait and see ..

Power is a concern, but its not a major concern, I dont want to have to buy a more powerful power supply (have 650 W PC Power & Cooling in AMD box, and 850 Watt PC Power & Cooling in the Intel box (it originally had a pair of 6870 in crossfire)). I d'ont want one of those 200+ watt AMD FX CPUs, too much heat, unreasonable, anything under 125 watts for the CPU is fair game.

G3258 actually isnt a terrible idea, as most games I play are single threaded, and 2 very highly clocked cores would work really well ... could be a cheap and decent upgrade for the AMD box ... but Im not enthusiastic about it. I would worry about the 2 cores not offering enough for the games that do support quad cores (GTA series for example) ...

So, yea ...

I will see what happens in Q2, If performance is significantly better than my 2500, and for a CPU in the $200 price range, I'll upgrade my main box and stick my 2500 in the basement

Otherwise, I will just replace the AMD with a new i3 or i5 and leave my 2500 box alone (i dont like unscrewing motherboards and playing musical hardware any more than I have to... and I want to keep my Rosewill thor case in my home office, and my Antec P180 in the home theater)

I miss the old days of a drastically improved CPUs every 6-12 months.... Maybe AMD will surprise us with something and push Intel's buttons again ...

 

[DrMrLordX]

If you are concerned about the dual-core-ness of the G3258 but you still want to max out Dwarf Fortress within the realm of the possible, your next step up is really the i5-4690k or i7-4790k, depending on whether or not you want HT.

There are also plenty of interesting budget AMD options out there, but none of them are going to be Dwarf Fortress champions compared to what Intel has to offer.

Broadwell-k may or may not offer much in the IPC/clockspeed department, but it will have Gen8 graphics which could be very interesting when combined with DX12.

 

[BurnItDwn]

If you are concerned about the dual-core-ness of the G3258 but you still want to max out Dwarf Fortress within the realm of the possible, your next step up is really the i5-4690k or i7-4790k, depending on whether or not you want HT.

There are also plenty of interesting budget AMD options out there, but none of them are going to be Dwarf Fortress champions compared to what Intel has to offer.

Broadwell-k may or may not offer much in the IPC/clockspeed department, but it will have Gen8 graphics which could be very interesting when combined with DX12.

Yes, i5-4690k is what I have been looking at but, It looks only about 20-30% faster than the 2500 ... or about 100% vs the phenom 2. I'll wait to see what happens with the die shrink, to see if intel offers any new top end i5 or i7 in the spring or summer ...