Is this even worth a new build?

[cboath]

I put this together in 2010 - it's five years old and it's hard to believe it's lasted this long. Honestly, while I wouldn't mind things being even faster (they're still fast now 🙂 ) it's really hard to say it'd improve anything. Maybe I've just got 'the itch' since it's been so long. Who knows?

Anyhow - aside from playing Batman and SWTOR, I will use 3ds max, revit, inventor, etc.

Current setup:

i7-920 - 3.6 on Noctua
ASUS P6T Deluxe
12 GB RAM (1600)
Main OS Win 8.1 on Crucial M500/ 500GB SSD
Storage 1GB WD Black
NVidia Geforce 980 (ok, that's newer than 2010 🙂 )
32" BenQ at 2560X1440

I suppose I sorta answer my own question in that i'm not exactly seeing anything I just have to speed up. Maybe a 3rd party confirmation that it won't be an overly meaningful upgrade is what I need? 🙂 Still, what would I gain in a new i7 6 core build? Anything? other than less power consumption?

 

[lehtv]

With i7-4790K you get around 60-70% more performance per GHz and 0.6GHz more clock speed stock vs OC (4.2GHz being the 4-core turbo speed).



At your resolution it won't necessarily mean much towards gaming performance, but if you feel like you could use the extra CPU speed in other programs, it'll be worth it. And you'll get SATA 6gb/s for your M500 SSD (improvement you may or may not notice).

 

[monkeydelmagico]

not seeing anything in your software/games list that needs more CPU than what you have.

 

[Arcanedeath]

if you want more CPU performance a cheap upgrade would be a Xeon X5650 or X5660/70. This could extend the life of your platform as you'd get a 6 core 32nm chip instead of your 4 core 45nm current chip and you should be able to hit 4 to 4.2 ghz w/ fairly low volts, I stuck to stock volts and hit 3.5 and that's with a lessor board.

 

[cboath]

Thanks for the feedback. It's pretty much what I've been thinking. I 'can' get faster, but not tons and in my own admission, nothing is really slow to begin with - it's still fairly quick across the board. Just hard to believe it's made it 5 years.

Perhaps i'll see what the tax return brings before making a final decision. I kinda want a new setup for W10. I've got 7 and 8 on my current setup and don't really want to triple boot. But it has given me a good deal to think about.

Thanks!

 

[Charlie98]

Just hard to believe it's made it 5 years.

That just tells you how good the hardware is these days... but it kind of takes the fun out of upgrading because there is less and less of a difference. 😀

 

[sm625]

I second the vote to upgrade to a 32 nm chip that has a high clock speed and fits the same socket. Plus you can sell the old chip so the upgrade should only cost you like $50-$90 tops. I would try to find a X5687 for $130 and then sell the 920 for $60. Might only get $50 for that chip though. I wouldnt even bother trying to get a 6 core, since its not going to overclock as well given the number of cores. Unless you need more threads for whatever reason.

 

[mfenn]

I second the vote to upgrade to a 32 nm chip that has a high clock speed and fits the same socket. Plus you can sell the old chip so the upgrade should only cost you like $50-$90 tops. I would try to find a X5687 for $130 and then sell the 920 for $60. Might only get $50 for that chip though. I wouldnt even bother trying to get a 6 core, since its not going to overclock as well given the number of cores. Unless you need more threads for whatever reason.

Man, thinking about how much we paid to fill out a cluster with X5687's when they were new, and now looking at eBay prices. Intel's got it made in the server space.

 

[cboath]

Just think what that 15 core chip will be down to in 5 years 🙂