Opinions and advice on core Haswell gaming parts

[escrow4]

So, looking to rebuild (again 😀) my gaming box. I'm running an FX 6300 and 7870 but its pretty meh and I've got an itch to go Haswell. Price isn't a problem and since I'm not in the US, I'm just looking for some opinions. I'd like to game at 1920x1200 with high/very high fluid 50FPS+:

CPU: i7 4770 - $349 here

MOBO: Gigabyte B85M-D3H - $89

GPU: Still need to wait for pricing. In Australia the store I'm purchasing from, a 780 is $854 and a 770 is $565, a 7970 is $419.

Have zero interest in overclocking or multiple GPU's (and Haswell OC's are not exactly impressive anyway) and don't need the fuller featured H87 boards, so going B85.

Opinions? :awe:

 

[lehtv]

If you don't OC, see if you can find a Xeon E3 1230 V3 wherever you're buying from. Essentially it's an i7 at 200Mhz lower, no IGP, and a significantly lower price.

I don't see the point of upgrading the 7870 until the new AMD cards are out

 

[escrow4]

That Xeon here is $300, not much of a difference but I'd have to ship it in, rather than pick it up. I was thinking moving to the R9 280 or 290X for the GPU. The end of this month I'll be buying looks like, AMD's cards should be out by then.

 

[lehtv]

Hmm ok. The Xeon is still better $/MHz but I suppose the IGP is also useful to have as a backup or to drive a secondary monitor.

I'd probably have Asrock H87M Pro4 or H87 Performance as my first choices. They both a have better audio and LAN compared to that Gigabyte.

 

[Blue_Max]

Thanks for the Xeon suggestion. IF I can find a good online shop for it, it's a good $50-60 cheaper than the 4770 in Canada... but I love my local vendor and can't get it there. 🙁

 

[mfenn]

Why a chip with HT? It doesn't benefit single GPU gaming much at all. See the Anandtech article on the subject that was posted today. I would do:

i5 4570 $225
ASrock H85M Pro4 $92

Then spend the rest on getting a better GPU. The 7970 is a good choice now, but you can also wait to see what the new R9's will be like.

 

[lehtv]

Why a chip with HT? It doesn't benefit single GPU gaming much at all. See the Anandtech article on the subject that was posted today.

I wonder why Anandtech included only games which are known to depend on only up to four threads? Why not include Battlefield 3, Battlefield 4 beta, Crysis 3?

The performance difference between 7970 and 7870 isn't very big

 

[frozentundra123456]

I wonder why Anandtech included only games which are known to depend on only up to four threads? Why not include Battlefield 3, Battlefield 4 beta, Crysis 3?

The performance difference between 7970 and 7870 isn't very big

To be honest, I have been very disappointed in Ian's recent gaming articles. Small selection of games, and only testing at 1440p makes nearly everything gpu bound.

 

[Termie]

Why a chip with HT? It doesn't benefit single GPU gaming much at all. See the Anandtech article on the subject that was posted today. I would do:

i5 4570 $225
ASrock H85M Pro4 $92

Then spend the rest on getting a better GPU. The 7970 is a good choice now, but you can also wait to see what the new R9's will be like.

I would not be so confident that HT won't help in future games. It's true that it hasn't helped in pre-2013 games, but Crysis 3 definitely responds to HT, and it seems that BF4 does as well. Watch Dogs was just announced with a recommended 8-core CPU. Four cores are generally fine now, but if he has the money, HT may be a good investment.

By the way, if the OP is interested in the 4770, he should look for the 4771, which is 100MHz faster and potentially the same price.

I wonder why Anandtech included only games which are known to depend on only up to four threads? Why not include Battlefield 3, Battlefield 4 beta, Crysis 3?

The performance difference between 7970 and 7870 isn't very big

I admire the effort that Dr. Ian puts into those articles, but the reason he only tests Civ/Dirt/Sleeping Dogs is because they all have built-in benchmarks. That's the trade-off for collecting data on so many systems.

I think his articles would be more useful if he actually cut back a little on the CPUs and did some real-world gaming runs. I gather, though, that he's not a gamer, but rather a scientist, so I understand why he researches it the way he does.

 

[mfenn]

The performance difference between 7970 and 7870 isn't very big

It's a good 20-30% across the board. Certainly not worth it from a strict value for money perspective, but high end cards never are. The real question is: what is the best value for money given a minimum performance level? For example, in Metro the 7970 is right on 60 FPS whereas the 7870 drops to 45.

 

[mfenn]

I would not be so confident that HT won't help in future games. It's true that it hasn't helped in pre-2013 games, but Crysis 3 definitely responds to HT, and it seems that BF4 does as well. Watch Dogs was just announced with a recommended 8-core CPU. Four cores are generally fine now, but if he has the money, HT may be a good investment.

The Watchdogs 8-core recommendation is based on the fact that both the PS4 and XBONE have 8 cores. What it doesn't take into account is that the 8 Jaguar cores in those consoles are much weaker than a full desktop Intel or AMD core. The game probably does use 8 threads effectively, and can theoretically scale with an 8-thread chip. However, given the limitations of its target consoles, it's unlikely to actually need those cores to get over 60 FPS.

Thus, rather than spending money chasing future, theoretical gains, it is IMHO a much better idea to reallocate funds to the GPU to secure current, concrete gains.

 

[escrow4]

Seeing as those Watch Dogs specs are likely fake, I'm postponing this build. At the very least I'll pick up an R9 280 to replace the 7870, but that looks like about it.