Replace CPU or GPU?

[ajaxsirius]

So long story short, I was planning on only upgrading next year from my Q9550 to Haswell but a recent month-long holiday trip I had been planning fell through and I find myself with some "free" money.

My current specs are:
Intel Q9550 2.83 Ghz @ 3.53Ghz
Coolermaster V6 CPU cooler
Coolermaster CMII Advanced Case
Kingston 4GB DDR3 1333
MSI P45-C51
Asus 6950 2GB@ stock (reference I think)
Corsair HX650W
Samsung HD204UI 500GB
Samsung HD502IJ 2TB
Viewsonic 22" @ 1920x1080

As it stands I'm happy-ish with my setup at current resolution but I've been seeing sub 30fps dips (55 fps average) while playing TERA (unreal3) and sub 25 fps dips (40 fps average) with Skyrim using player mods and ugridstoload=7. And I think I can afford to correct that.

I've been thinking of either upgrading to Ivybridge (cpu, cpu cooler, mobo, ram) and spending between USD 700 and USD 800 or getting a GTX 670 for 400ish and reselling my 6950 second hand. I don't think I'll get much second hand for my old CPU+mobo+ram.

As far as I can tell, I'll see the biggest boost with new cpu even if I don't overclock it, but the gpu upgrade is interesting too since if I resell it for say $150 the upgrade is only $250ish compared to $750ish for the cpu/mobo/ram.

If I upgrade to Ivybridge or even Sandybridge now, I'll definitely skip Haswell.

What do you guys think?

 

[videogames101]

You can upgrade to ivy for <$350, especially with a microcenter combo.

 

[pcunite]

Get the GTX 670 ... you need to anyway. Then if it does not improve things for your current system, go all out.

 

[Ieat]

For $700 to $800 I would think you would be able to upgrade both if you get the cpu/motherboard used. $400 for the gtx 670. $200 or less for i5 3570k, $100-$120 motherboard and $30 ram. Sell your old stuff for $300 to $350 and out of pocket cost is $400 to $450.

 

[Don Karnage]

Get the GTX 670 ... you need to anyway. Then if it does not improve things for your current system, go all out.

C2Q will bottleneck a 670

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

C2Q will bottleneck a 670

Yea but since he is still planning to upgrade to the next generation Intel® processors it would save him from having to buy a new video card to go with that system. I would go with the video card for now.

 

[lehtv]

I agree, a video card upgrade (GTX670) would have a lot bigger impact on framerates. It would be bottlenecked though, in Skyrim in particular. The problem is that 6950+Q9550 is a pretty balanced combo, so upgrading only one or the other is bound to imbalance it. My recommendation to you, OP, would be to wait until you can afford a total system overhaul - GTX670 + 3570K @ 4.2-4.4. Meanwhile, you might see price drops on these fresh products.

At the moment, an overhaul would cost you

$240-250 i5-3570K
$100-140 Z77 mobo
$45 2x4GB DDR3-1600
$400 GTX 670
= ~$800

If you can, reuse the CPU cooler.

 

[exar333]

CPU and MB will sell for ~$250 on ebay; that will almost cover a new MB/CPU IB combo. Add $50-100 for 8-16GB RAM and you have a sweet system for ~$200. You can also sell your 6950 for $150-$175 which almost covers half a new GTX 670. All told, a net cost of around $400 will give you a VASTLY quicker system.

 

[cmdrdredd]

C2Q will bottleneck a 670

I was told yes but not as much as people make out. Games that are just barely playable with 6950 at 1920x1200 should become very playable. Max potential wont be reached by the 670 but its not a bad upgrade in the meantime. More fps will be seen with a 670 than a ivy system and 6950.

OP...I am in the same situation and I am doing a gtx 670 first. The rest will be built up around the end of the month.

 

[sm625]

Just get the newer cpu. The mods are going to hit your cpu just like the large multiplayer maps on BF3 do. I bet you will be perfectly happy with an i5 at 4GHz and a 6950.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Ivy will help you more, much much more

 

[Hatisherrif]

CPU - make it an i5 3570K or i5 2500K if you'd like to overclock a lot.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Ajaxsirius...I picked up an evga gtx 670 sc just 5 minutes ago locally. I will post some benchmarks with my current setup and 6950 unlocked and overclocked against the gtx 670 in the same system I have in my sig. Very similar to your setup. Then you can make a decision. I will do 3dmark, crysis 2, dirt 3, crysis and warhead. I will try battlefield 3 as well to see what benefit I gain there but it lacks a benchmark feature. If there is something specific you want to know post here and I will try my best. It will take a while because I do not have all of these games installed currently. Look for it later today.

Edit: also batman arkham city

 

[2is]

Q9550 @ 3.5 is still a pretty solid CPU. I'd upgrade GPU first.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Q9550 @ 3.5 is still a pretty solid CPU. I'd upgrade GPU first.

I don't agree

 

[richierich1212]

A 6950 is still very fast why would he need to upgrade that? Lol. Upgrade cpu.

 

[2is]

I don't agree

Neither do I... I thought it was a 6850. With a 6950 I'd upgrade the CPU first.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I asked this same question on 3 different forums and got the same answer. a GTX 670 WILL without a doubt give better FPS in new games than would a CPU upgrade. That's the point of it. Even if you don't max out the 670s potential, you can turn up the AA settings and get the benefit of adaptive vsync which is just very cool. Further, whenever the CPU upgrade comes around, the 670 will be good to go with it.

I find it hard to believe that all the sudden everyone else is wrong. Besides, once I get all these games installed I will be doing testing and replying here. I'm betting the GTX 670 is not a bad buy even with a Q9550.

It's my opinion that a single 6950 like I have is way too slow for 1920x1200. Oh but you say "turn stuff off or down". No, I buy games on PC for a reason and making them look like a console game is not an option. Crysis 2 for example tanks hard with DX11.

 

[2is]

You said newer games and gave an example of a game that's over a year old. Here are the actual facts. Which piece of hardware will yield the best performance is going to vary depending on the game. Games like Crysis and Metro will undoubtedly benefit more from a GPU upgrade. Games like Skyrim will benefit more from a CPU upgrade. Games like BF3 will benefit from both, but I'd say a CPU upgrade is more worth while in that game if you're into MP. I've messed around with a Q6600 @ 3.4 with a 5870 and a 680 as well as my IB with both cards and I would take IB with a 5870 over the Q with a 680 for BF3. The SP campaign isn't nearly as CPU taxing so that would see greater benefit from a GPU.

So I suppose the real question to get the proper answer is, what games is the OP most interested in playing?

Another consideration whenever this debate comes up is; When your performance is suffering because you're CPU limited there's really nothing you can do about it. There are very few in-game settings that will reduce the load on the CPU. If your performance is suffering because of your GPU, there are potentially dozens of settings that can be adjusted to reduce GPU load.

There are also plenty of people on forums that don't have a clue. Like the ones that think they aren't CPU limited because when they play a game and look at task manager on their quad core CPU, they only see ~50% utilization

And clearly your second sentance is grossly inaccurate as there is plenty of doubt.

 

[ajaxsirius]

Thanks for the all the responses guys! I can see it's a close call since people seem to be divided.

And I'd love to see those benchmark cmrdredd. I don't play BF3 (only TERA & WoW atm), but I do play Batman and I'm hoping to pickup Tomb Raider and Max Payne 3 later when they come out.

 

[cmdrdredd]

You said newer games and gave an example of a game that's over a year old. Here are the actual facts. Which piece of hardware will yeild the best performance is going to vary depending on the game. Games like Crysis and Metro will undoubtedly benefit more from a GPU upgrade. Games like Skyrim will benefit more from a CPU upgrade. Games like BF3 will benefit from both, but I'd say a CPU upgrade is more worth while in that game if you're into MP. I've messed around with a Q6600 @ 3.4 with a 5870 and a 680 as well as my IB with both cards and I would take IB with a 5870 over the Q with a 680 for BF3. The SP campaign isn't nearly as CPU taxing so that would see greater benefit from a GPU.

So I suppose the real question to get the proper answer is, what games is the OP most interested in playing?

Crysis 2 isn't CPU bound. Even being a year or more old it's harder on GPUs than games released last month.

Having said that what you said further is true. However, you seem to contradict yourself a bit. First you posted a 2 sentence response saying a 3.5Ghz Q9550 is still good and recommended a GPU. Now you're backtracking a bit. I do understand what you're saying here...it depends on the game. Thing is, the most immediate improvement in my eyes will come when you aren't tanking FPS when enabling DX11 features like tessellation. The 6950/6970 weren't known to have great performance there.

Thanks for the all the responses guys! I can see it's a close call since people seem to be divided.

And I'd love to see those benchmark cmrdredd. I don't play BF3 (only TERA & WoW atm), but I do play Batman and I'm hoping to pickup Tomb Raider and Max Payne 3 later when they come out.

For WoW you want a beefy CPU. The GPU should keep up well, it's a very very old engine. Raids etc generally hit slow CPUs hard though. I can see Max Payne 3 taxing the GPU quite a bit though, I'm also buying that this week with Diablo 3.

Again I'm on the same path as you. Hopefully my results will give you an idea of what to expect and whether you want to go with a 670 or not without upgrading the rest immediately.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Your experience will benefit from a CPU, not gpu, that smoothness and minimum fps can only be felt yourself. Your avg fps at high settings will go up but it will still perform worse than with a 2500k plus 7850 oc

 

[2is]

Crysis 2 isn't CPU bound. Even being a year or more old it's harder on GPUs than games released last month.

Having said that what you said further is true. However, you seem to contradict yourself a bit. First you posted a 2 sentence response saying a 3.5Ghz Q9550 is still good and recommended a GPU. Now you're backtracking a bit. I do understand what you're saying here...it depends on the game. Thing is, the most immediate improvement in my eyes will come when you aren't tanking FPS when enabling DX11 features like tessellation. The 6950/6970 weren't known to have great performance there.






For WoW you want a beefy CPU. The GPU should keep up well, it's a very very old engine. Raids etc generally hit slow CPUs hard though. I can see Max Payne 3 taxing the GPU quite a bit though, I'm also buying that this week with Diablo 3.

Again I'm on the same path as you. Hopefully my results will give you an idea of what to expect and whether you want to go with a 670 or not without upgrading the rest immediately.

Yes, I know Crysis is not CPU bound, I said that and included Metro in games that would benefit from a GPU. My point was, where are these "new" games you speak of that are so GPU bound?

As far as me backtracking, if you bothered to read the rest of what I said, I had originally thought the GPU the OP was running was a 6850 which is quite a bit slower than a 5870 (which I have personal experience with) but instead he has a 6950 which is faster than a 5870 and much faster than a 6850 that I thought he had. There is no contradiction at all.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Yes, I know Crysis is not CPU bound, I said that and included Metro in games that would benefit from a GPU. My point was, where are these "new" games you speak of that are so GPU bound?

As far as me backtracking, if you bothered to read the rest of what I said, I had originally thought the GPU the OP was running was a 6850 which is quite a bit slower than a 5870 (which I have personal experience with) but instead he has a 6950 which is faster than a 5870 and much faster than a 6850 that I thought he had. There is no contradiction at all.

I'm not suggesting a GTX 670 if you're still playing Counterstrike here. I don't believe that you can't figure out what's meant by a "new game that needs a strong GPU". We have mentioned a few games that definitely benefit from GPU. Crysis 2, Metro 2033, Battlefield 3 to an extent...

Lets go back to the original situation and question. Does the OP need a CPU or GPU. I think if he's playing WoW he should think about a CPU. The engine isn't very stressful on a decent GPU and the CPU takes a heavy beating. Especially with lots of players on screen. So as you said previously, "it depends on the game". The games I play are not the same as the OP obviously, so the 6950 might work out fine for the games he is playing.

I'm not attempting to start a fight or anything like that. I think we can all agree that when it comes to certain games, WoW included, the CPU helps a good bit even with a GPU that is a couple generations old due to the engine not stressing out the newest features in DX10-DX11 etc.

 

[nyker96]

You situation is a tough one, but in general you playing at high enough resolution that some of the most demanding games will be gpu limited. However, your cpu isn't going to squeeze out all the power of a gtx 670 yet. Here's what I think the best option for you.

1. buy GTX 670 right now and be able to max out every game asap.
2. save the rest cash, upgrade comes next year w/ haswell. I think haswell is a much more significant jump than the current Ivy since it;s merely a process change and considering the temperature problems, you can't OC any better than Sandy even. I'd just take a pass on Ivy. I'd wait for the 15-30% ipc jump from haswell next year for a new cpu/mb/ram jump.