Time to upgrade my rig or wait...?

[ithehappy]

My rig is in my siggy. I was using a 1.8 GHz C2D before buying that rig, and I am using the current rig for over three years now. And I usually upgrade at an interval of say 3½ to 4 years. Will it be worth upgrading? Or should I wait? Cause it feels like from a i7 first gen a Haswell, say i7 4770K (which is kinda pricey here!) is not much of an upgrade, what do you say? Haven't found or played a game which lagged much, and I play at 1680x1050. So.....?
I am looking for a pretty big difference, like when I updated to i7 from C2D, it was immense, something like that.

Thanks.

PS: I don't only game, so please don't count i5 CPU.

 

[Torn Mind]

Are you overclocking your current rig? If you are, how much of an overclock do you have? Because at stock, even a Haswell i5 beats the i7-950. Overclocking will lessen the performance gap, although power consumption goes up a bit.

 

[dbk]

No just get a ssd. That will feel like a significant upgrade.. If u havent felt anything while gaming. One thing to ur benefit is that things will get inevitable cheaper (except for amd gpus -_-)

 

[fralexandr]

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/100?vs=836
difference between i7 4770k and i7 950

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/100?vs=65
difference between c2d 2.2GHz and i7 950

We're not quite at that level of difference yet.
The i7 950 is ~3-4x the performance of a 2.2GHz c2d, whereas the 4770k is ~ 1.5-2x the performance of the i7 950

Obviously, the 1.8GHz c2d (e4300?) wasn't a high end cpu, whereas the i7 950 is. A more similar comparison from that era would be an e8400 to the i7 950, or possibly one of the core 2 quads.

 

[ithehappy]

Are you overclocking your current rig? If you are, how much of an overclock do you have? Because at stock, even a Haswell i5 beats the i7-950. Overclocking will lessen the performance gap, although power consumption goes up a bit.

No, I'm running on stock. But yeah, I've a profile already set to 3.7 GHz, if I find the need then I'll just apply it.
And I know a new i5 beats the first gen i7, but that's not the point. In reality those 'beat', 'faster' words are much more impractical I've found.

No just get a ssd. That will feel like a significant upgrade.. If u havent felt anything while gaming. One thing to ur benefit is that things will get inevitable cheaper (except for amd gpus -_-)

Yeah, I've a SSD. Evo 120 GB.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/100?vs=836
difference between i7 4770k and i7 950

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/100?vs=65
difference between c2d 2.2GHz and i7 950

We're not quite at that level of difference yet.
The i7 950 is ~3-4x the performance of a 2.2GHz c2d, whereas the 4770k is ~ 1.5-2x the performance of the i7 950

Obviously, the 1.8GHz c2d (e4300?) wasn't a high end cpu, whereas the i7 950 is. A more similar comparison from that era would be an e8400 to the i7 950, or possibly one of the core 2 quads.

Well I know benchmarks and all, but in real usage will I really feel that 2X performance increase? I highly doubt it.

So I should wait right? What's Intel's plan of upgrading Haswell this year?

 

[Termie]

With your GPU, you will pick up some performance by overclocking, as you're likely a bit bottlenecked in modern games. You don't need to upgrade, however, as the performance boost will be very small.

If you had twice the GPU power, it would be a different situation, but your system is actually fairly balanced right now.

 

[ithehappy]

Fairly balanced, true. Let's wait then...

 

[Blue_Max]

I'd recommend waiting as well, UNLESS you can get top-dollar for selling your used rig and upgrade while there's a sale on new stuff.

If you time it right AND get lucky, you can do it pretty cheap!

But your rig isn't "bad" by any stretch. Heck - keep your eyes open for the 6-core/12-thread CPU you can drop in there if you really feel the "need".

 

[mfenn]

No, I'm running on stock. But yeah, I've a profile already set to 3.7 GHz, if I find the need then I'll just apply it.
And I know a new i5 beats the first gen i7, but that's not the point. In reality those 'beat', 'faster' words are much more impractical I've found.

Huh? Am I the only one having trouble parsing that last sentence?

 

[ithehappy]

I'd recommend waiting as well, UNLESS you can get top-dollar for selling your used rig and upgrade while there's a sale on new stuff.

If you time it right AND get lucky, you can do it pretty cheap!

But your rig isn't "bad" by any stretch. Heck - keep your eyes open for the 6-core/12-thread CPU you can drop in there if you really feel the "need".

Well I do stuffs by calculation. Right now in my country an i7 4770K costs around 370 USD, and say a decent Motherboard around 160-170 USD, a total of 550 USD give or take. And my current rig, the CPU and MoBo will be sold for approx 170-180 USD, max. So an investment of 350+ USD, but would I get a performance improvement worth that many bucks, I don't think so.
And hell yes dude, you got me on the 6C/12T architecture, I always wanted that. But latest gen 6C/12T is absolutely outta my budget, let's see.

Huh? Am I the only one having trouble parsing that last sentence?

I just meant I always found those benchmark performance comparison 'impractical' for real life usages, like playing games and all. English is my third language, so sorry if I made it complicated to understand

PS: I still am in dark about Intel's plan this year, what are they gonna release? I mean what will be the upgrade of Haswell?

 

[Blue_Max]

Keep your eyes open for a cheap, used 6-core 970, 980, or 980x. You might get lucky and snag a deal!

...except even a "deal" for the high-end i7 970 at 300-400US is still easily beaten by the new consumer-end 4770k.

It's be a cheaper upgrade to sell the old mobo/cpu together, then upgrade just those parts... again, ONLY if you get a GOOD price for your old equipment. Place an ad aiming high, just for laughs... you may get lucky!

 

[ithehappy]

I have seen a 980 got sold at pretty decent price some weeks back, is it a faster one than 4770k? I didn't care to look at it because it was an older gen model!

 

[mfenn]

A Haswell i7 4770K (or i5 4670K for that matter) is going to beat a Westemere 6-core in single threaded performance. The Haswell i7 wins by a wide enough margin so that the multithreaded performance of the two chips is about equal. I wouldn't pick up a Westmere unless I could get it for less than the cost of an i7 4770K.

 

[Puffnstuff]

I feel ya OP as I've been running my x58 for 4 years now myself. I'd love to move to x79 with a 4930k and drown them but I'm actually satisfied with my old system right now. In years past I would build new every two years but this x58 is still plenty fast for my needs. My previous system had a 9550 on an evga 780i sli mb which was pretty fast.

 

[ithehappy]

Just had a look at the price of 4930k, well.....:-\
I guess the price will come down when the next generation will be released. I am eyeing for the 3930/4930k then, unless the next generation's 4C/8T beats a 6C/12T CPU of this gen.