whats the better upgrade for 1080p ..spec inside

[ultralo]

2nd gen i3 to i5 or evga gtx 660sc 2gig to hd7950 3gig

 

[Jaydip]

i5, we are past the point of two cores.

 

[Essence_of_War]

Both of those are sort of side-grades right now.

What sorts of games are you playing, and what sort of performance are you seeing that you'd hope to improve upon?

 

[ultralo]

i play all can total war rome,crysis3,company of heros 2,dropping alot....battlefield3 online ....will be picking up watchdogs,bf4,cod ghost,and nba214...

 

[Techhog]

i play all can total war rome,crysis3,company of heros 2,dropping alot....battlefield3 online ....will be picking up watchdogs,bf4,cod ghost,and nba214...

Yeah, you're definitely gonna have some moderate CPU bottlenecking with 2 cores in those games. Go with the i5, but I'd say that you should get an Ivy Bridge (3rd gen) one instead. Do you know what motherboard model you have?

 

[ultralo]

not sure on the motherboard...ill run it tonight and fund out...thanks for the help....

 

[mfenn]

The 2nd gen Core i series is more commonly known as Sandy Bridge. Certainly an upgrade from an i3 2100 (or similar) to an i5 2500K (or similar) will make more of an impact than an upgrade from a GTX 660 to a 7950 in the games you listed.

Though, as Techhog pointed out, you're probably better off getting and Ivy Bridge (3rd gen) unless you can get a really good deal on a Sandy Bridge. Nearly every Sandy Bridge motherboard can take an Ivy Bridge processor after a BIOS update, and you're definitely in a position to do such an update since you (presumably) have a working Sandy Bridge computer right now.