Who's struggling to justify upgrading their CPU?

[gevorg]

Believe it or not, I struggled a bit upgrading from Athlon X2 to 2500K.

 

[palladium]

One of the early adopters of the LGA1366 platform here. Still running my core i7 920 C0 at 3.7GHz. Still run circles around my friend's new imac 27". Will probably skip LGA2011/BD too.

 

[yottabit]

I'm in the camp that hardly feels a need to upgrade with an i5 750 @ 3.8 Ghz... I guess if my CPU fried I'd probably go to Sandy bridge. There's a couple games (SCII, BC2) that maybe would benefit from it.

 

[Zim]

The CPU isn't really the bottleneck right now. If you want to pump up your system your money is better spent on an SSD, more memory, better video card,... and CPU appears well down the list. Used to be that all the guys running Folding were itching for more computational horsepower, but that fad seems to have faded away and most of us just want systems that are faster overall.

Another point is that Windows 7 actually dropped the bar as far as system speed is concerned, so it's not as if we all need new CPUs to run the latest and greatest from Redmond.

My next build will be a HTPC and I'll be looking for a system that can transcode bucket loads of video. I'm thinking that an i5 2500K will do that job nicely. As for AMD's offerings... meh! Even the 1100T doesn't look terribly interesting... even at $200.

 

[Tequila]

I've upgraded a lot throughout the years and most of that consisted of AMD cpus but the Intel i5-760 is by far the best upgrade I've ever done and I'm pretty it will satisfy my gaming needs for another 3-5+ years.

 

[stahlhart]

Believe it or not, I struggled a bit upgrading from Athlon X2 to 2500K.

I'm upgrading from an Athlon XP to a 2500K. The XP surrendered without a struggle.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Tweakboy, I think people have explained this a lot. Games don't always peg four cores and very often IPC is what matters. While I personally don't plan to upgrade my CPU just yet, I'm hesitant to upgrade my GPU because of my CPU. I'm also happy with my GTX260 C216, so I see no need to upgrade at the moment.

Sounds like we have just about the same rig...

That said, I am considering upgrading my HTPC, as that is CPU limited with the E6600 that I have in it. I was all set to pull the trigger on Sandy Bridge when the whole chipset fubar blew up, so I am gonna just wait till the Z's come out (I had been trying to do that in the first place).

 

[BlueWeasel]

I've had my E8400 @ 3.9Ghz for exactly 3 years this month. I had planned on upgrading to SB as soon as the hardware was available, primarily so I could sell my current CPU/MB/RAM for a decide price.

However, I think I've decided to wait a while longer. I don't really play the newest and latest games, and my E8400 is still a beast for games that are 2-3 years old.

 

[Dice144]

I got my X6 1090 last May. Up until Starcraft 2 it was more then I thought I would need for years to come.

But Starcraft 2 has me getting the itch bad. This game alone has me stop caring about power usage with underclocking and undervolting. Cranked the OC back up hoping to avoid scratching the itch. Then again today while installing Rift beta, installed Mass Effect 2 and using 7 zip all at once system never hiccuped once! Maybe SC2 just badly written? This PC rocks on BC2 and every other game I have used on it. Now having 12 gigs of ram helps!

 

[LiuKangBakinPie]

I do some heavy video editing at times sorry to say the 1155 bandwith is not something to write about. But its great for gaming

 

[Vdubchaos]

I'm watching from sidelines (games specifically). My rig does everything I want it to do AND some.

No reason to upgrade. If Crysis 2 or BF3 is any good....maybe, BIG maybe.

 

[yottabit]

I got my X6 1090 last May. Up until Starcraft 2 it was more then I thought I would need for years to come.

But Starcraft 2 has me getting the itch bad. This game alone has me stop caring about power usage with underclocking and undervolting. Cranked the OC back up hoping to avoid scratching the itch. Then again today while installing Rift beta, installed Mass Effect 2 and using 7 zip all at once system never hiccuped once! Maybe SC2 just badly written? This PC rocks on BC2 and every other game I have used on it. Now having 12 gigs of ram helps!

I wouldn't say badly written so much as favors intel CPUs heavily. Same with WoW, and I'm not sure why... however if you think about it SC2 really has a lot going on compared to many games. And all of it's physics along with a lot of it's effects are CPU based, same with the physics in BC2.

Also the downside of SC2 is that it only really uses 2 cores fully. So it is much more dependent on IPC/clockrate. That's why the best CPU's for it right now are overclocked i7 and sandy bridge.. hopefully later on they'll add better multithreading support

An old test from the beta shows a stock i5 750 beats a 3.4 ghz phenom II x6 in SC2 :/
http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,...p-quads-without-performance-benefit/Practice/

Here's a good article on cpu scaling in SC2:
http://www.techspot.com/review/305-starcraft2-performance/page13.html

I'd really like to know why both SC2 and WoW favor intel CPU's so strongly

 

[toyota]

Yes, i feel like i'm in the same boat. I'm a gamer and my current rig satisfies all my needs. However, if i could find a cheapo quad core to slot into my mobo i'd definitely jump on that.

your next big gpu upgrade will be nearly a complete waste if you keep that E6850. even with that 5850 there are several games that will run fairly slow and keep that 5850 from actually performing near its potential.

 

[kindest]

running a 6400 and am going to upgrade this year to something way more energy efficient. i don't game so energy will be my main concern.

 

[LiuKangBakinPie]

2x Higher clocked Cores beats 4 slower clocked ones in gaming

 

[toyota]

I'm watching from sidelines (games specifically). My rig does everything I want it to do AND some.

No reason to upgrade. If Crysis 2 or BF3 is any good....maybe, BIG maybe.

then you are not playing every game out there. my old gtx260 will match your 460 in several games just because of your cpu.

 

[LiuKangBakinPie]

Depends on the reso;tutions. the higher the resolution the more the tables get turned and the cpu play less of a part. You will see a cpu bottleneck at low resoltions. but not so much at higher ones. 1080p seems to be the border where the cpu plays a part higher than that not so much

http://www.guru3d.com/article/cpu-scaling-in-games-with-quad-core-processors/3

 

[toyota]

Depends on the reso;tutions. the higher the resolution the more the tables get turned and the cpu play less of a part. You will see a cpu bottleneck at low resoltions. but not so much at higher ones. 1080p seems to be the border where the cpu plays a part higher than that not so much

http://www.guru3d.com/article/cpu-scaling-in-games-with-quad-core-processors/3

that is only part of it. if your cpu is not really sufficient for the game itself then a higher res will not change that. for example if a game is calculating many things on the cpu then it could mean low minimums and even low averages no matter what resolution.

 

[cotak13]

I've been stuck with an overclocked Q9450 and 4GB ram for what seems like forever, but I just can't find a reason to upgrade. 775 and Core2 has been such a great platform, great overclocking headroom; I think I've been running it longer than any past combo.

All these new CPU's offer great numbers, but I doubt I'd notice much difference running Win7 given all the hassle of upgrading and re-installing. I don't encode very often, I play games occasionally on my ATI 6850, I do a lot of general work and run retro-emulators.

I remember when a new CPU release meant you could do new things on your PC. You really felt the difference! Now it's more "when I can be arsed because my rig is getting on a bit."

Anyone in the same boat?

That is the experience I have as I got older. Although, I am talking to you from a i5 powered iMac so I am not hurting much. The one thing though that I still do which push my systems a lot at home is photo editing. But it's not like I need to get a new computer every year or every other year. Since, I can't justify a new camera every 1 to 2 years my work load don't jump up much. The one thing that can change that would be if I actually use the 1080p movie mode on my 7D enough that I have clips to edit.

 

[BoomerD]

Fortunately, I didn't have this dilemma. I haven't bought a new game since 2005...COD2 IIRC. My aging socket 478 P4 Northwood rig with an X850XT PE AGP card just wouldn't play the newer games with any kind of quality...BF2 gave it enough headaches...

It was past time to build again.
Unfortunately, my budged didn't allow me to replace my aging 19" Sony Trinitron CRT...but in time. This one still works well, but it's definitely starting to dim a bit with age.

 

[ClockHound]

Not me. Primary use of my 9 month old overclocked i5-750 and i7 930 systems are a DAW and video editing system. Runs a lot of stuff much faster than the previous C2Q, but even with SSDs and CUDA, I can still max them out with many projects. Was contemplating the 2600K next, but want to overclock and use the GPU (Quick Sync) for rendering, have to wait for the Z68 to arrive. And within a few weeks, I'll max that out and be lusting after a 2011 setup.

My only struggle is to justify the annual money stream I pour into Intel. Maybe a 16/32 core 6ghz system would satisfy for a few years. Not likely tho.

 

[hclarkjr]

it was no struggle for me, i am upgrading to i7 930 this weekend ( hopefully anyhow, waiting for post office to open to see if the stuff came today ) for almost next to nothing money wise. being able to upgrade without losing money is a no brainer for me. i have my Q9450, board and memory sold for almost what i paid for board, memory and CPU. almost took the SB plunge and even had the CPU bought and was all set to buy board the day the news broke about the defective chipset. i was fortunate to be able to cancel the 2600K.

 

[gonepostal31]

I used Prime95 for stress testing. I have 9 fans, unit runs cold at 50c to 54. I have achieved 4.43 GHz on a i5 (sandy bridge).

This thing is a true monster; for all you enthuiasts out there here is specs.
i5 3.4 GHz (OC 4.4GHz)
ASUS P8P67 Socket 1155 motherboard
4 GB G.Skill DDR-3 (OC 1642 Mhz)
ATI-5770 (GPU- OC 895Mhz, DDR5- OC 1300)
750 Watt PSU
Sata II Hooked up to Sata III due to recall
Blue Ray Drive-16X
4-120mm UV reactive fans
1-80mm UV reactive fan
Total 9 fans

 

[coffeejunkee]

Sorry hclarkjr, getting an 930 instead of a 2600K isn't very fortunate in my book.

Nobody interested in power saving? Performance and all that is nice but I'm much more impressed by SBR power consumption. I know it takes some time earning the upgrade costs back but you should factor in the return on selling your old stuff. Also depends on how many hours a day your pc is running ofcourse. But it adds up if 24/7. And you get more performance obviously.

Although I admit Intel put 1156 owners in a bit of a pinch, trying to sell their fairly new system for a decent amount with all the s775 competition around.

 

[smakme7757]

I had my Q9450 for ages and my 775 platform for well over 3.5 years. Now it did everything i wanted, but my ram was failing and i didn't want to buy new DDR2.

I jumped on a 1155 motherboard with 8gb of ram an SSD and a 2600K and haven't looked back. By far the best upgrade i have ever done (minus the SATA bug).

If i was you i would upgrade, unless the only justification you need is some extra cash. In that case save up, it's worth it!