Will an i5 do me any good?

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J

jurrie

Junior Member
Mar 30, 2012
6
0
0
Hello,

I know this is the video cards department, but since my question boils down to fps, I was hoping the combined knowledge of video cards and cpu's in the gaming crowd that most likely roams here will result in an answer :)

My scenario:
- AMD T1055 hexacore @2.8GHz (best choice for my requirements at the time, not so much right now)
- Radeon HD7970 graphics card
- 30" display with native 2560x1600 resolution
- Gaming

I like to play MMO's, and my favourite right now is TERA. During some event that occurs several times a week, the screen gets so crowded with mobs and players that my framerate drops below 5. Tinkering with settings hardly changes a thing, and even going down to 1280x800 gives me <10fps.

With that in mind, and me possibly playing other, more demanding MMO's or games in the future, I was considering upgrading to an i5 3570k. The 400 euro price tag is a bit steep, though.

My research hardly came up with any good results, so I lost my touch for internet searching or this stuff is only known to those with lots of experience. Is the i5 that much faster compared to the T1055 that it will improve my situation? If we talk 10% increase in performance, I'd go from 5 to 5.5fps, hardly fixing a thing.

Thank you very much for any advice you can give.
 
BFG10K

BFG10K

Lifer
Aug 14, 2000
22,709
3,002
126
The i5 is a lot faster but if you game at 2560x1600 with AA, your graphics card will hold you back more often than not.
 
J

jurrie

Junior Member
Mar 30, 2012
6
0
0
I've seen such benchmarks, but when upping the resolution to 2560x1600, it almost looks as if the cpu does not matter anymore. That's what I'm most concerned about. When I set my resolution to 1920x1200, everything becomes blurry, unless I set the screen to 1:1 format, but that makes it look like a matchbox in size :)

I personally think upgrading to an i5 will increase fps, but only if I turn down the resolution when playing a game that won't go smooth at 2560. At 2560 itself I doubt it will make a change, but was hoping to hear something different here.
 
ShintaiDK

ShintaiDK

Lifer
Apr 22, 2012
20,378
145
106
This part:

jurrie said:
I like to play MMO's, and my favourite right now is TERA. During some event that occurs several times a week, the screen gets so crowded with mobs and players that my framerate drops below 5. Tinkering with settings hardly changes a thing, and even going down to 1280x800 gives me <10fps.
Click to expand...

Is either serverside or your CPU.

Whenever you scale down, performance should go up if you were GPU limited.
 
P

poohbear

Platinum Member
Mar 11, 2003
2,284
5
81
I went from a 1055 @ 3.7ghz to what i have now, i honestly did NOT notice a difference with my vid card @ 1080p, and u certainly wont @ the resolution u play at. But go ahead and upgrade so u can tell the next guy the same thing.:) ur video card is the most important thing when gaming especially @ ur resolution & u already have a strong cpu.
 
frozentundra123456

frozentundra123456

Lifer
Aug 11, 2008
10,451
642
126
Can you over clock the CPU? If you over clock and performance improves, you are CPU limited. The 1055 is decent, but the clock speed is kind of low. You are asking a lot of both CPU and gpu to play at that resolution. How fast is your internet? That could slow you down also.
 
J

jurrie

Junior Member
Mar 30, 2012
6
0
0
I tried overclocking but the comp would crash very soon. I'm not experienced in that department and my airflow and cooling are probably not good enough.

My internet connection is decent, 60Mbit down, 6Mbit down.

Some more reading tells me that TERA is very CPU demanding. After watching a video from someone in the event I get <5fps, I saw someone playing with a slower video card and an intel cpu getting super fluid gameplay :-|

I tested a bit more in the game. I stood still at a place where I had 25-30fps and switched resolutions. 1280x800, 1920x1200, 2560x1600, all had the same fps. I'll read a bit more but am leaning towards the i5 upgrade now.
 
H

Hospitaller

Junior Member
Aug 8, 2012
24
0
0
If cutting your resolution to 1280x800 didn't make a huge performance increase, it would definitely indicate you are CPU bound.
 
S

ShadowOfMyself

Diamond Member
Jun 22, 2006
4,227
2
0
TERA hates AMD cpus... I would make the switch if you really intend on playing it for a long time

I read countless complaints of people on the TERA forum about horrible FPS with good cards - they all had AMD cpus -_-

Personally I play it just fine on my i5, but you will never get good fps at Nexus no matter what pc you have, until they fix the way the game does the transparency effects on Hail Storm etc (thats what causes everything to slow to a crawl, all the sorcs spamming Hail Storm on the bosses)
 
P

PrincessFrosty

Platinum Member
Feb 13, 2008
2,300
68
91
www.frostyhacks.blogspot.com
In this specific circumstance If you're changing your settings and it's not resulting in a significant increase in performance then you're definitely CPU limited, it's a fairly common problem with modern MMOs when lots of players are interacting at the same time.

Any increase in CPU speed will increase your frame rates in this circumstance, however in many other games you many not find the same benefit, even with a fast video card 2560x1600 is hard resolution to push quickly, so just keep in mind the scope here isn't very wide.

I would highly suggest getting Sandybridge CPU like the 2600k if you can stretch to it, and a decent after market air cooler and overclocking, that will deliver amazing high end performance for a pretty reasonable price.
 
D

djnsmith7

Platinum Member
Apr 13, 2004
2,612
1
0
My 2500k @ 4.5 Ghz pushes 2 7970's @ an avg. of 95%+ usage in BF3 (meaning no CPU bottleneck present). I don't play TERA, so I can't offer direct input, but figured I would offer what I've tested personally.

Most, if not all of the benchmarks I've read over the past 6 months have shown the 2500k delivering higher benchmark results than the Bulldozer products. With that being said and considering Intel's current price structure, that's the product I recommend.

If you decide to switch over to 1155, you also have the option to max out the socket with a 3770K. My understanding is this will be the fastest non-Xeon chip for the socket. The additional cost would be $100 if purchased at Newegg. Would save you the hassle down the road of having to sell your 2500k. Additionally, you should also pick up an aftermarket heatsink and fan to overclock the CPU. Most people are able to hit 4.5 Ghz without issues.

As mentioned above, supporting 2560x1600 requires some serious horsepower. If it were me, I'd buy as much horsepower as I could afford.
 
DominionSeraph

DominionSeraph

Diamond Member
Jul 22, 2009
8,386
32
91
djnsmith7 said:
If you decide to switch over to 1155, you also have the option to max out the socket with a 3770K. My understanding is this will be the fastest non-Xeon chip for the socket. The additional cost would be $100 if purchased at Newegg. Would save you the hassle down the road of having to sell your 2500k.
Click to expand...

wat.

The i7 3770k will be obsolete about 5 minutes after the i5 2500k.


djnsmith7 said:
As mentioned above, supporting 2560x1600 requires some serious horsepower.
Click to expand...

Not CPU horsepower.
 
X

xcal237

Member
Aug 22, 2012
98
0
0
an I5 will do you good... i jumped from a q9550 to a 2500k and got about a 50% increase in FPS with the same graphics card installed... now that i have a 670 my PC is flying... except in metro 2033 since it favors AMD cards lol
 
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