Worth upgrading?

[Salpal]

Running some ideas through my head after reading around last night and I want some additional input. Sorry for the long post but I figure too much is better than no enough

Current rig (built in 2009):

Case : Antec 900
CPU : i5-750 @ 3.4 Ghz
Mobo : Gigabyte GAP55-UD4P
GPU : GTX 660ti
RAM : 8GBs DDR3 1333
HDD : 640GB WD Black
SSD : 2x 64 GB Crucial c300

I use this for gaming and some video editing/encoding. Im actually planning on doing more video stuff with it too. Im just new at it so still in the learning stages.

My problems:
-First off, the Antec 900 is kind of a mess. It was a great case for a first time builder like myself but every single time I go in there to clean, I remember how much I hate it. Its small, crampy, and bad for wire management. I modded it a bit to fix some management issues but its still not as good as I want.

-Mobo is only SATA 2/USB 2.0. Im always transferring stuff around and would love the benefits of USB 3. Im not entirely sure if Ill see a benefit with SATA 3 but some tell me theres a difference, some tell me theres not. Its still a thought in the back of my mind.

-I got an SSD as an OS drive but then wanted to put an MMO on one so I grabbed another. This was a silly decision that only lead to more space being taken up in the case.

-HDD space is lacking. 640GB is too small and Im often rearranging things just to make room.

All of that combined has me feeling the upgrade itch.

I already have a much better case (Fractal R4) but I was holding out on doing anything with it until Haswell came out.
I also got a deal on an SSD (256GB Samsung 830) and a large storage drive (1.5TB WD Black). All of this is just sitting there until June when I can see the new mobos and Haswell stuff.
My plan was to grab a nice, capable Z87 mobo and a Haswell CPU, put it in the new case with the new HDD and the migrate over any other parts that I can. I also planned on grabbing a top of the line GPU when those launch late 2013/early 2014.

But now Im unsure if Haswell is worth it. I googled around and see some places say "youll see a big difference" and others say "just OC the i5 750 and wait a year". Some places recommend Haswell-E over Haswell because of DDR4 RAM compatibility. Ive even seen some say to wait for Broadwell-E before I change anything at all.

All of that has my mind running in a billion different directions. Can anyone else give me any input. on this? Will Haswell be worth it for me or should I just re-build my current rig in the new case and wait some more?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Termie]

Welcome to the forums, Salpal!

In my opinion, the upgrades you've already purchased will make the biggest difference to your user experience and computer-owner experience. The Antec 900 is indeed past its prime. I owned one and it was difficult to work with.

With your current setup, your CPU really isn't bottlenecking your GPU all that much, and honestly, SATA 3Gbps doesn't make too much of a difference in the real-world, although a Samsung 830 would definitely be held back slightly.

Now, if you said you wanted to go SLI or get a much higher performing GPU, I'd say you'd need a new CPU first. In my benchmarks going from an i7-860@3.5 to an i7-3770K, I found that in most games, a GTX670 wasn't held back much if at all, but it would be with twice the GPU power: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2257414

I only did a few tests there, and they are a year old, but I'd say they generally illustrate the experience you might have upgrading to Haswell.

Basically, I'd do it for the other benefits of Haswell (modern I/O, much lower power consumption, and huge OC'ing headroom vs. your CPU, if you're into that).

 

[Salpal]

Welcome to the forums, Salpal!

Thanks!

In my opinion, the upgrades you've already purchased will make the biggest difference to your user experience and computer-owner experience. The Antec 900 is indeed past its prime. I owned one and it was difficult to work with.

With your current setup, your CPU really isn't bottlenecking your GPU all that much, and honestly, SATA 3Gbps doesn't make too much of a difference in the real-world, although a Samsung 830 would definitely be held back slightly.

Now, if you said you wanted to go SLI or get a much higher performing GPU, I'd say you'd need a new CPU first. In my benchmarks going from an i7-860@3.5 to an i7-3770K, I found that in most games, a GTX670 wasn't held back much if at all, but it would be with twice the GPU power: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2257414

I only did a few tests there, and they are a year old, but I'd say they generally illustrate the experience you might have upgrading to Haswell.

Basically, I'd do it for the other benefits of Haswell (modern I/O, much lower power consumption, and huge OC'ing headroom vs. your CPU, if you're into that).

Interesting benchmarks. Thanks for the the link. So in gaming performance, I wont be seeing a major boost at all.
Do you have any insight on the video encoding side of things? Any major benefits there going from i5 750 to Haswell?

As far as SLI goes, I never really thought about it, except for 4 years ago when I first built and someone told me that it wasnt too great. I literally have no idea if its changed over the years. For GPUs, Im really keeping my eye on AMD as I liked what they did with the 7000 series and, depending on what they do next, Id like to go with whatever their next equivalent to the 7970 Ghz is but I have to wait and see on that.

Overclocking is something I dabbled in with the i5 750 but, as you can see, I didnt go very far with it all. It is something Id like to do and Im actually toying with the idea of getting a z87 board made for OCing (assuming I do upgrade now). I love the idea of squeezing that extra juice out of these things.

 

[Termie]

Ivy Bridge is much easier to overclock than Lynnfield. I had to do a lot of tinkering to get my 860 up from 2.8 to 3.5, whereas it took no effort at all to get from 3.5 to 4.4 on the 3770K. For video encoding, I do think you'd pick up a lot of performance, as that's very much CPU-bound, and with an Ivy Bridge or Haswell CPU at ~4.5, you'll be at least 50% faster than your current CPU.

 

[Salpal]

Hmmm. Ok. Thanks.

If you couldnt already tell, Im really leaning towards doing this.
Ill know for sure next week when all the mobos and CPU info starts dropping.

 

[Topweasel]

I use this for gaming and some video editing/encoding. Im actually planning on doing more video stuff with it too. Im just new at it so still in the learning stages.

Decide pretty early how important this is for you.

My problems:
-First off, the Antec 900 is kind of a mess. It was a great case for a first time builder like myself but every single time I go in there to clean, I remember how much I hate it. Its small, crampy, and bad for wire management. I modded it a bit to fix some management issues but its still not as good as I want.

-Mobo is only SATA 2/USB 2.0. Im always transferring stuff around and would love the benefits of USB 3. Im not entirely sure if Ill see a benefit with SATA 3 but some tell me theres a difference, some tell me theres not. Its still a thought in the back of my mind.

-I got an SSD as an OS drive but then wanted to put an MMO on one so I grabbed another. This was a silly decision that only lead to more space being taken up in the case.

-HDD space is lacking. 640GB is too small and Im often rearranging things just to make room.

All of these are legitimate complaints. Specially the OS and Storage drives. If I wasn't making due with a 256GB SSD for OS, I would be joking that 640GB is too small for an OS drive let alone "storage".

All of that combined has me feeling the upgrade itch.

I already have a much better case (Fractal R4) but I was holding out on doing anything with it until Haswell came out.
I also got a deal on an SSD (256GB Samsung 830) and a large storage drive (1.5TB WD Black). All of this is just sitting there until June when I can see the new mobos and Haswell stuff.

This is a good way to eat away at the itch without getting to far ahead of yourself. Get the things that change the least first.

My plan was to grab a nice, capable Z87 mobo and a Haswell CPU, put it in the new case with the new HDD and the migrate over any other parts that I can. I also planned on grabbing a top of the line GPU when those launch late 2013/early 2014.

Not a bad idea. Your 660 is by no means slow and won't hamper a haswell that much out of the gate (specially at single monitor resolutions.

But now Im unsure if Haswell is worth it. I googled around and see some places say "youll see a big difference" and others say "just OC the i5 750 and wait a year". Some places recommend Haswell-E over Haswell because of DDR4 RAM compatibility. Ive even seen some say to wait for Broadwell-E before I change anything at all.

All of that has my mind running in a billion different directions. Can anyone else give me any input. on this? Will Haswell be worth it for me or should I just re-build my current rig in the new case and wait some more?

Thanks in advance.

What would the performance improvement going from CPU to CPU need to be to be worth it. Admitting you are at the tail end of the last big generational increase in performance. SB was 10-12% faster pcc (per clock cycle), IB 5-6% fastr than SB ppc, and Haswell 5-6%. Gone are the days of nearly a 20% change over. Broadwell is going to probably be even less. The biggest changes will from now one be GPU on die related and other computational advances while lowering power usage while increasing performance marginally.

That said its going to be about 25% than what you have PPC and clocked almost 50% faster at stock clock speeds (don't like to talk OC since everything can be wildly different). That seems majorly faster. Though with your OC, doesn't seem that much since it only slightly lower than the non-turbo speed of the Haswell chip when it hits. Still that is 25% faster without even trying to OC and not taking in what the CPU will do on its own (unknown but could have up to a 4.5GHz Turbo). Not to mention us half as much power at load and a 5th or less power at idle.

It would seem like a hard one to pass up. Specially when teetering on the edge of making a move anyways.

 

[mfenn]

i5 750 -> 4570(K) will be a pretty big jump for video encoding (like, nearly double). That plus the general advantages of a newer platform (USB 3.0, SATA 6Gb/s, IGP for backup/extra monitors, PWM fan headers, etc.) seems like a worthwhile upgrade to me.

 

[Salpal]

This is what Im looking at:

Case : Fractal R4
Mobo : MSI Z87 GD65
CPU : Intel 4770k (Hyper 212 EVO HSF)
GPU : GTX660ti (Pulling from my current build)
RAM : 8GBs Corsair Vengeance LP
SSD : Samsung 830
HDD : 1.5 TB WD Black


Any thoughts/suggestions?

I might wait a day or two for more info to trickle out but we'll see. Id like to order soon as I can get the parts this week and not have to worry about availability.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

This is what Im looking at:

Case : Fractal R4
Mobo : MSI Z87 GD65
CPU : Intel 4770k (Hyper 212 EVO HSF)
GPU : GTX660ti (Pulling from my current build)
RAM : 8GBs Corsair Vengeance LP
SSD : Samsung 830
HDD : 1.5 TB WD Black


Any thoughts/suggestions?

I might wait a day or two for more info to trickle out but we'll see. Id like to order soon as I can get the parts this week and not have to worry about availability.

Why exactly do you need GD65?

This AsRock will serve you well

 

[nsafreak]

This is what Im looking at:

Case : Fractal R4
Mobo : MSI Z87 GD65
CPU : Intel 4770k (Hyper 212 EVO HSF)
GPU : GTX660ti (Pulling from my current build)
RAM : 8GBs Corsair Vengeance LP
SSD : Samsung 830
HDD : 1.5 TB WD Black


Any thoughts/suggestions?

I might wait a day or two for more info to trickle out but we'll see. Id like to order soon as I can get the parts this week and not have to worry about availability.

Solid build although I'd probably save some costs and go with the ASRock motherboard that Yamamoto recommended instead. I'd also go with a standard Seagate or WD drive and get some extra space over going with a WD Black since you really won't see much of a benefit going with it as you already have an SSD.

 

[mfenn]

Solid build although I'd probably save some costs and go with the ASRock motherboard that Yamamoto recommended instead. I'd also go with a standard Seagate or WD drive and get some extra space over going with a WD Black since you really won't see much of a benefit going with it as you already have an SSD.

Agree on both points. This WD Blue 1TB for $70 should be good unless you need more space. If that's the case, I'd jump up to 2TB with this Seagate 2TB for $100 (retail box for better packaging).