new build vs current build. (worth it?)

RoyalMarine · 05-12-2009 12:25am #1

what type of performance gain am i gonna see from my new build compared to my current setup?

currently have a qx6700 @ 3.0
v8 cooler usual temps 20 - 22 / 30 underload
8gb ddr2
700w corsair modular psu
some ****ty mobo i bought when my decent 680i went tits up
500gb drives
800gt 512mb

what im planning on getting...

i7 920
6-8gb ddr3
1000w thermaltake
x58
250gb ssd
1tb f3
1 x 5870

i usually play high demanding games, and my curent rig doesnt seem to ever stutter even with everything maxed. (modern warfare 2 was a dream!)

but obviously its not gonna last.
also doing a lot of college work etc.

so is it worth getting the new system and spending 2k+?
will i see THAT much of a speed increase/graphic increase?

any suggestions more than welcome!

p.s im also watercooling the entire lot, but thats mainly for OC and for college project for next year.

Leman_Russ · 05-12-2009 12:27am

So long as you get a decent cooler (MEgahalems/Thors Hammer etc) for the CPU, the new rig will blow the old one out the water and then out the air

PogMoThoin · 05-12-2009 12:30am

What high demanding games do You play that need more than a quad @ 3Ghz?

Get an ssd, a new gpu and a big monitor, i7 gives no gains for gaming

lmimmfn · 05-12-2009 12:45am

Yeah, there will be an insane difference compared to your current rig, depends mostly on the resolution you play at though, as the 8800gt is still a great for gaming @ 1680x1050

PogMoThoin wrote: »

i7 gives no gains for gaming

depends on the gfx card setup is used compared with i5.

Effluo · 05-12-2009 12:57am

RoyalMarineComm wrote: »

i usually play high demanding games, and my curent rig doesnt seem to ever stutter even with everything maxed. (modern warfare 2 was a dream!)

so is it worth getting the new system and spending 2k+?
will i see THAT much of a speed increase/graphic increase?

any suggestions more than welcome!

Think for a second...
If it does everything you want it to do fine then why get a new one?

Your next upgrade should be your graphics card, that quad core at 3ghz will game happily away for another year(probably more) to come yet!

What resolution do you play games at? That's a big factor when looking at graphics cards.

A new graphics card(not expensive) will increase your fps by quite a bit, but then again if you're fine with the current one then why bother!

And on a side note, it's never worth paying over 2k(unless you just like that kinda stuff)!

lmimmfn · 05-12-2009 1:03am

Effluo wrote: »

And on a side note, it's never worth paying over 2k(unless you just like that kinda stuff)!

I agree completely, im on i7 & 5850, cost me ~430euro in total from flogging my old core 2 stuff & nvidia 260

uberpixie · 05-12-2009 1:08am

PogMoThoin wrote: »

What high demanding games do You play that need more than a quad @ 3Ghz?

Get an ssd, a new gpu and a big monitor, i7 gives no gains for gaming

+1

It's not that the icore7 doesn't give you a huge gain over what you have in any of the current gen PC games.

A new gfx card will greatly improve your game performance. Greatly, more so than a a new CPU atm...
You have a 700W PSU, you do not need to replace this even with the icore7 spec you were looking at.... You could easily run the icore7 build on a good 500W.... 700W is overkill and a new 1000W PSU is just plain retarded and a total waste of money.

A good daulcore C2D @ 3.0ghz or a dacent C2Q are a sweet spot in intel cpus in games. AMD offer great bang for the buck atm with their stuff.

As Pog suggested:
A new ssd will by far have the greatest effect on your pcs performance. I would use a samll ssd for windows/apps and stick with a fast regular harddrive for games and storage. (sammy F3 of course;))
A new gfx card will keep that rig going for at least another year to year and a half.
Seriously: new gfx card ftw, it's the quick/easy win, a cheap 4870/4890 will be a huge boost over a 8800GT 512MB if you are playing at least 1650 x 1080. I have seen you post a few times in previous threads and you have always gotten the same answer. Get a new gfx card ffs!:D

Save your pennies for college, buy an ssd + windows 7 and then pickup a new gfx card either a dirt cheap 4870/4890 or a new 5870 when they are in stock and fall in price.

A full upgrade of your PC for games is not worth the cost: unless you will be running hardcore multi-threaded apps that actually use an icore7 it's a waste buying one. We are only beginning to see games that make use of quad cores and even then a fast dual core will still gives you good performance in the same game. This will change over time: but by then current tech will be cheaper and the new staff will be faster.

No point blowing all that money until there is a proper jump in tech and games start needing more than a dualcore to run...

I'm still on a q6600, @ stock it's fine in games. I only really overclock to keep my room warm

. (crysis is the only game that seemed to really need my Pc OC'd and that was when I was on a 8800GTS 320mb....)

My mate will be picking up our copies of windows 7 and vertex 60gig SSDs this weekend: this is the only major planned change I have for the next few months, my 4870 512mb will only get replaced when it starts to drag. Might get a new one when the usual refresh products tip out from ATI the 5870++ with go faster stripes no doubt

.

Pog is on a OC'd Q6600 I believe and has no issues with running game either....

BadCharlie · 05-12-2009 1:26am

Ifs its just for gaming and gaming only i dont think its worth the upgrade at all.

A better video card & monitor or maybe add a good sound card a good headset or speakers would be a better.

Venom · 05-12-2009 2:01am

OP to be perfectly honest for gaming if you just add a 58xx series card and to a lesser extent a SSD, you will see the most improvement over any i5/i7 build and even then you would need to be playing games at very high refresh rate.

RoyalMarine · 05-12-2009 2:40am

lol nice replies!

right, im set in stone on this now.

im gonna keep the qx6700 and leave it at 3ghz.
ill replace the 8800gt 512.

how would something like this suit?
Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 2GB GDDR5
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=442789

1 other thing, would it be advised to change my motherboard?
i was thinking of upgrading to a ddr3 board.

is there much point to it?
at the moment, the board im using is
http://www.dabs.ie/products/msi-s775-intel-p43-ddr2-atx-audio-lan-fsb1333mhz-56W8.html

not a great board, but i guess it does the job.

Effluo · 05-12-2009 4:28am

RoyalMarineComm wrote: »

1 other thing, would it be advised to change my motherboard?
i was thinking of upgrading to a ddr3 board.

We need to know what res screen you'll be gaming on to see which gpu would be the best upgrade

And it would not be near worth it to switch to a ddr3 board. Your current board is fine too. No need to upgrade

lmimmfn · 05-12-2009 4:35am

Effluo wrote: »

We need to know what res screen you'll be gaming on to see which gpu would be the best upgrade

And it would not be near worth it to switch to a ddr3 board. Your current board is fine too. No need to upgrade

agreed, id suggest an nvidia 260 216sp over a 4870 though, simply because of nvidias crappy TWIMTBP, most games will run better on it compared to a 4870, and ati's drivers suck bigtime( im on ATI now from Nvidia, second screen flickers due to the 2d clocks being too low, same problem existed since september with 58x0 cards, batman AA doesnt have proper AA, pain in the a$$ getting my old 8800GT working as a physx card etc. etc. ).

Id actually suggest a 5850 if you can afford it and if you dont think you'll upgrade the gfx card in the next 2 years.

BadCharlie · 05-12-2009 6:34am

U should try and get a 5850 if you can find them in stock and at a good price. Also upgrading to DDR3 ram is not going to do much for you. Well not in games i would think.

uberpixie · 05-12-2009 1:36pm

RoyalMarineComm wrote: »

lol nice replies!
how would something like this suit?
Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 2GB GDDR5
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=442789

Over priced. Nice card and all but still over priced.

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=479564
This is a 4890 vapour X for +€7.....

I would only buy a 4870 that is close to €100, at this price point they are a bargain. For a €150 and up i would only go for a 4890 or a 5770 if DX11 was important to you.

The 5770 is really only a step sideways though. It matches the 4870 and the 260GTX and is a few frames slower than the 4890... It is worth considering all the same as it does support DX11 and does give dacent performance in today's games but it's no jump over a 4870 which you can get for €30 cheaper....

RoyalMarineComm wrote: »

1 other thing, would it be advised to change my motherboard?
i was thinking of upgrading to a ddr3 board.

is there much point to it?
at the moment, the board im using is
http://www.dabs.ie/products/msi-s775-intel-p43-ddr2-atx-audio-lan-fsb1333mhz-56W8.html

not a great board, but i guess it does the job.

If it does the job and you can clock up to 3Ghz no point changing. If It ain't broke don't fix it! DDR3 will not give you an improvement in games performance.

leninbenjamin · 05-12-2009 2:45pm

lmimmfn wrote: »

Yeah, there will be an insane difference compared to your current rig, depends mostly on the resolution you play at though, as the 8800gt is still a great for gaming @ 1680x1050

Leman_Russ wrote: »

So long as you get a decent cooler (MEgahalems/Thors Hammer etc) for the CPU, the new rig will blow the old one out the water and then out the air

What is this insane difference you both speak of? I've a 920, I love it to bit's but it's utterly wasted in games, most of the threads sit idle. It's only useful for seriously parallel applications, not these new games that have been 'optimised for multicore' because, wait for it, they figured out how to create an additional thread...

To be fair they are fairly easy to overclock, and it's instructions/clock ratio is significantly higher than the Core2Quads... except in games.

lmimmfn wrote: »

depends on the gfx card setup is used compared with i5.

That's only because the i5 has a crippled northbridge, nothing much to do with the CPU itself.

RoyalMarine · 05-12-2009 3:06pm

Effluo wrote: »

We need to know what res screen you'll be gaming on to see which gpu would be the best upgrade

And it would not be near worth it to switch to a ddr3 board. Your current board is fine too. No need to upgrade

currently im gaming on a 32" hdtv @ 1280 x 768

but im buying a 24" hd lcd when i get the gpu.

Effluo · 05-12-2009 4:45pm

Well that makes sense why the 8800 had been fine so far. 768 is a very low resolution.

If you're certain about getting a 24" lcd then the minimum max res of that will be full hd, 1080.

resolutions make a big difference to performance and your 8800 would be quite unplayable at that res.

Some will say here to get a 5850, but IMO it's just not worth it!
The 4890 was great value b4 the 58xx and now it's even better that it's price has gone down...

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3650&p=10

The 4890 would be complete overkill for for your current screen, but if you are going to upgrade then it's a great option, the lowest card want to go for when playing at 1080 is still a 4870 1gb. But their prices are too close to the 4890's IMO

new build vs current build. (worth it?)

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