CPU upgrade?

morgana

So, my machine has been going strong for over 5 years now and, over time,, I've upgraded the SSD and graphics card (Gforce GTX 970).
But now I get the feeling the CPU is limiting the performance somewhat.
Is it feasible to upgrade just the CPU without having to change the mobo?

It is mildly overclocked (to about 3.8 GHz), any more gave stability issues.

ASUSTeK Computer INC. P8Z68-V (LGA1155)
Intel Core i5 2500K @ 3.30GHz
It also has the Corsair H60 liquid cooling system.
8 GB dual channel RAM.
Windows 10.

Thanks for any opinions.

Aka Ishur

morgana wrote: »

So, my machine has been going strong for over 5 years now and, over time,, I've upgraded the SSD and graphics card (Gforce GTX 970).
But now I get the feeling the CPU is limiting the performance somewhat.
Is it feasible to upgrade just the CPU without having to change the mobo?

It is mildly overclocked (to about 3.8 GHz), any more gave stability issues.

ASUSTeK Computer INC. P8Z68-V (LGA1155)
Intel Core i5 2500K @ 3.30GHz
It also has the Corsair H60 liquid cooling system.
8 GB dual channel RAM.
Windows 10.

Thanks for any opinions.

No way to upgrade cpu only have to do mobo too. Whether it's worth it is debatable. Depends on what you are using it for. Skylake will be maybe 20% better? New mobo will be a lot better off course.

Digital Solitude

You got poor luck in the silicone lottery.

I don't think it should be slowing you down much, the only real upgrade is the i7 2600k but it mightn't make a huge difference.

Holding on to upgrade to Skylake or Kaby Lake is probably the best option if you're worried though

morgana

Yea, was afraid of that :P -
I will then probably upgrade both cpu and motherboard (and possibly RAM) and treat myself to a nice shiny new case :P (the old one is boring and 1 of the front panel usb ports is broken :P) later this year. All the rest I can reuse. Thanks guys.
I have never build from scratch, only upgraded the easy bits. Slightly scary thought.

TerrorFirmer

In games, a 2500K @ 3.8Ghz isn't really holding you back unless you have a 144hz monitor.

Upgrading to decent Skylake mobo + i5 CPU + 8GB ram will cost at least €300, and the gain will be largely negligible at the moment.

If your base is 60FPS at 1080 ultra settings, there's no real reason to upgrade. A few games make better use of more threads so would benefit from an i7, but that's rare enough and the same statement is applicable to Skylake i5's as well.

In what sense are you having a problem with performance?

morgana

Thanks for that, TerrorFirmer. So it will last another while then. (I just sometimes get the upgrade itch :P)

Mostly in Rift, FPS is rarely going over 35/40, around 20 in raids. Most of it is probably due to Rifts' old engine and poor optimisation, although they have just added better multi-core support.
Hmm, maybe just a reinstall of Windows might help - I haven't done a fresh (or refresh) ever.

Eoinmc97

No, Rift litteraly runs like it's asmathic sometimes. Their better core utilisation statement hasn't come to light for anyone I know who plays it, (ranging from an FX-6300, a Core i5 6500 (me) and an I7-4790K) but the minimum FPS has improved a lot.
I doubt the i5 is bottlenecking you there, probably just as you said; Old engine, and un-optimised by the Devs, or by GPU manufacturers.