i5-2500K system worth a major/minor upgrade?

[blacktankofhopelessness]

Hi there,

I have a base system of a i5-2500K on a ASUS P8P67 LE board that I've been running for almost 4 years now. Other parts have been upgraded so for instance I have a GTX 970 4GB GPU which have taken my gaming to a whole other level.

But I'm starting yo worry about my motherboard. It was a cheap board to begin with and with very limited OC options/possibilities. It's USB options are also quite bad and do not work as intended 100 % of the time. I've had glitches (increasingly during 2015) where my mouse and keyboard have suddenly stopped working and I've had to reboot and reconnect my devices for them to function again. It has only happened 3 times during this year but to me it is a worrying sign...

I have plenty of reliable power from my Seasonic gold-rated PSU at 750W, a decent SSD for OS + HDD storage drive and 8 GB RAM.

My question is: Should I start to think about a CPU bottleneck? From what I've read I should be fine with a 2500K but since I can't really OC it with this mobo I'm thinking maybe I should upgrade the mobo and go for a bit of an OC? Would it be worth it? Or would I be better of holding onto what I've got and go for a base overhaul (mobo + CPU) when the price/performance ratio is better compared to my current setup?

I'm using my rig for gaming mostly, no CPU demanding work beside that. My system is able to quite easily handle MGS: The Phantom pain, The Witcher 3 and similar games at highest settings. Maybe not at 60 fps but then again that is not a big deal for me.

Any advice would be appreciated, thanks!

 

[Charlie98]

I have very much the same setup, except a Z68 board for OC purposes... it's still quite a gamer and I'm happy with it. Understand my most modern title is BF4, so I'm behind the curve as far as new games.

Were I you, I would see if I could find a decent used Z68 or Z77 board to pair your 2500K with... that would allow you to open that very capable CPU up a bit more and extend the usefulness of your system.

I get what you are saying about system instability and problematic USB ports, I have the very same problem with my original (oldest and most used) Gigabyte Z68 board... the USB ports sometimes give me fits. I have reloaded the OS a number of times, but it just doesn't seem to be as stable as it once was... but I put that down to hardware age and, mostly, a bloated W7 OS and all the junk they have stacked in there with W10.

 

[adamantine.me]

Sounds like you're trying to talk yourself into buying something. You've already said yourself you have no bottlenecks. The CPU is rarely the bottleneck for gaming (970 will be fine for mid range gaming for now)... So why upgrade? Try different USB ports or spray compressed air in there to clean them out.

If you want a newer motherboard, it will likely be a newer socket, and then you'll need a new CPU. The i5 is a fine CPU, at any generation. The gains in each new generation are small, incremental gains.

 

[blacktankofhopelessness]

Sounds like you're trying to talk yourself into buying something. You've already said yourself you have no bottlenecks. The CPU is rarely the bottleneck for gaming (970 will be fine for mid range gaming for now)... So why upgrade? Try different USB ports or spray compressed air in there to clean them out.

If you want a newer motherboard, it will likely be a newer socket, and then you'll need a new CPU. The i5 is a fine CPU, at any generation. The gains in each new generation are small, incremental gains.

Thanks for talking me out of it. I think that's what I needed someone to say... If I do run across a decent upgrade in mobo I might go with that. But like you say, I don't feel any great rush to go out and buy something just for the sake of buying.

So thanks!

 

[SpacemanSpiffVT]

I have the same question basically:
I have an old PC that I built in 2010 (!!!), I want to make sure it will work with newer PC games such as Metal Gear Solid V & Fallout 4. I just installed windows 10 on it and it still seems to run quite fast for my uses. I mostly surf and play some games.. nothing too intensive. I also want to upgrade my crap monitor from the 21" Acer I have to something much nicer at 27" or so. I guess that would be dependent on my graphics card as well.

Heres the specs:
•Intel I5 i5-760 Processor 2.80 GHz
•MoBo EVGA P55 SLI LGA 1156 chipset
•8 GB DDR3
•PSU CORSAIR CMPSU-750HX 750W
•Crucial M4 SSD

I would prefer to just upgrade the Graphics card to something nicer? (recommendations? GTX 970 or R9 390?)

Or grab a new mobo/cpu/RAM/graphics card if its really worth it... Any thoughts would be much appreciated!

 

[komatta]

I have the same question basically:
I have an old PC that I built in 2010 (!!!), I want to make sure it will work with newer PC games such as Metal Gear Solid V & Fallout 4. I just installed windows 10 on it and it still seems to run quite fast for my uses. I mostly surf and play some games.. nothing too intensive. I also want to upgrade my crap monitor from the 21" Acer I have to something much nicer at 27" or so. I guess that would be dependent on my graphics card as well.

Heres the specs:
•Intel I5 i5-760 Processor 2.80 GHz
•MoBo EVGA P55 SLI LGA 1156 chipset
•8 GB DDR3
•PSU CORSAIR CMPSU-750HX 750W
•Crucial M4 SSD

I would prefer to just upgrade the Graphics card to something nicer? (recommendations? GTX 970 or R9 390?)

Or grab a new mobo/cpu/RAM/graphics card if its really worth it... Any thoughts would be much appreciated!

I would grab a new video card (I don't know what you have but it's presumably as old as the other parts) and see if the performance is sufficient for you. If not, then you could consider a new CPU/mobo and just move the video card to your new system.

 

[SpacemanSpiffVT]

makes sense!

 

[Zorander]

You should overclock the CPU too if you have not already (and use a decent aftermarket HSF). My old i7-860 ran @3.8GHz without much issue.