Is it time to upgrade?

[Slick Fork]

Hi there,

I've got an i5-2500k @4.4 on a z68 motherboard and 16gb of RAM with an Intel ssd and a gtx 780 video card and ok considering an upgrade to skylake.

Just wondering how big of an upgrade of actually be getting. My big cpu intensive games are dcs world, and total war and I just got witcher 3 which I understand is fairly cpu bound in spots. Other than that I do a lot of photo editing.

I know the cpu itself will give me about 15-20% but will I see an increase with the motherboard as well as its newer, pcie 3.0 etc.

Thoughts?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

It is always time to upgrade.

You will get a 15-20% CPU boost if you get lucky with a chip that will match your overclock in terms of MHz. Less if you don't. *crosses fingers*.

A GTX 780 is powerful enough that I'd want to know your budget. A 980 or a 980 Ti would be a pretty substantial (>=40%+ FPS) upgrade though. But if you can only afford, say, a 970, sticking with the 780 is probably alright.

 

[Slick Fork]

A 980ti is a little over budget and I typically don't like to buy a video card every offering as that gets really spendy!

I've gotten a good number of years out of the 2500k and am trying to decide if I've got the itch because it's worth doing or simply because I've had it for a while.

 

[RaistlinZ]

I say do it just because it's fun to do. Don't need much more reason than that. Sell your current rig to recoup some of the cost. Life is short after all.

 

[bigboxes]

I say wait one more go round. When you are ready to upgrade your gpu then I say upgrade the entire platform.

 

[mysticjbyrd]

A 980ti is a little over budget and I typically don't like to buy a video card every offering as that gets really spendy!

I've gotten a good number of years out of the 2500k and am trying to decide if I've got the itch because it's worth doing or simply because I've had it for a while.

Not worth it all imo... You should wait a year for kabylake, or skylake-e. The new lithography size reduction on the video cards should make for a HUGE increase in performance. Though with a 780, you could even hold off until prices come down on that as well.

 

[happy medium]

I think you should skip socket 1151 and wait for what comes after.

Overclock that 780 and hold out till next year.
Next year upgrade to the second fastest Pascal card (like a gtx970) and ride that card till the end of 2017. It will be at least 2.5x faster than your 780 and your current cpu should push it ok..

By then Intel will have the next platform (new socket) out and gpu's will be getting a refresh which you won't need.

 

[mysticjbyrd]

I think you should skip socket 1151 and wait for what comes after.

Overclock that 780 and hold out till next year.
Next year upgrade to the second fastest Pascal card (like a gtx970) and ride that card till the end of 2017. It will be at least 2.5x faster than your 780 and your current cpu should push it ok..

By then Intel will have the next platform (new socket) out and gpu's will be getting a refresh which you won't need.

Cannonlake won't be out for ~2 years. Seems like a long time to wait with a dated cpu. They might be getting a new arch, but I seriously doubt they will increase performance much at all between kabylacke, and 1st gen cannonlake.

 

[frozentundra123456]

2500k at 4.4 is still pretty potent. However, you probably could get 20 to 30 percent ipc improvement and some additional boost from hyperthreading in some games if you went to a 6700k. I dont see anything on the horizon worth waiting for from Intel. You could wait a year (or more) for Zen and hope for a miracle from AMD. Like I keep harping in these forums, too bad intel doesnt offer a hex core on the current architecture. If they did, that would probably be the best upgrade path, but if you want more cores, you are forced to a 2 generation Haswell E on 22nm. Personally, I would just wait for the new 14/16nm gpus next year, upgrade the gpu, and see how the cpu handles more gpu power. By then we might also have some idea how DX12 games will perform, whether there is any possibility of Zen being a vialble upgrade, and Skylake E could be close to coming out.

 

[buklau]

I would sell your 2500k and then get a used 2600k/2700k on ebay to extend the life of your system until Nvidia/AMD next gen video cards comes out. I went from a 2500k 4.6 (ddr3 1600 8gb) to 3570k 4.6 (ddr3 1600 8gb) to 4690k 4.6 (ddr3 2200 16gb) to 4790k 4.8 (ddr3 2400 16gb) in the past years. The gain I received was minimal with the i5 but then HT in my current i7 helped in few games I played.

 

[happy medium]

I would sell your 2500k and then get a used 2600k/2700k on ebay to extend the life of your system until Nvidia/AMD next gen video cards comes out. I went from a 2500k 4.6 (ddr3 1600 8gb) to 3570k 4.6 (ddr3 1600 8gb) to 4690k 4.6 (ddr3 2200 16gb) to 4790k 4.8 (ddr3 2400 16gb) in the past years. The gain I received was minimal with the i5 but then HT in my current i7 helped in few games I played.

I like this idea,hyperthreading is worth the extra 40$ you'd pay for a 2600k.
It should extend the life of your rig till Intel's next socket and Cannonlake.

 

[VirtualLarry]

The gain I received was minimal with the i5 but then HT in my current i7 helped in few games I played.

That seems to concur with Toyota's observation, that HT in modern AAA games does seem to make a positive difference.

 

[Z15CAM]

I agree with Baklau - Trade in your i5 2500k for either a i7 2600k or i7 2700k for a few bucks then get a Corsair H110 AIO for the I7 and if money permits - water cool that 780.

 

[phexac]

I am in a similar situation to you, as I am running i7-2600K. While it's a little more powerful, the difference is not terribly large.

Currently with a modest overclock, I can basically match i7-6700K performance in many cases. In games, the bottleneck is still the GPU since I game at 2560x1600 or 3440x1440, so that isn't a reason to upgrade either.

Moreover, even if you compare apples to apples and say that the i7-6700K will have an edge over my process once both are overclocked, that edge won't be all that large. The main computationally intensive task that I perform is calculating large Excel spreadsheets. I would get a huge boost there out of additional cores, but not all that much out of somewhat more powerful cores. For that reason, I think I will wait for Skylake-E to come around or for the next gen chip after that, where I can get more cores into my machine. Even then, it will be about improving super computationally intensive case performance only. In day to day gaming and desktop use.

 

[Head1985]

Hi there,

I've got an i5-2500k @4.4 on a z68 motherboard and 16gb of RAM with an Intel ssd and a gtx 780 video card and ok considering an upgrade to skylake.

Just wondering how big of an upgrade of actually be getting. My big cpu intensive games are dcs world, and total war and I just got witcher 3 which I understand is fairly cpu bound in spots. Other than that I do a lot of photo editing.

I know the cpu itself will give me about 15-20% but will I see an increase with the motherboard as well as its newer, pcie 3.0 etc.

Thoughts?

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=37684080&postcount=4726
In short 30-40% IPC another 5-60% fom HT and in some games more than twice performance(crysis3)
Just look at frametimes and comparable FPS.Fraps is there only for min fps.

But you will need upgrade your gpu

 

[frozentundra123456]

I like this idea,hyperthreading is worth the extra 40$ you'd pay for a 2600k.
It should extend the life of your rig till Intel's next socket and Cannonlake.

Only problem with this, is you are giving up a known quantity in a 2500k that overclocks well for a 2600k of unknown history, or at least you have to trust the seller. If buying new, yes, hyperthreading is worth 40.00, and probably even the extra hundred dollars it costs you new. But to go used, especially giving up a good chip, is a bit risky.

 

[happy medium]

Only problem with this, is you are giving up a known quantity in a 2500k that overclocks well for a 2600k of unknown history, or at least you have to trust the seller. If buying new, yes, hyperthreading is worth 40.00, and probably even the extra hundred dollars it costs you new. But to go used, especially giving up a good chip, is a bit risky.

But how good is his chip ? He's only at 4.4 . I thought those 2500k's were good for 4.6 to 4.9?

 

[RussianSensation]

I would sell your 2500k and then get a used 2600k/2700k on ebay to extend the life of your system until Nvidia/AMD next gen video cards comes out. I went from a 2500k 4.6 (ddr3 1600 8gb) to 3570k 4.6 (ddr3 1600 8gb) to 4690k 4.6 (ddr3 2200 16gb) to 4790k 4.8 (ddr3 2400 16gb) in the past years. The gain I received was minimal with the i5 but then HT in my current i7 helped in few games I played.

This is solid advice. The biggest issue with 2500K is lack of HT, not lack of IPC.

2600K smashes 2500K in games that use > 4 cores like TW3 or Ryse Son of Rome.

However, most modern games are still more GPU limited, and that includes TW3, Crysis 3, Ryse Son of Rome, GTA V, etc. 780 is going to hold back 2600K OC with settings maxed out in those titles.

After a swap from 2500K to 2600K/2700K, I'd start eyeing a new GPU either a GTX980 B-stock or wait for next year to get a 16nm GPU with performance roughly at 980Ti's level.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=37684080&postcount=4726
In short 30-40% IPC another 5-60% fom HT and in some games more than twice performance(crysis3)
Just look at frametimes and comparable FPS.Fraps is there only for min fps.

But you will need upgrade your gpu

Yup. Although between a move from i5 2500K -> Skylake or a 2600K/2700K swap + GPU upgrade, if on a limited budget, I'd pick the latter. Just upgrading to Skylake 6700K isn't going to solve the situation in TW3. This is one of those 2015 games that just kills every GPU out besides 980Ti/Titan X.

Only problem with this, is you are giving up a known quantity in a 2500k that overclocks well for a 2600k of unknown history, or at least you have to trust the seller. If buying new, yes, hyperthreading is worth 40.00, and probably even the extra hundred dollars it costs you new. But to go used, especially giving up a good chip, is a bit risky.

There isn't much risk really because almost all SB chips hit 4.4-4.5Ghz on stock voltage. That was one of the biggest advantages of SB over IVB and Haswell. To not get 4.4Ghz on a 2600K would be highly unlikely especially if overvolting.

I know the cpu itself will give me about 15-20% but will I see an increase with the motherboard as well as its newer, pcie 3.0 etc.

Thoughts?

With your GPU, almost none. With a 980 the difference is only 2% between PCIe 2.0 x16 and PCIe 3.0 x16.

The Witcher 3 is just one of those crazy demanding games that hammers older GPUs like 780. Even with a 5960X @ 4.4Ghz, you will be lucky to get 40 fps average in demanding scenes at 1080P.

 

[RussianSensation]

Total War Attila is even worse. There is no single GPU out this generation that can max it out at 1080P.

26 fps on a 780 and 36 fps on a 980 on UQ.

Total War Attila is massively GPU limited, not only CPU limited. Creative Assembly games tend to be insanely demanding (poorly optimized?) Upgrading from 2500K to 2600K/6700K will do very little to help you in Total War series with a GPU as slow as a 780. You are going to want to get a GTX980Ti for this game to max it out or overclock 780 and lower settings and enjoy the game, not worrying about Ultra Ultra graphics

 

[frozentundra123456]

Well, even in your handpicked games the gain from hyperthreading is only around 20%. Still not sure it is worth selling a good chip with a known history for an unknown chip that might be a dud or have had too much voltage applied.

 

[mysticjbyrd]

Well, even in your handpicked games the gain from hyperthreading is only around 20%. Still not sure it is worth selling a good chip with a known history for an unknown chip that might be a dud or have had too much voltage applied.

I agree. I don't see the value in minor upgrades that yield such small performance increases, particularly when it is sufficient to do what you want for the next year.

If they guy has money to throw away, then he would already have a 6700k.

 

[sm625]

Buy a 6700K.

 

[Slick Fork]

Thanks for all the responses so far. Definitely a lot to consider, and it's tough to think of my 780 6gb as a "slow" card since I only bought it last year. That's likely a large part of my reluctance in upgrading the GPU at this point as I'd really like to feel that I got my moneys worth out of it before I discard it. Additionally, the upcoming change in architecture in GPU's has me thinking that the 980's might be significantly cheaper next year.

I don't think I'm super interested in trying to hunt down a good 1155 i7, as someone mentioned earlier in the thread there's a significant risk that I'd be getting an overvolted or dud chip. Additionally, being in small town Alberta finding local sellers and buyers for stuff is a challenge at times.

I hadn't previously considered an i7 at all but a few of the benchmarks that Head1985 linked to as well as on this thread

http://www.overclock.net/t/1568377/gaming-5820k-vs-6700k/150

seem to indicate that an i7 would be worth the extra $100 if I go to Skylake as it's showing some pretty significant gains from what I have. Especially in Arma 3 and I'm guessing that would carry through into DCS as I'm positive I'm CPU bound in that game as well.

Right now I'm kind of leaning towards acquiring a 6700K setup as sales come up (cyber monday/boxing day) and as I accumulate bits and pieces I think I'll put my 780 on kijiji and if I can get ~60% of the price of a 980 for it then I'd be happy to upgrade my GPU at this point as well if the performance differential is that high from the 7 to 9 series GPU's.

 

[RussianSensation]

Well, even in your handpicked games the gain from hyperthreading is only around 20%. Still not sure it is worth selling a good chip with a known history for an unknown chip that might be a dud or have had too much voltage applied.

The reason I suggested it is because his 4.4Ghz overclock on the 2500K is one of the lowest I've seen which tells me he wouldn't have to play much overclocking lottery with any 2600K to get to 4.4Ghz. Overclocking lottery with 2600K is getting to 4.9-5.0Ghz. Also, if he can sell his 2500K and get a used 2600K/2700K, that would be by far the cheapest CPU upgrade and way more cost effective to get 20% boost via HT than going with a 6700K platform.

The part that worries me is he'll upgrade to 6700K thinking suddenly his gaming in TW3 will skyrocket with a 780 but it won't.

1080P No Hairworks
980Ti = 69 fps
980 = 56 fps
780 = 38 fps

1080P w/ Hairworks
980Ti = 55 fps
980 = 46 fps
780 = 29 fps
http://gamegpu.ru/action-/-fps-/-tps/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt-hearts-of-stone-test-gpu.html

The issue is his videocard's lack of horsepower. I don't even know where he got the idea that his 2500K @ 4.4Ghz is a big bottleneck in the games he mentioned, Neogaf or our Skylake CPU sub-forum thread that is basically aimed to justify/sell us on Skylake upgrades?

Right now I'm kind of leaning towards acquiring a 6700K setup as sales come up (cyber monday/boxing day) and as I accumulate bits and pieces I think I'll put my 780 on kijiji and if I can get ~60% of the price of a 980 for it then I'd be happy to upgrade my GPU at this point as well if the performance differential is that high from the 7 to 9 series GPU's.

If you want to do a parts upgrade, then I would go 6700K, not 6600K. I don't see i5 2500K to i5 6600K as a good upgrade. Next year sell the 780 and get Pascal as there is nothing in NV's stack for you worth upgrading to except a GTX980 or GTX980Ti. My thinking is that if you get a 6700K now and wait until next summer to get Pascal, by that time we'll be closer to Kaby Lake's launch so what was the point of getting a 6700K all this time as your 780 is the primary bottleneck in the games you described?

You have to understand though that the games you listed are all more GPU limited rather than CPU limited. That means going from 780 to 980Ti would give you a bigger gain in TW3 or Total War Attila than moving from an i5 2500K OC to an i7 6700K OC. Therefore, you are going to need to upgrade that graphics card either now or in 2016 with Pascal/AMD's Arctic Islands, or get a 980Ti on sale

Unfortunately, 780 doesn't perform well at stock speeds. You could try is overclocking your 780 to 1.15-1.2Ghz as that should give it more performance and you might play with the settings a bit to lower them to find a better balance between IQ and FPS.

 

[Slick Fork]

OK, so I have a small slice of hat to eat. When I upgraded to the 780 last spring I didn't see an ENORMOUS benefit in my framerates which has led me to the closely held belief that my CPU is my bottleneck.

So, last night I loaded up DCS and played the Black Shark missions that give me the most grief with stuttering and ran MSI's afterburner in the background. Sure enough, my GPU hit 100% repeatedly while my CPU cores were just cruising along and not being too stressed at all.

So, I'm converted and while I still think I'd like an i7 I've made peace with the fact that my 780 6gb was likely a pretty poor purchase at the time and it should be first on my list to upgrade so the card went on Kijiji this morning.

With that said I'm a little gun-shy about spending the premium on a 980 as the difference in price between a 970 with an 1165 clock and a 980 with a similar clock is at least $200 Cdn, so would a 970 provide a reasonable bump or should I just sit on everything until the next gen video cards come out?