Should I upgrade my CPU or GPU?

[fffblackmage]

I was planning on upgrading to Haswell once it came out, but now I'm reconsidering after getting three monitors for Eyefinity a couple months ago. While I would like to upgrade my CPU, I don't think it'll get me much improvement in gaming as upgrading the GPU would, especially after reading this recent Anandtech article.

Anyways, here's my current rig:
Phenom II X2 550BE (unlocked, @3.4GHz)
GA-MA785GM-US2H
10GB DDR2 @800MHz
60GB Agility w/Arowana FTL
HIS 7870 @1100MHz

Display/resolution:
3x 1080p monitors
5760 x 1080

So, rather than going with my planned upgrade to Haswell, I am considering upgrading the 7870 to a 7950 instead. As much as I'd like to get the 7970, I don't think I' willing to spend that much. Does this make sense?

Games I'm playing or probably will play in the near future:
Far Cry 3
The Witcher 2
Bioshock Infinity
Crysis 3

 

[mfenn]

What games?

 

[Termie]

You absolutely need a new CPU. You are completely CPU bottlenecked right now. You're probably getting about 60% of the performance out of that HD7870.

And let's be completely clear - the HD7950 is about 15-20% faster than an HD7870, and would make a terrible upgrade.

 

[RaistlinZ]

CPU/Mobo/RAM...STAT!

 

[AnonymouseUser]

You need a new CPU, motherboard, and RAM.

 

[Bateluer]

CPU/Mobo/RAM...STAT!

But with his existing CPU/Mobo/RAM combo, he should just wait until Haswell to buy.

OP's current platform doesn't have the upgradeability to complete with Sandy or Ivy.

 

[fffblackmage]

At the moment, I'm playing Far Cry 3. Maybe later, I'll try The Witcher 2. It struggled on my 5870 (and maybe it's the CPU's fault too, though idk) and I haven't tried it again with the 7870 yet. I'll probably pick up Crysis 3 and Bioshock Infinity some time in the future.

I know going from 7870 to 7950 isn't all that much of an upgrade. I usually wait until the next generation or even skip a generation, but I'm not entirely convinced a CPU will help much with the high resolution (5760x1080) and high settings I want in this case.

 

[Termie]

At the moment, I'm playing Far Cry 3. Maybe later, I'll try The Witcher 2. It struggled on my 5870 (and maybe it's the CPU's fault too, though idk) and I haven't tried it again with the 7870 yet. I'll probably pick up Crysis 3 and Bioshock Infinity some time in the future.

I know going from 7870 to 7950 isn't all that much of an upgrade. I usually wait until the next generation or even skip a generation, but I'm not entirely convinced a CPU will help much with the high resolution (5760x1080) and high settings I want in this case.

Just to be clear, did you test Far Cry 3 at 5760x1080 on a 5870? You said you haven't tried your 7870.

A game like Crysis 3 will run poorly on your CPU, the Witcher 2 will probably be OK. Far Cry 3 is in the middle, but I still wouldn't upgrade to a 7950 from a 7870 under any circumstances.

 

[lehtv]

I would definitely upgrade the CPU first. Even though it may be that on your resolution, the 7870 isn't too bottlenecked in most games, you can't say the same about even faster cards.

I would also not consider going from 7870 to 7950. It's not much of an upgrade. IMO the only viable upgrades are crossfire/sli, Titan or next gen.

 

[AnonymouseUser]

Just to be clear, when you say "(unlocked, @3.4GHz)", is that unlocked to 4 cores? If so, that's not as bad as dual-core, obviously, but the motherboard and RAM are holding it back some.

 

[fffblackmage]

Just to be clear, did you test Far Cry 3 at 5760x1080 on a 5870? You said you haven't tried your 7870.

A game like Crysis 3 will run poorly on your CPU, the Witcher 2 will probably be OK. Far Cry 3 is in the middle, but I still wouldn't upgrade to a 7950 from a 7870 under any circumstances.

Oops. I made that confusing. When I had the 5870, I was still gaming at 1920x1200, and framerates were under 30fps often in Witcher 2. I haven't tried the game again since I upgrading to the 7870. Now I'm curious as to whether framerates improved with the 7870 (@1080p). I'll have to try it when I find some time.

 

[Durvelle27]

CPU !!!

 

[Termie]

Oops. I made that confusing. When I had the 5870, I was still gaming at 1920x1200, and framerates were under 30fps often in Witcher 2. I haven't tried the game again since I upgrading to the 7870. Now I'm curious as to whether framerates improved with the 7870 (@1080p). I'll have to try it when I find some time.

To make the best decision, what you should probably do is benchmark the games you want to play on your current system, at the resolution you want to play them at. So, it might look like this:

Phenom II X2 Unlocked@3.4/HD7870@1100
-------------------1920x1080---------------5760x1080
Witcher 2
Far Cry 3
[Other games]

 

[Essence_of_War]

I'll pile onto the CPU/MoBo/RAM upgrade.

A useful visual reference:

For CPU
For GPU

You've got a high-tier GPU, and the marginal improvement in going to the 7950 from 7870 is almost certainly not worth it.

You're about 5-6 tiers out from a solid gaming CPU.

 

[fffblackmage]

To make the best decision, what you should probably do is benchmark the games you want to play on your current system, at the resolution you want to play them at. So, it might look like this:

Phenom II X2 Unlocked@3.4/HD7870@1100
-------------------1920x1080---------------5760x1080
Witcher 2
Far Cry 3
[Other games]

That's a good idea. I was thinking of doing some benchmarking so I can see what kind of performance gains I would be getting, whether I was upgrading the GPU or the CPU. But maybe I'll do what you're suggesting. I'll run some benchmarks at 1080p and 5760x1080 first, and that would probably give me an idea of what I need to upgrade.

Before I go nuts on spending time on running benchmarks, should I just use max settings for everything? For example, I play using the lowest settings at 5760x1080 in Far Cry 3, but for benchmarking, should I use max settings?

 

[Termie]

That's a good idea. I was thinking of doing some benchmarking so I can see what kind of performance gains I would be getting, whether I was upgrading the GPU or the CPU. But maybe I'll do what you're suggesting. I'll run some benchmarks at 1080p and 5760x1080 first, and that would probably give me an idea of what I need to upgrade.

Before I go nuts on spending time on running benchmarks, should I just use max settings for everything? For example, I play using the lowest settings at 5760x1080 in Far Cry 3, but for benchmarking, should I use max settings?

This is a good question. I can tell you from experience that there's no way you'll be able to play Far Cry 3 maxed at that resolution with anything less than a $1,000 Titan, and even then it would be pushing it. My GTX670 struggles at 2560x1440p.

That being said, if you're willing to do both 1080p and triple-screen resolutions, then you might get some interesting and helpful results by setting everything at max. For instance, in Far Cry 3, you should be able to play at 1080p max settings on your OC'd HD7870, and if the benchmarks comes out very low, you know you have a CPU problem. At the higher resolution, it will be unplayable, but that will give you an idea of how much more GPU power you'll need, as the CPU won't limit it anymore than it does at 1080p.

Let me give you two hypothetical examples:

Scenario 1: With Far Cry 3 maxed at 1080p, your setup provides 40fps, and maxed at 5760x1080, it provides 15fps.

What we could conclude from this outcome is that you have sufficient CPU power to play at your desired triple-monitor settings, but insufficient GPU power, and that a doubling of GPU power might get you to where you'd like to be (as in using HD7870 Crossfire).

Scenario 2: With Far Cry 3 maxed at 1080p, your setup provides 25fps, and maxed at 5760x1080, it provides 15fps.

What we could conclude from this outcome is that you have insufficient CPU power for either setting, as gaming at triple the resolution does not alter anywhere close to a 3:1 ratio.

 

[fffblackmage]

So far, I've only managed to reformat my computer, and now I'm looking at what benchmark I can run. I don't suppose Far Cry 3 or Bioshock Infinite have an easy to use benchmark tool, like Far Cry 2 did. And what other games have benchmarks I could run.

 

[AnonymouseUser]

So far, I've only managed to reformat my computer, and now I'm looking at what benchmark I can run. I don't suppose Far Cry 3 or Bioshock Infinite have an easy to use benchmark tool, like Far Cry 2 did. And what other games have benchmarks I could run.

Every time I launch Bioshock Infinite I get the option to play or benchmark. Haven't played FC3 (does Blood Dragon count?) so don't know about that.

 

[Termie]

Bioshock Infinite has a good built-in benchmark. Far Cry 3 does not have a benchmark.

 

[VirtualLarry]

60GB Agility w/Arowana FTL

How did you upgrade to that FTL? I have some 30GB Agility drives. Did that FTL show any improvements in performance or longevity? I'm running 1.7, and I figure if it's not broke, I shouldn't mess with it.

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/f...-Update-for-34nm-Vertex-Agility-Solid2-drives

http://thessdreview.com/daily-news/...ig-upgrade-for-34nm-indilinx-barefoot-drives/

 

[fffblackmage]

I didn't really notice any difference after updating, but according to AS SSD, it made a difference.

Agility 60GB (F/W 1.7, AMD 785G-based rig):

with the Arowana FTL (shows up as F/W 3.55):

I have a second 60GB Agility which is in my laptop:
Agility 60GB (F/W 1.7, PM965-based laptop).

with Arowana FTL:

Seems like the biggest difference is in small writes performance and latency. Arowana FTL also reserves more space for over provisioning. Other than seeing those numbers, I'm not sure it made much difference.

As for how I did it... IIRC, it's mostly the earlier Agility SSDs that can be upgraded to Arowana. First, just make sure the SSD can be upgraded by identifying the 6 digit identifier number. After that, it was mostly just following the instructions.

Actually, the first time I tried the update, I thought I bricked one of my SSDs, since it looked like the computer froze during the update or something. I must have been lucky, because after I restarted the computer, the update turned out to be successful. Patience FTW?

 

[fffblackmage]

I thought I'd throw these numbers out here, since I think it's interesting. To an extent, my prediction was correct - the new CPU doesn't help me as much as I'd like (helps in games I'm not planning on playing, but not so much in games that I do). Sadly, my previous mobo didn't support CFX, and going from 7870 to 7950I'm still very happy with the shiny new cpu and mobo though.

These were my previous specs:
Phenom II X2 550BE (unlocked, @3.4GHz [via Catalyst CPU OverDrive], NB@2.4GHz)
HIS 7870 (factory OC'ed @1100/1200)
2x1GB Crucial Ballistix, DDR2-800, 5-6-6-18, 2T
2x4GB Crucial, DDR2-800, 5-6-6-18, 2T
Gigabyte GA-MA785GM-US2H
OCZ Agility 60GB w/Arowana FTL
Samsung F4EG 2TB
Antec NeoHE 500W
Antec 900

And here are the new CPU, RAM, and mobo:
i5-4670k stock
2x4GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3-1600, 9-9-9-24, 2T
AsRock Z87 Extreme6

All games were run with highest settings available, unless noted. I disabled motion blur in most games, just because I typically don't like it. Most games were run with no AA, though some seem to always have some form of AA on, like Metro2033.

Note: All numbers recorded are from just one run. I also have not done a reformat when upgrading the CPU and mobo. I simply uninstalled the previous mobo drivers, swapped out the hardware, and then installed the new drivers. I'm just too lazy to do it until I get a new SSD within the next month or so.

 

[Termie]

Just an FYI, it looks like you're using only built in benchmarks, and those are very ineffective at testing CPU loads. To really determine the impact of the upgrade, you'll have to test on game, which of course takes a lot more time.