Will a 4770 boost my performance?

[Agent707]

My current system is 3 years old.
I am running an ASUS P7P55 mobo, i5-760 Lynnfield 2.8ghz (stock speed), Win7 x64, 256GB SATA3 SSD.

My original video card was a 5870 2GB card. And system memory 4GB.

I have since upgraded the video card to a EVGA GTX 680 Classified 4GB, and sys ram to 16GB.

My question is, where can I find some performance benchmark charts where I can plug in this gear and see how much of a boost I will get if I upgrade to a Z87 and a 4770?

I play games at 1920x1200.

Right now, my system still runs good, but I'm thinking with this lastest video card I put in (and man is it a doozie!!!) that I could get a good boost in performance if I update the mobo/cpu.

I know video card upgrade provide a tremendous boost in performance for games (I think I increased my graphics power by 2.2x), but I don't want to spend $500 on a cpu upgrade if all I am going to see is 15% better load times... and not much else.

Anyway, your opinions will be noted, however, I am looking for something solid to go by (performance CPU comparison benchmarks).


I have combed through many of them and can't seem to find anything where I can compare my old one to these new ones.

Thanks much. :awe:


(I used to be a memeber of this many site years ago, joined in 1999, with ~5000 posts... but my account got deleted or something in a forums conversion upgrade or something a few years back... oh well). :$

 

[waldoh]

Your CPU can bottleneck your GPU, so the performance gain could be significant.

As for benchmarks, here is a link: http://anandtech.com/bench/Product/191?vs=836

 

[dave_the_nerd]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6934/choosing-a-gaming-cpu-single-multigpu-at-1440p/

So you're not gaming at 1440p. But you can see here how CPU power does or doesn't effect gaming performance with a given video card(s).

Your CPU should be ~75% as awesome as the i5-2500k in CPU limited stuff. I'm not sure what the closest equivalent AMD CPU is in that article, but he said he's going to add more CPUs later.

If I were you, I'd probably wait until whatever comes after Haswell. *shrug*

 

[Pneumothorax]

Why don't you overclock your i5-760? Those were known to be almost guaranteed to 4 Ghz. That would make your CPU up to par for the majority of games out today.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Do your own tests, use MSI Afterburner to figure out if your GPU usage is at 99% when you're getting frame rate drops.

 

[BrightCandle]

No one really does reviews at around your level unfortunately. gamegpu.ru does test CPUs with every game but they are using a 690 which will perform roughly twice as fast as your 680. Any bottlenecks they show using that rig don't necessarily translate to your GPU as its no where near as quick.

However from there data we see really marginal gains from faster CPUs on average, around ~3% although sometimes it can be as high as 74%. On average its going to be below your 15% threshold, but that isn't universally true across all games. Some games really hit on the CPU a lot harder than others.

I doubt you would see much performance benefit from an upgrade of the CPU, another GPU is affordable in that price and would bring a lot more performance.

 

[Concillian]

Download FRAPS... have FRAPS log FPS of your gaming sessions.

If your instantaneous FPS drops down to 30-35 (or below) at any point in your gaming session, then a faster CPU might be a noticeable improvement. In my own experience, this is when I start noticing framerate drops. If minimum FPS is above this level, I consider my computer's capability to be perfect and faster is useless... because *I* do not notice a difference.

If you really want to tell for sure, then drop your CPU clocks 500 MHz and see if you even notice a difference.

In my own experience, there are some games that will see significant and noticeable dips as a result, but other games you won't even be able to tell a difference of 500 Mhz. It's very dependent on what games you play and how they utilize the CPU.

On paper, a 4770 Haswell is significantly faster stock to stock than your i5-760. You're talking about on the order of about 20% from clock speed, about 20% from architecture improvements that will make every clock cycle do a little more work and about 20% from Hyperthreading on multi-threaded applications that make use of more than 4 cores (which does NOT include most games). Potentially that's around 1.7x faster in an ideal case and around 1.4-1.5x in other cases. While that seems like it should be very noticeable, I'd still encourage you to test the games you play to see if you notice performance degradation dropping 500 MHz, because many games are not very CPU bound on a 760.

 

[Ventanni]

The 4770k would be an excellent upgrade, but honestly I'd recommend investing in a good HSF and overclocking until a future generation of Intel chips is released.

 

[beginner99]

You might be CPU limited in games if you play Starcraft 2 4v4 or Battlefield 3 64 Player maps.

I myself have a 870 (moderate OC to 3.4 GHZ base, turbo enabled) and see no reason to upgrade the cpu. Still on a 5850 at 1680x1050 so next upgrade will be GPU and display anyway.

 

[PPB]

If you dont tell the extact games and at what settings this behaviour is showing, its pretty much useless to give advice based on pure speculation.

At a first glance, yes, it might bottleneck that 680 even at 1080p, but all depends of the settings and the games involved.

 

[KompuKare]

BrightCandle already mentioned gamepgu.ru but the problem with them is that they only have a fairly limited range of CPUs they test with. PCgameshardware.de have a different set of CPUs and this time (well I only looked their last review) the i5-760 is in there:
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/Compa...4/Tests/Company-of-Heroes-2-CPU-Test-1076123/

Of course, their GPU choice is not ideal for your comparision since they use a Titan. If you can overclock your CPU to 4GHz or so, you should be able to avoid upgrading for a few more years still. After all, LGA1156 was before Intel disabled overclocking aside from their K-series and you might as well avail of that.

 

[lehtv]

You might be CPU limited in games if you play Starcraft 2 4v4 or Battlefield 3 64 Player maps.

He is definitely going to be limited in BF3 / 64. I was heavily CPU limited with i7 920 @3.36 and a 7950@1.1. And by heavily limited I mean 40fps minimums, 50fps averages, 60fps some of the time. Upgrading to 3770K fixed it for me, now I get constant 60fps. The upgrade also helped other games, e.g. Alan Wake had 40fps minimums with the old CPU. Alan Wake is dual threaded, and the low performance per thread of the i7-920 was hurting the 7950's potential.

The i7-750 is quite a bit slower in BF3 given it's not hyperthreaded, and the 680 is faster than 7950.

@OP
If you have the funds, I do recommend upgrading. It will also net you lower power consumption and updated chipset/board features like USB 3.0. The integrated GPU can also prove useful as a backup or if using a secondary monitor. Also keep in mind that the longer you hold on to your old hardware, the more it will lose value. Now could be the last chance to get a decent price for your old hardware - if the next Intel generation proves to be a good bit faster than the current one, your i5-750 is not going to be worth much at all.

 

[Concillian]

He is definitely And by heavily limited I mean 40fps minimums, 50fps averages, 60fps some of the time. Upgrading to 3770K fixed it for me, now I get constant 60fps.

In my own testing of myself, I couldn't tell the difference between 40 FPS minimums and 60 FPS minimums, so I would consider this to be perfect and not bottlenecked in any kind of way that would matter in the real world.

That's why I suggested FRAPS and doing his own testing. Looking at reviews and such don't give you any sort of flavor for whether the difference is significant. As I said, I'd personally consider going from 40 FPS minimums to 60 FPS minimums insignificant if the testing were done in a truly real world scenario (at setting I personally would use, on maps I personally play, etc...)

Most numbers that people suggest for minimums are pulled out of their ass, so why not test yourself and find the appropriate minimum number for the one person that really matters? It's not like it's difficult or takes a long time. Just download FRAPS and have it log FPS. When you notice a framerate drop, just look at your log in that timeframe and see what the low number is. Do that for a few sessions and you'll see what "your number" is. If you don't notice... then downclock your CPU until you do notice. It really doesn't take a lot of effort and the knowledge gained for making purchase decisions is invaluable.

 

[jacktesterson]

If you get that i5-760 up to 4.0 Ghz, which most do, you will actually be fine for majority of games.

 

[Makaveli]

If you get that i5-760 up to 4.0 Ghz, which most do, you will actually be fine for majority of games.

Agreed.

Do as suggested above and get better HSF and overclock it.

 

[2is]

4770 would be a significant upgrade IMO

 

[RU482]

The 4770k would be an excellent upgrade, but honestly I'd recommend investing in a good HSF and overclocking until a future generation of Intel chips is released.

lol, the dream is over dude, Sandy was the last great enthusiast leap. its all about power reduction now

 

[automaton]

Your CPU can bottleneck your GPU, so the performance gain could be significant.

As for benchmarks, here is a link: http://anandtech.com/bench/Product/191?vs=836

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/CPU/129 try this

 

[Arkaign]

Oc that existing setup with a good tower cooler and you're gold.

 

[ShintaiDK]

If your 760 is at stock, then its a huge upgrade. I tried before going from a stock 860 to a 3570K.

 

[blackened23]

If your 760 is at stock, then its a huge upgrade. I tried before going from a stock 860 to a 3570K.

Agreed. I can't believe some of the folks saying the 760 to Haswell isn't an upgrade. I don't know if it's wishful thinking or just obliviousness (usually AMD fans, interestingly enough, conclude from that what you will) , i've upgraded many friends' lynnfield systems to IVB and Haswell to know that the increase in most games, especially CPU limited games and MP games, is huge. Games like Crysis 3, Skyrim, SC2, WoW, and BF3 multiplayer (among others) will easily go up in performance by 40% or more with the same GPU, since they're CPU limited especially in MP. It's just humorous to read these posts from folks thinking that a 760 will handle bf4 64 playby er MP just as well as a haswell...whatever they say...I've seen the differences between lynnfield - IVB/Haswell in games with my own eyes.

Their loss for listening to bad advice. You certainly won't catch me doing 64 player MP bf3 or bf4 on a 760 or lynnfield.

 

[InfoFront]

lol, the dream is over dude, Sandy was the last great enthusiast leap. its all about power reduction now

Yep. This is about as good as it's gonna get 'til Skylake, sometime in 2015. Even then, the performance leap may be another baby step.

 

[Arkaign]

Agreed. I can't believe some of the folks saying the 760 to Haswell isn't an upgrade. I don't know if it's wishful thinking or just obliviousness (usually AMD fans, interestingly enough, conclude from that what you will) , i've upgraded many friends' lynnfield systems to IVB and Haswell to know that the increase in most games, especially CPU limited games and MP games, is huge. Games like Crysis 3, Skyrim, SC2, WoW, and BF3 multiplayer (among others) will easily go up in performance by 40% or more with the same GPU, since they're CPU limited especially in MP. It's just humorous to read these posts from folks thinking that a 760 will handle bf4 64 playby er MP just as well as a haswell...whatever they say...I've seen the differences between lynnfield - IVB/Haswell in games with my own eyes.

Their loss for listening to bad advice. You certainly won't catch me doing 64 player MP bf3 or bf4 on a 760 or lynnfield.

One of my best friends in the world plays 64P BF3 on much less than a Lynnfield, and has an absolute blast (this is with a GTS450 LOL!!). The right settings are magic in terms of making things playable for people without unlimited budgets. Besides, we don't know what games he even plays.

At 1920x1200, he's going to be a bit less CPU limited than usual, even with a pretty solid GPU.

Stock v stock, yes going to Haswell (or even Ivy/Sandy) is a pretty large upgrade. Once the 760 is at 4Ghz, it's a bit less clear. My point is that upgrading the entire platform to a 4770K + new mobo is a holy crapton more expensive than trying out a $30 air cooler like a 212 evo and seeing what an OC will do for him. If he's still not satisfied, that's not a big chance to take, and no significant expense was incurred.

Imho a 4Ghz 760 + 680 is a great combo for 1200p gaming. Is a 4770 better? Yes. Is it $400+ better? Erm. Depends on the person I guess. If I had a 1200p screen, my $400 would be better spent on a 1440p IPS upgrade, that's just my take.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Even at 4GHz Lynnfield will still be roughly 35% slower than a stock Haswell in legacy code, there really isn't anything hazy about that.

The i7 for gaming is a poor choice when it comes to perf/$.

Buy the new VGA, play your games. Assuming you're using vsync, if you're seeing FPS drops below that while GPU usage isn't pegging 99% than in just about every case the reason for that will be cpu limitations.

Only you can decide worth based on your own needs. I would not try to find reviews for this purpose as they will pale in comparison to your own usage and experiences.

As far as 1440p goes it's a skip resolution with 4K coming and the inability of current gen VGAs to effectively perform at that resolution in many titles without low fps and/or without lowering IQ settings. 680 surely won't be "enough" for that res in many current and future games. For this you gain barely any peripheral vision, but you do gain a larger screen area which while looking nice in screenshots, because of the way our eyes work it does very little to benefit gamers due to FoV restrictions in games and our inability to focus the entire screen even at lower resolutions.

/imo

 

[wlee15]

Agreed. I can't believe some of the folks saying the 760 to Haswell isn't an upgrade. I don't know if it's wishful thinking or just obliviousness (usually AMD fans, interestingly enough, conclude from that what you will) , i've upgraded many friends' lynnfield systems to IVB and Haswell to know that the increase in most games, especially CPU limited games and MP games, is huge. Games like Crysis 3, Skyrim, SC2, WoW, and BF3 multiplayer (among others) will easily go up in performance by 40% or more with the same GPU, since they're CPU limited especially in MP. It's just humorous to read these posts from folks thinking that a 760 will handle bf4 64 playby er MP just as well as a haswell...whatever they say...I've seen the differences between lynnfield - IVB/Haswell in games with my own eyes.

Their loss for listening to bad advice. You certainly won't catch me doing 64 player MP bf3 or bf4 on a 760 or lynnfield.

It's also $400 to upgrade to upgrade to a 4770 plus the work in replacing the motherboard. Picking up an inexpensive air cooler and playing with overclocking is a inexpensive first step.