I have an i7 920. Should I upgrade?

I have an i7 920 running at 2.67 with an AMD r9 270x. I recently got a job, and I'm wondering if I should upgrade my CPU to give my graphics card more headroom, and if so, can you guys give me some recommendations on both CPUs and motherboards. 

Gamer's choices would be an i5 (usually) and most Z87 motherboards. All Z87 motherboards are pretty good in design. The more money you spend, the better the motherboard, usually.

Or the AMD alternative; 8350, and a M5A99X R2.0. You would have to be a little more "picky" about the AMD platform. Not all motherboards are suitable. The highest chipset motherboards (99x or 990) are a pretty safe bet. AMD CPUs are really versatile, definitely worth considering! If you want an affordable streaming/gaming/editing rig, AMD would be the way to go.

Those aforementioned upgrades are worthwhile. Will give a reasonable performance boost, particularly in CPU intensive games.

Are there any specific games you want to play? Some prefer Intel, some prefer AMD.

I'm more inclined to go with Intel, since it's what I've used all my life. Call it fanboyism, but I'm just more comfortable using Intel processors. I'm thinking of going with Ivy Bridge. Which Ivy Bridge processor would be best for gaming/video editing?

i5 3570k would be sufficient. The i7 would be better for productivity. Alternately, you could get a Xeon. Some models of Xeon are an i7 without the integrated graphics, and they are a little bit cheaper.

Final thought; you might want to consider waiting for Broadwell. The release date could be a fairly long way off, but it is expected to release some time this year. It was scheduled to launch in Q1, but they had to push it back due to problems in production.

Normally I wouldn't advise anyone to wait. But we could hear news of Broadwell very soon.

You could also consider overclocking. If you could get it up to over 3 Ghz it would perform quite well.

Please read this then consider waiting for something better for upgrade performance/price.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ivy-bridge-wolfdale-yorkfield-comparison,3487.html

I would wait till Q4 of this year/Q1 of next year for Broadwell, but I think those Bloomfield processors are still pretty strong so you can probably wait out until Broadwell. If you don't want to wait out till Broadwell, the Devil's Canyon revision Haswell CPUs are coming June 2nd. Also Broadwell is supposedly going to use the Z97 chipset and those are supposed to start landing on the 11th, so you can get the board and get the CPU when it comes out

I wouldn't recommend going with ivy unless you have a 1155 mobo.

haswell is priced around the same as ivy, and do show improvement.

I fully well know that Ivy is 1155. That's why I also asked what motherboard I should get with the upgrade.

did you guys even read the OP

he has a R9 270x, that's like a 7850, a 920 isn't holding that back, get a new GPU, overclock your CPU, if you can't overclock grab a 1366 desktop CPU that is either faster Ghz or more cores at the same freq, they go up to 6 cores

or grab a xeon now what you want is a x5600 series xeon, a 4 or 6 core model at least 2.8Ghz

1366 CPUs are UBER cheap on Ebay

put all your money into a decent GPU like a 290x and some decent cooling for it

you assume a CPU is older than 3 years its ilrealvent, but you forget the 1366 was the enthusist platform a genneration previous from socket 2011 and still has serious kick, the 56xx series is 32nm and has AVX and AES just like sandy

+1

I would say grab a new GPU, instead of a new cpu + mobo. the i7-920 is still very capable, i would upgrade cpu + mobo later on the year, wenn the new Z97 is out.

Honnestly i have a 7870ghz which is basicly a 270X, and in my opinnion, in alot of newer todays games, these midrange gpu´s realy starting to become, performance factor. In my opinnion, they realy start to struggle, maxing out  todays games at 1080p.

To be honest, my original plan was to get the mobo and CPU upgraded first, then when the next generation cards that support DX12 come out, upgrade the GPU to that. Sounds like a good plan, if you ask me.

I will bet you 10 english pounds that current amd gcn cards are already dx 12 compatable..

knowing ms, dx 12 will be largely built around getting the most out of the *existing* xbox one hardware :D

Yeah, Cards that support dx11 will support dx12, but won't be able to use it to its full potential.

well offcoure you could also upgrade your mobo + cpu for now if you like, the Z97 will not be that big of an improvement in performance over Z87 at least i dont expect that. maybe they solved some of the thermal issues, they had with haswell. But in terms of  feutures and performance increase, i dont expect anything mindblowing, personaly.

If you got money burning a hole in your wallet, I don't blame you for wanting to upgrade. I think it is pretty reasonable. If you had a Sandybridge processor, I would advise against it, because Sandybridge is much more competitive. It's kind of nice to have support for new interface standards etc.

The R9 270x is a fairly new card, I don't see any reason to replace it. It is more than enough for your 1680x1050 panel. 

Most instances, I would advise a GPU upgrade. In your circumstances, platform definitely takes priority over the GPU. You might consider other component upgrades e.g an SSD.

Yes But but... his current cpu is not sandybridge, its Bloomfield. ☺

That's what a I saaaaiiiiiddd. If it was a Sandybridge CPU, there would be zero need to upgrade.

Are you trying to tell me I got my sockets mixed up again? It was one time! ONE TIME!

Go colour match your components properly!

Yes, upgrade that old DDR2 LGA 1366 technology and get with the times guy fella. After upgrading, touch yourself with gusto.

i know you said that, i just want to tease you abit  :D.

But still also at bloomfield there is no realy a reason to upgrade in my opinnion :P