I've currently got an i5 something, and am looking to upgrade to a relatively future-proof i7.
These two CPU's currently catch my eye:
i7 5930k
i7 4790k
The 4* has a 4Ghz base clock (Higher than the 5*), however the cache of the 5* is 15M as opposed to 8M on the 4*.
My current motherboard is the MPower Z87, and I'm getting an H110i cooler to drop the temp a bit. Please could I get advise on this possible upgrade.
If you aren't planning on also upgrading your MoBo, go for the 4790k (pretty sure you meant that one, because a 4970k doesn't exist, lol), it is amazing for the price.
And no, you can't run a 5930k on your current motherboard, it has a different socket (your motherboard has an LGA1150). Still a great CPU though, make sure you get a new motherboard with an LGA2011-v3 socket.
Edit: if you want to really go future-proof, go for the 5930k. You'd also have to upgrade your RAM to DDR4, but it will be worth it. The new CPUs based on the 2011-v3 sockets are crazy fast.
Edited the title of the CPU :)
Thanks for the insight on the socket - would you be able to recommend a suitable motherboard if I would need to get in order to upgrade to the 5930 ?
I would suggest an MSi X99S SLI Plus, it's amazing, and it's one of the cheapest X99s available. For the RAM, I'd go for the HyperX Predator (DDR4-2800 or 3000) sticks. They perform great, plus they look sexy and suit the MSi board very well.
Edit: Also, if you don't want to spend as much money on the CPU, take a look at the i7-5820k. It's cheaper, but it's still super fast and has a better performance per dollar.
Looking into that now! Actually recent read a review on the X99s SLI Plus... Just looking into the difference of that and the Gaming 7
I already have a bunch of issues with the term "future-proofing" when it comes to computer hardware because of the rapid changes. From an economic standpoint, it is nonsensical as top-tier "future-proof" hardware has disproportional price-premium that almost always makes it less cost effective that buying a mid-range product and upgrading it later. This issue becomes even more ridiculous when you start "future-proofing" your quad-core CPU with another quad-core CPU of the same architecture that barely amounts to any improvement in the grand scheme of things, especially as a gamer since games are GPU-bound and don't typically require a particularly fast CPU. I have my trusty 2500k @ 4GHz and I'm still running into more GPU bottlenecks with my 760 Superlocked at 1080p than CPU bottlenecks. I started with a 560-Ti. That means my 2500k is about to survive 4 GPU generations spanning 3 different architectures before becoming any sort of limiting factor.
Intel updates their CPU's on a tick-tock model, each "tick" being a die shrink and each "tock" being a new architecture:
Tick - Westmere (Nehalem) 32nm
Tock - Sandy Bridge 32nm
Tick - Ivy Bridge (Sandy Bridge) 22m
Tock - Haswell 22nm
Tick- Broadwell (Haswell) 14nm
Tock - Skylake 14mm
Tick - Cannonlake (Skylake) 10nm
My advice: wait for Skylake at the absolute minimum before considering an upgrade, preferably the next "Tock" after Skylake. By then AMD should have release their next CPU architecture, and hopefully that shakes up the market enough that intel will have more competitive pricing. Doubt it, but worth the wait to see what the performance gains are. In the meanwhile GPU upgrades will have far more of a impact over CPU upgrades.
That's some pretty solid advice right there - I will definitely take everything you said into consideration.
Right now I have an i5, which quite literally is the bottleneck. My SLI 760's are doing a wonder at their work, and I haven't had much issues SSD or RAM wise.
In my mind, upgrading from an i5 to an i7 is good enough to warrant it, so it really isn't a i5-to-better-i5 upgrade :)
I'm this king of just getting the new board suggested above, for now, then waiting for the i7 upgrade.
I personally would recommend a 5820k over the 5930k because the 5820k overclocks better and is $200 cheaper. Put $100 into a cooler and you will have a faster and cheaper chip.
TBH I'm not interested in overclocking at all. I am investing in an H110i though
Seriously you can get a 5820k easily up to 4.5 Ghz. Why not take the performance bump?
If you don't over clock then get a 4790 non-K and save some money and put into something else.
Warranties, extra power consumption, instabilities (Although I know newer CPU's can handle), and me literally never ever overclocking something leads to me not wanting to overclock.
Then get a a 4790 (non K) and then you really don't need an h100 because it is a waste of money if you aren't overclocking. A 140mm water cooler will be more than enough for your needs.
All the money saved can be put into a a second GPU.
The GPU was just an example.
5930k: $570 which has less performance than a 4790 for gaming when not overclocking.
Decent x99 MOBO: $250-300
DDR 4 RAM: $160-200 for just 16GB and only goes up from there.
H100i: $100
Total: $1080 - 1120
Vs. a $290 4790
H80: $70
Total: $360
For example he could Get two GTX 970s with the left over money and have a much more powerful gaming system (think 4k, Occulus and/or triple monitor ready) seems pretty future proof for 3-5 years. And he could sell off the GTX 760s for even more performance.
Hell if he just went with 4790 his machine will be Just as good for gaming.
I find that difficult to believe, but my stock Core i5 did start to bottleneck (very recently in fact). However, mine is several generations old, and with a modest overclock (from 3.3 to 4.0GHz; most 2500k owners can get theirs to 4.6 - 5.0GHz), it quite handily shifted that bottleneck back to my crazily overclocked GPU. Again, the only thing you're doing is adding hyperthread and a few MB of cache. Very few games effectively utilize more than 4 threads. Some do, but not many. The biggest performance difference will come from clockspeed when comparing CPUs of the same architecture.
Out of curiosity, how did you confirm you have a CPU bottleneck?
It's FREE performance. If done correctly, overclocks will be stable, power consumption won't skyrocket (at least not disproportionately to performance gains; there is a sweet spot), and no way to prove that the chip has been overclocked. The best way to get such an overclock is to crank the clock speed as high as you can with sticking the voltage to stock settings. I've gotten my Core i5 2500k stable to 4GHz at 1.2V.
The only way you're getting a more efficient chip (more performance with same or less power draw) short of winning the silicon lotto and undervolting, is getting one of a new architecture or a die-shrink. Bear in mind that TDP is a measure of heat output, not power draw. Just because some Core i5 and Core i7s have the same TDP doesn't mean they have the same power draw. Typically Core i7's will have a higher power draw due to larger caches and hyperthreading.
But if you're not overclocking, stay away from any "K" skew because they do have a nice little price premium, usually $30 or more compared to the non-K counterpart. At one point, K skews were also gimped, with Intel disabling things like VT-d that were enabled on the cheaper non-k parts. I'm not entirely sure if that's the case now, but the point is the K skews are more hassle and add no value if you are not overclocking.
I'm really grateful for that video - seems like the sweet spot may be 6 cores. A lot of the people were talking about DX11 vs DX12 rather than just testing more pixels.
As for my theoretical bottleneck, it has only really been for recent games. BF4, FarCry4, among others have been almost maxing all my cores all the time - that was my only reason to mention the bottleneck.
If possible, I'd like to turn from purchasing a faster CPU to a faster GPU. As mentioned above, I have SLI 760's, however after research and tech demos, I'm interested in purchasing a 980. Would this improve performance more than a CPU upgrade?
I currently have a i5 4670K Processor
Despite my rambling below, bottomline is a CPU upgrade might help BF4 multiplayer a little bit, but a GPU would a huge and very noticeable impact on performance, much more so than a CPU upgrade. To quote myself:
..."future-proofing" your quad-core CPU with another quad-core CPU of the same architecture that barely amounts to any improvement in the grand scheme of things, especially as a gamer since games are GPU-bound
FarCry 4 is on that video, and CPU performance was the same for 4, 6, and 8 cores, regardless of hyperthreading. Something else to note: FarCry 4 is heavily GPU-bound. TotalBiscuit runs SLI 980's and he still can't crank the settings all the way at 1080p, much less 2560x1440. BF4 multiplayer would likely benefit from hyperthreading, especially if you play on large maps with lots of people (64+ players). I haven't played BF4, but I do have BF3 and my 2500k has no problems with it, granted I usually play 32 player maps because people hack, especially with vehicles. Again, my bottleneck there is GPU.
SLI performance will vary greatly from game to game, driver to driver. A single 980 will provide a more fluid and consistent performance without a doubt, but I'm honestly not familiar enough with performance of a 980 or SLI 760's, or how the games you run react to SLI to make a solid recommendation either way. I don't know how well Far Cry 4 or BF4 scales in SLI, but I do know, absolute best case scenario, you're looking at about 80%, though typical multi-GPU scaling is between 40-60%. With a quick search, it would seem that if your 760's scale at about 50%, they'll be as fast as a single GTX 980, assuming your 760's don't hit a VRAM bottleneck, which will tank performance. FC4 can and will use 4GB of VRAM at Ultra Settings, so if you have 2GB 760's, a single 980 is worth it regardless of how well your SLI 760s scale. Personally, I'd always opt for a single GPU over multiple GPU configurations unless you're already at the top-tier and need even more performance.
And as I've mentioned before, in my own personal experience, you can get a lot more mileage out of your CPU if you apply even a modest overclock. Manually lock in the voltage to stock settings and crank the clock speed as high as you can. I find about 4 - 4.2GHz tends to be a sweet spot for performance gains and power consumption.
The idea of future proofing is dumb. If it works for right now, then you are good, and unless you have thousands in gpus, or you play sub-1080p, or you like really cpu intensive games, or you are really impatient for rendering stuff, then I don't see why an i5 wouldn't be sufficient for you. If you wait to upgrade until you actually need it, you are going to see better performance gains from the same money spent as things progress while you wait. Anyway, I am too tired for this right now.
tl;dr don't bother upgrading if it isn't a problem. Use that money for something else, or just wait until it is a problem.
I don't know about that :)
I've literally read a large amount of reviews, and even some not-so-reliable-but-still-funny video analysis on the comparison.
In general, the newer architecture of the 980, as well as the pixel render rate and memory bandwidth far outperform the 760, even in SLI.
I agree when saying some games hardly take SLI into account - and a single GPU is better. I'll opt for getting the 980, the H110i, and with your recommendation, to modestly overclock the CPU.
I've had around a year of SLI gaming, so I think I would be a good candidate to give an honest result from the comparison.