1st of,I'm sorry if this is in the incorrect place. I have an opportunity to upgrade my current computer and I need advice on what to do. I currently have an i3 3220 (which I'd upgrade to an i5 3470) and an msi gtx 660 oc (which I'd upgrade to a 670) and I wan't to upgrade one them of them in the next few days. My real question is what would I benefit more from?new cpu or gpu? I game at 1920x1080 if that makes any difference, I just don't want to spend (what I count as) a lot of money and then realize it would have been more beneficial to go the other way.
Thank's for the fast response. The reason's I'd like the upgrade are because I finally have enough money for one and the other being something is causing quite frequent fps dips during recent games (bioshock,hitman and far cry 3) not to mention other older games. The problem being is I'm not all that knowledgeable about the advantages of the hardware. My biggest concern is my cpu since we're coming into a new generation and my dual core may not be able to stand up to games very well soon.
Most games today are still single-core optimized, so going from a i3-3220 to i5-3470 gives you almost no advantage. For multi-threaded multi-core optimized applications, the i5 might be double the performance, but for single-core stuff - it's about the same.
The GTX 670 is only a little bit faster than the 660 OC. In some titles, we're talking like 5-15% faster.
Now that AMD has discounted the 7000-series GPUs, you might be able to pick up a 7970 for just a little more than the GTX 670, and it would stomp the 670.
How much do you have in your budget for the upgrade? Looking at GTX 670s on newegg, prices are running around $325-$380. There are some 7970 boards on there for $319-$384. If it were me, I'd get the 7970 this time around.
Most games today are still single-core optimized, so going from a i3-3220 to i5-3470 gives you almost no advantage. For multi-threaded multi-core optimized applications, the i5 might be double the performance, but for single-core stuff - it's about the same.
The GTX 670 is only a little bit faster than the 660 OC. In some titles, we're talking like 5-15% faster.
Now that AMD has discounted the 7000-series GPUs, you might be able to pick up a 7970 for just a little more than the GTX 670, and it would stomp the 670.
How much do you have in your budget for the upgrade? Looking at GTX 670s on newegg, prices are running around $325-$380. There are some 7970 boards on there for $319-$384. If it were me, I'd get the 7970 this time around.
Ah. I had assumed since most games reccomend a quad core these days that for whatever reason my i3 was basically maxing out and being pushed to its limits, so my thinking was having two extra cores would increase performance and possibly make my games more stable. My upper budget was around £215 (That was the price of the 670). Looking at the 7970 it's way out of my budget.
You can run PERFMON to monitor your CPU utilization while playing to figure out what your actual CPU load is. Just keep in mind while looking at the CPU load, that your I3 has 2 cores plus 2 hyper threading cores. Anything over about 60-65% total CPU load in windows equates to a maxed out CPU if HT is enabled. The i5 has 4 complete cores and no HT, so you're not maxed out until it hits 95-100%. For single-core optimized games, if you see that i3 hitting 25% and holding steady, that means that one of your 4 "cores" is pegged out, and the other three "cores" are mostly idle.
If you do go with a i5, I'd get a 3570K. It will give you a higher base and turbo clock, and has unlocked multipliers so you can more easily OC the processor at some point.
Wow, you guys really get ripped in the UK on pricing. =( I just checked a few UK based sales sites, and the cheapest 7970 I see there is about 249-299 GBP. That's $385-$462 USD - sounds like a 30% markup from US to UK!
You can run PERFMON to monitor your CPU utilization while playing to figure out what your actual CPU load is. Just keep in mind while looking at the CPU load, that your I3 has 2 cores plus 2 hyper threading cores. Anything over about 60-65% total CPU load in windows equates to a maxed out CPU if HT is enabled. The i5 has 4 complete cores and no HT, so you're not maxed out until it hits 95-100%. For single-core optimized games, if you see that i3 hitting 25% and holding steady, that means that one of your 4 "cores" is pegged out, and the other three "cores" are mostly idle.
If you do go with a i5, I'd get a 3570K. It will give you a higher base and turbo clock, and has unlocked multipliers so you can more easily OC the processor at some point.
Wow, you guys really get ripped in the UK on pricing. =( I just checked a few UK based sales sites, and the cheapest 7970 I see there is about 249-299 GBP. That's $385-$462 USD - sounds like a 30% markup from US to UK!
This perfmon, does it just run in the background while I play games because I'd really like to try that out. As for the 3570k there'd be no point because my motherboard doesn't support overclocking (I never thought I'd want to get into it) so I really couldn't take advantage of a k model.
God yeah,I know we do. It makes me wince when people from the good ol' us of a say how much a gpu cost's them compared to us. If only newegg shipped abroad,that would be perfect.
This perfmon, does it just run in the background while I play games because I'd really like to try that out. As for the 3570k there'd be no point because my motherboard doesn't support overclocking (I never thought I'd want to get into it) so I really couldn't take advantage of a k model.
God yeah,I know we do. It makes me wince when people from the good ol' us of a say how much a gpu cost's them compared to us. If only newegg shipped abroad,that would be perfect.
Even if Newegg shipped abroad our riddiculous UK Governmental customs charges (which are also levied on the postage costs too) would ruin any saving we would make!
Even if Newegg shipped abroad our riddiculous UK Governmental customs charges (which are also levied on the postage costs too) would ruin any saving we would make!
Even if Newegg shipped abroad our riddiculous UK Governmental customs charges (which are also levied on the postage costs too) would ruin any saving we would make!
So true,but heh,our countries just seem to like to take our money in whatever way they can. Back on topic,would it just be better to get a new cpu for the time being then since 7970 is so much out of my price range?I'm kind of shocked that the 670 is only 10-15% better than a card that until recently was nearly 3x cheaper.
Admittedly my HDD is rather old,but I don't think its dying and I have 8gb corsair xms3 1600mhz ram. Guess It'll be the i5 if no one else suddenly disagrees.
The fps dips are probably caused by the i3.
Sure its a fast dualcore but I wouldnt suggest on pairing it with any card faster than HD7850 or GTX660.
There are times that you also run other stuff in the background, like downloads, streaming, etc.
this is when the i5 will perform better.
Side question:
If you only have 1 HDD, did you put the games on a different partition?
because installing them on the same partition as windows may cause the slowdowns
The fps dips are probably caused by the i3.
Sure its a fast dualcore but I wouldnt suggest on pairing it with any card faster than HD7850 or GTX660.
There are times that you also run other stuff in the background, like downloads, streaming, etc.
this is when the i5 will perform better.
Side question:
If you only have 1 HDD, did you put the games on a different partition?
because installing them on the same partition as windows may cause the slowdowns
I've kind of learnt to close pretty much all programs when running games on this computer because it does impact performance. Those 10-15fps are obviously quite important and seemingly bioshock infinite is just an exception to the rule. With gain's like that (considering I don't mind playing medium/high just to achieve 60fps) I think the cpu is a good bet because looking around on the internet people seem to be getting better performance from their machines which are normally paired with a quad core instead of dual core.
Erm,I have no idea to be honest with you. I literally just download my files to the C drive and leave it that way (I don't even think I have a partition.)
Admittedly my HDD is rather old,but I don't think its dying and I have 8gb corsair xms3 1600mhz ram. Guess It'll be the i5 if no one else suddenly disagrees.
In all honesty I don't count an SSD as a critical upgrade since I really don't mind waiting all of 30-40 seconds for my computer to start up. I still think I'd stand to gain more from upgrading a core component such as a cpu or gpu. I'd also rather wait until they go down in price since for the price you pay,you don't exactly get much space.
I decided to order an i5 3470 over the gpu upgrade. I'll just get a newer gpu towards the end of the year. Thanks for all of the help. I really appreciate it.
In all honesty I don't count an SSD as a critical upgrade since I really don't mind waiting all of 30-40 seconds for my computer to start up. I still think I'd stand to gain more from upgrading a core component such as a cpu or gpu. I'd also rather wait until they go down in price since for the price you pay,you don't exactly get much space.
Well, SSDs do more than help your PC start up fast, but it's your choice. SSDs are one of those things that once most people try them, they'll never go back. I'm one of those people.
What is this "loading" people speak of?
Good luck with the i5, though. It's a pretty tough CPU, and should be good for you for a while.
In all honesty I don't count an SSD as a critical upgrade since I really don't mind waiting all of 30-40 seconds for my computer to start up. I still think I'd stand to gain more from upgrading a core component such as a cpu or gpu. I'd also rather wait until they go down in price since for the price you pay,you don't exactly get much space.
Well, SSDs do more than help your PC start up fast, but it's your choice. SSDs are one of those things that once most people try them, they'll never go back. I'm one of those people.
What is this "loading" people speak of?
Good luck with the i5, though. It's a pretty tough CPU, and should be good for you for a while.
I've heard how fast they can be,but I'm patient so waiting a couple of seconds wont kill me. FPS in games is more important to me than the speed in which my game will open up. Lets just hope the cpu gives me a nice boost in performance, I find it hard to save money so my next upgrade maybe a while away.
So true,but heh,our countries just seem to like to take our money in whatever way they can. Back on topic,would it just be better to get a new cpu for the time being then since 7970 is so much out of my price range?I'm kind of shocked that the 670 is only 10-15% better than a card that until recently was nearly 3x cheaper.
mrwoody1988 please note that the link provided to you is not helpful to you as it is not comparing a GTX 670 and the 660 OC that you were asking about but actually a GTX 660 Ti which is a more expensive and better card than a 660 OC. With the release of the 700 series GTX 670 prices have dropped quite a bit and you can pick up something like a MSI GTX670 PE OC which is very definately not a standard card for pretty reasonable prices (for the UK that is) eg. http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-msi-gtx-670-power-edition-oc-28nm-pcie-30-(x16)-6008mhz-gddr5-gpu-1019mhz-boost-1079mhz-plus-fre
That said I would recommend getting a new I5-3570K first and perhaps get a cheap second hand Z77 MoBo from ebay or Aria PC open box items (so you can OC in the future as necessary - not just for the sake of OC but because by OC your CPU it will be far less likely to bottleneck your new GPU when you get it) and start saving for a new GPU.
mrwoody1988 please note that the link provided to you is not helpful to you as it is not comparing a GTX 670 and the 660 OC that you were asking about but actually a GTX 660 Ti which is a more expensive and better card than a 660 OC. With the release of the 700 series GTX 670 prices have dropped quite a bit and you can pick up something like a MSI GTX670 PE OC which is very definately not a standard card for pretty reasonable prices (for the UK that is) eg. http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-msi-gtx-670-power-edition-oc-28nm-pcie-30-(x16)-6008mhz-gddr5-gpu-1019mhz-boost-1079mhz-plus-fre
That said I would recommend getting a new I5-3570K first and perhaps get a cheap second hand Z77 MoBo from ebay or Aria PC open box items (so you can OC in the future as necessary - not just for the sake of OC but because by OC your CPU it will be far less likely to bottleneck your new GPU when you get it) and start saving for a new GPU.
I've been eyeing up that card because from what I've on different sites it looks like a best. I'm still no clearer on what I'd benefit more from right now though since I'd seemingly gain FPS from both cpu or gpu upgrade. I'm especially concerned about missing the deal on the 670 because god only knows when it'll have a price reduction like that again. I hate having all these choices.
As you can see from my sig I have this MSI TWIN FROZR GTX 670 PE OC card and can thoroughly recommend it, overclocked I can get well over 75 FPS @ 2560 X 1440 in BF3 (just FXAA)! That said even if you do not splash out on a K series CPU, the I5 3470 you are looking at will give you a 50% uplift in processing power over your I3!
I still say get a I5 3570K (which nearly doubles you current CPU performance) or maybe even a pre-owned I7-3770K and a second hand Z77 board and carry on saving for a GPU!
As you can see from my sig I have this MSI TWIN FROZR GTX 670 PE OC card and can thoroughly recommend it, overclocked I can get well over 75 FPS @ 2560 X 1440 in BF3 (just FXAA)! That said even if you do not splash out on a K series CPU, the I5 3470 you are looking at will give you a 50% uplift in processing power over your I3!
I still say get a I5 3570K (which nearly doubles you current CPU performance) or maybe even a pre-owned I7-3770K and a second hand Z77 board and carry on saving for a GPU!
Wow that is some major performance. I've kind of had my hand forced a little since the site I can get the good deal on has replied to a query and told me once these 670's are out of stock,they'll have no more in at the cheaper price point. I'm starting to think I'll just pick up the 670 now and then get a cpu in a couple of months,since their prices never really change anyway. Would you know anything about the asus versions of the 670? It's just that the direct cu II is cheaper by £20 when compared to the msi one. Yet more decisions
Edit - crap,I didn't realize my case (an antec one) can only have cards up to 10.5 inches and both asus and msi's cards are over that.
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