[psufan5]

Given a budget of $1500-1800, how would you go about upgrading this system?

i7 920 @ 4ghz
2x6990s - crossfire
ASUS P6X58D PREMIUM 1366 R
8gb ddr3
2560x1440 LCD

I am guessing by now this CPU is a major bottleneck in this system. I am not sure it can drive the 6990s at 2560x1440, so I am looking to upgrade. Upgrading the motherboard, processor, and memory wouldn't nearly get me to the $1500 dollar mark, but I am open to possibly upgrading the video cards since they are about what, 4 years old?

Any thoughts, recommendations, etc?

I was thinking of going with i7 4770 Haswell (3.4ghz) with 16gb of ram. Do you think the video cards need updating as well?

Thank you for the help!

 

[Ultra-m-a-n]

A 6 core xeon for your system is a nice upgrade

Your rig is pretty decent as is!

And I'm not too sure about the 6990s, someone else has to chime in.

 

[Stay Puft]

Quote:

Originally Posted by psufan5

Given a budget of $1500-1800, how would you go about upgrading this system?

i7 920 @ 4ghz
2x6990s - crossfire
ASUS P6X58D PREMIUM 1366 R
8gb ddr3
2560x1440 LCD

I am guessing by now this CPU is a major bottleneck in this system. I am not sure it can drive the 6990s at 2560x1440, so I am looking to upgrade. Upgrading the motherboard, processor, and memory wouldn't nearly get me to the $1500 dollar mark, but I am open to possibly upgrading the video cards since they are about what, 4 years old?

Any thoughts, recommendations, etc?

I was thinking of going with i7 4770 Haswell (3.4ghz) with 16gb of ram. Do you think the video cards need updating as well?

Thank you for the help!

Stay with 1366 and get a 6 core Xeon

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Xeon-X5650-2-66-GHz-Six-Core-SLBV3-Processor-/380748397341?pt=US_Server_CPUs_Processors&hash=item58a65f7b1d

How do you have 8GB? Are you only running 2 sticks?

 

[psufan5]

4 sticks x 2gb I believe.

 

[psufan5]

Also this is mainly for gaming.

 

[Stay Puft]

Quote:

Originally Posted by psufan5

Also this is mainly for gaming.

6 Core Xeon i linked is faster then a 4770K in everything multithreaded. I went from a 4.4Ghz Bloomfield quad to a 4.8Ghz 4770K and it was a waste of money.

 

[psufan5]

Just wondering if the new CPU and faster memory would trump it for gaming though. I just feel at this point my 6990s are being held back by the CPU.

 

[Dnic41]

I recently contemplated upgrading my i7-920 as well.
After some discussions with some fine folks, I decided to wait on a full upgrade until Skylake drops.

The only thing I upgraded for now was the GPU as it was overdue for replacement.

 

[psufan5]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dnic41

I recently contemplated upgrading my i7-920 as well.
After some discussions with some fine folks, I decided to wait on a full upgrade until Skylake drops.

The only thing I upgraded for now was the GPU as it was overdue for replacement.

When is that due for release?

 

[Dnic41]

Quote:

Originally Posted by psufan5

When is that due for release?

Everything I've read/seen states 1st Half of 2015.

 

[JAM3S121]

just get a new GPU, maybe go to 12GB of ram (12gb of tri channel is probably really expensive atm though)

I upgraded from i7 950 at 4.2ghz to i7 4770k @ 4.5ghz and I really don't notice a performance increase other than faster boot because the i7 920,930,950,960 etc don't support sata 3 ssd speeds.

 

[Vagrant Storm]

Quote:

Originally Posted by psufan5

Just wondering if the new CPU and faster memory would trump it for gaming though. I just feel at this point my 6990s are being held back by the CPU.

If you stay with a HT Quad core CPUs...the newer CPUs are not that much better than your I7 920. Especially in terms of gaming. I would never upgrade from a LGA 1366 or LGA 1156 platform. Maybe next generation...but the performance increase are not large enough to warrant the price tag.

The only reason I am even on LGA 1155 is because I needed a VPU with VT-D for my server...and newer CPUs will have VT-D disabled on all the "K" versions so I re-purposed my old CPU and it wasn't really an upgrade going from an I7 860 to a 2600K

 

[psufan5]

If I went GPU upgrade route I was looking at the Nvidia GTX 780ti cards. Will that CPU do fine if running SLI at 2560x1440 for games like battlefield?

 

[JAM3S121]

Yes it should be fine with card for sure, I was reading somewhere that the difference between a i7 960 @ 4ghz and a i7 4770k at stock with the same GPU's were within 1-3 frames of eachother at 1080p+ framerates.

 

[psufan5]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JAM3S121

Yes it should be fine with card for sure, I was reading somewhere that the difference between a i7 960 @ 4ghz and a i7 4770k at stock with the same GPU's were within 1-3 frames of eachother at 1080p+ framerates.

Any chance you could find this?

Ive also been looking for a direct comparison between the 6990s and the 780 Tis but I cant find anything.

 

[DzillaXx]

The i7 is not holding the 6990 back. The 6990 just isn't that strong of a card and suffers from being a crossfire card on a series of cards mostly forgotten. Problem is most likely the 6990 and it just not being up to the task known as 1440p.

My 7950 has no problem with my 1440p

Though I did come from a GTX470 SLI which isn't far away from the 6990, but left mainly for v-ram problems. But can't see 2gb of v-ram being a problem. But IMO not a CPU problem.

Though I would toss one of them 6 cores in if your board supports it.

780ti is a good deal faster then a 6990.

 

[Stay Puft]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JAM3S121

Yes it should be fine with card for sure, I was reading somewhere that the difference between a i7 960 @ 4ghz and a i7 4770k at stock with the same GPU's were within 1-3 frames of eachother at 1080p+ framerates.

Proof please

 

[psufan5]

I know at high resolution, CPU dependency goes down considerably. 2560x1440 would mainly be GPU, and a CPU wouldn't make much difference.

I am really leaning on the 780tis right now... Maybe adding some more ram to the system also.

 

[Vagrant Storm]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stay Puft

Quote:

Originally Posted by JAM3S121

Yes it should be fine with card for sure, I was reading somewhere that the difference between a i7 960 @ 4ghz and a i7 4770k at stock with the same GPU's were within 1-3 frames of eachother at 1080p+ framerates.

Proof please

I know that is all over the place for BF4 single player results...there BF4 (along with most newer games) doesn't really care what CPU you have as along as you have four threads. I think multiplayer gives the 4770 a slightly bigger edge, but not much of one and no one worth the time to upgrade...not to mention the cost.
Quote:

Originally Posted by psufan5

I know at high resolution, CPU dependency goes down considerably. 2560x1440 would mainly be GPU, and a CPU wouldn't make much difference.

I am really leaning on the 780tis right now... Maybe adding some more ram to the system also.

You could probably get a good price for the 6990's yet...some one will mine with them I am sure.

What size of VRAM came on those? For a high resolution that might be the needed upgrade more than the actual GPU...

 

[Stay Puft]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vagrant Storm

I know that is all over the place for BF4 single player results...there BF4 (along with most newer games) doesn't really care what CPU you have as along as you have four threads. I think multiplayer gives the 4770 a slightly bigger edge, but not much of one and no one worth the time to upgrade...not to mention the cost.

Single player results? You're joking right? Bypassing the 6 Core X5650 i linked for a 4770K is a huge mistake. In games like BF4 the extra cores would give it a huge advantage over a haswell quad especially overclocked.