Worth jumping from i5 2500k to i7 3770k?

ice-note · May 13, 2013

I'm currently rocking an i5 2500k and was wondering if the jump to the 3770k is worth it. I'd like to get one before Haswell comes out and the Ivy Bridge stuff gets harder to find, however I'm just curious if the performance boost (mainly in gaming) is going to be notable to do so sooner than later. My local Microcenter carries them for about 230 dollars.

My current specs

Asrock Z77 Extreme 4
i5 2500k (not OC'ed)
120 Samsung SSD for boot and programs
1 TB Seagate Barracuda for games
2 TB Samsung HD (5400 RPM) for media and such
Sapphire 7970 Ghz Vapor X edition

ingtar33 · May 13, 2013

nope.

it's basically a lateral move. the i7 and i5 are basically identical for gaming... and the improvement from SB to IB is almost negligible. i'd suggest you overclock that badboy and enjoy. it will be a long time (unless haswell is an overclocking beast) before there is a chip that will be a big enough improvement to justify the expense.

DarkSable · May 13, 2013

For gaming? There's absolutely no point.

The i7-3770k is EXACTLY the same as an i5-3570k when it comes to gaming - the only difference between the two chips is that the i7 has hyperthreading, which games don't use well, and likely never will.

You'd be getting about a 7% performance upgrade if you went to a 3570k.

Instead of spending that much money to do that, just buy yourself a $30 cooler and overclock. It's incredibly easy for sandy bridge, and you'll see much better performance.

envy14tpe · May 13, 2013

As mentioned. For gaming, you will not gain anything from moving from a 2500k to a 3770k. Stick with what you got. Maybe in two years you might want to upgrade the CPU + Mobo (have to cuz Haswell is 1150 instead of 1155)

If you want more out of your system, consider a new monitor. Mind you I don't know what you are using now. Many people with a 7970 buy a 120Hz BenQ XL2420T.

DarkSable · May 13, 2013

^I second that; I have one of those monitors and love it to death.

That being said, I returned a 7950 a while ago and replaced it with a 670, because the frame latency issues that tahiti has were too noticeable on a 120Hz screen.

(Oh, and ingtar? Very sneaky. When I posted, all you had was "nope.")

ingtar33 · May 13, 2013

DarkSable :

sneaky? i was gonna pat you on the back for being on the same wavelength. i did start with a nope... but added to the post since i figured it should explain myself a bit more.

not that there was anything earthshattering or exclusive about the common sense opinion we shared.

DarkSable · May 13, 2013

ingtar33 :

No worries mate; just poking a stick at you.

babernet_1 · May 13, 2013

Yes, when the 3770K first came out it made virtually no difference in games. That's different now. Many games are notably faster with the 3770K. However, the question is a moot point now. The Haswell is coming and it overclocks like nothing seen before. You can even undervolt and till get 5GHz out of it. As we move forward in time, more and more games are using more cores and hypertheading. Look for this changeover to increase in speed as the Haswell has many commands making hyperthreading/multi-core programming easier. Can you wait three weeks? Haswell is coming with a sonic boom.

ingtar33 · May 13, 2013

babernet_1 :

i'd like the benches proving this.

from what I can tell only 1 game in the last 10 years has shown any improved performance with Hyperthreading... and that's Crysis 3 (a whopping 15% improvement, in SOME benches, no improvement in others)

babernet_1 :

yeah... um... not so much. lets see it ACTUALLY benched rather then some random cpuid screenies with no validation. I seem to remember this exact same type of hype prior to bulldozer, and we all know how that turned out.

DarkSable · May 13, 2013

babernet_1 :

1) Your first point is absolutely wrong if it's based on the theory that games can use hyperthreading now. There have been a number of tests run with hyperthreading on and with it off, and all games performed pretty much the same. Some, such as crysis 3, actually ran faster with it off, despite claiming to support the technology.

2) Those somewhat incredible overclocks are JUST showing that the chip can POST with those specs. Not that it's any sort of stable whatsoever. Again on hyperthreading, it's unlikely to ever be a big player when it comes to gaming, because it works with double precision calculations, not floating point calculations like gaming uses.

3) "Haswell is coming with a sonic boom." Yeah, a lot of us have fallen to the hype surrounding Haswell. I, for one, am skeptical to not believe a WORD of it until I see more solid evidence. Even if intel could produce a chip that increased performance by 50% when overclocked, there's no way in the world they actually would do it! They don't have competition pushing them to do so, and they would make far more money by releasing two or three revisions of chips with much lower performance increases, like they have been for years now.

EDIT: Jeeze, ingtar, you ninja me every time.

ingtar33 · May 13, 2013

we're on the same wavelength tonight. it's scaring me. if you were a chick I'd totally propose to you.

DarkSable · May 13, 2013

ingtar33 :

Oh please. If I were a chick, I'd be the one doing the proposing. Even female, I'd be far from lady-like.

ingtar33 · May 13, 2013

DarkSable :

couldn't have said it better. if haswell performed like those screenies claimed, intel would gimp it. it's not in their interest to bury AMD, nor is it in their interest to produce that much more performance when there isn't any competition to justify it. they'd gimp the chip before it went live and sandbag the tech for the day AMD got close to their performance to pull out of thier pocket.

RobCrezz · May 13, 2013

Just to add to this, as its on the same lines:

I currently have a 2500k running quite happily at 4.3Ghz, currently takes everything I can throw at it.

When will it need to be upgraded for games? Broadwell?

DarkSable · May 13, 2013

RobCrezz :

I wouldn't bother till skylake/skymont. Currently an i5-2500k is perfectly happy at stock clocks, and with a decent overclock, should be plenty for a long time. Broadwill will probably be only 40% faster at stock than your 2500k anyways.

RobCrezz · May 13, 2013

DarkSable :

Thats pretty amazing really, considering I bought this cpu in 2011.

DarkSable · May 13, 2013

RobCrezz :

It isn't when you think about it for a while. Consider this: For the past several years, Intel has had little or no pressure from AMD to produce faster chips. Even if they have the technology, there's no fiscal reason for them to do so. Because CPUs haven't been gaining 50% per die like they used to, games have started to focus on taking advantage of more than one, and now more than two, cores.

That means that CPUs aren't getting much faster, and games are just starting to be able to use four cores well, so a modern quad core is going to be a viable option for a long time.

RobCrezz · May 13, 2013

DarkSable :

RobCrezz :

It isn't when you think about it for a while. Consider this: For the past several years, Intel has had little or no pressure from AMD to produce faster chips. Even if they have the technology, there's no fiscal reason for them to do so. Because CPUs haven't been gaining 50% per die like they used to, games have started to focus on taking advantage of more than one, and now more than two, cores.

That means that CPUs aren't getting much faster, and games are just starting to be able to use four cores well, so a modern quad core is going to be a viable option for a long time.

Yeah, I see what you are saying, but it seems like an impressive achievement to me. The fact that Intel has so little pressure to produce vastly improved chips, means that the progress they made with Core -> Nehalem -> Sandybridge was very well done.

DarkSable · May 13, 2013

RobCrezz :

Ahh, yes, that's for certain. It was a pretty incredible era for PCs.

ice-note · May 14, 2013

Great! Thanks, everyone! I'm glad I don't have to depart from my dear SB 2500k. Will pick up a Hyper 212 cooler to attach onto my processor (running a stock right now) and start OCing.

8350rocks · May 14, 2013

DarkSable :

Yes, back like the K7/K8 days for AMD, when the race to 1 GHz was going on...and PCs were outdated 6 months after you bought them because technology was moving so fast.

I really hope we see those days again. When both sides are hungry from competition, then the really interesting breakthroughs happen and consumers only win when that happens. No matter what company you're partial toward...competition is a great thing.

wiggynation · Oct 7, 2013

Well. Guess no one else with an i5-2500k has played battlefield 4s beta. My CPU at 4.6 ghz is bottlenecking my 660 sli pretty bsd. Hoping that it smooths out when the full game is released. But it runs at 95%+ atm. Wondering if an i7-3770k will run BF4 better.

DarkSable · Oct 7, 2013

...it's a BETA. Make sure you have the very most recent drivers, try disabling SLI (I would be surprised if there was good SLI support yet), and seriously... don't expect it to run as well as a final release. Come on.

RobCrezz · Oct 7, 2013

wiggynation :

Pretty sure thats just down to bugs in the game.

They simply wouldnt release a game that requires more power than a SB i5 to run at decent fps - that would pretty much be cutting off 80% of their market.

Worth jumping from i5 2500k to i7 3770k?

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