Advice for a new Intel CPU

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Mike359

Mike359

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I am going to be getting a GTX 770 and right now I have an i3 2100 processor. It is my understanding that an i3 will most likely bottleneck a 770 and that I should upgrade. I was planing to upgrade to an i7 3770, but now I am thinking of saving some money and going with an i5 3350P. I don't plan on getting a new motherboard because I am happy with the one I have now and a Haswell CPU isn't worth the extra cost.

Would I be happy with the i5 3350P or should I go for the i7 3770? Do I even need to upgrade my CPU?

Any advice is appreciated,
 
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haynesr07

haynesr07

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I'm assuming you play games based on the 770.

I would not get the 3770, as hyper-threading is not on most games.

I would go with a 3570k and you won't bottleneck at all.
 
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Deus Gladiorum

Deus Gladiorum

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+1
 
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MC_K7

MC_K7

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Yes an i3 will indeed bottleneck this card a lot.

However, there's not much difference between a i5 and i7 for gaming. The only advantage the i7 has over the i5 is hyper-threading and games rarely support that or when it does the impact is minimal. This is why most gamers get i5 quad-cores.

As suggested by haynesr07 I would go either with a i5-3350P or the i5-3570K. This will be a perfect fit for your GTX-770.
 
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Eximo

Eximo

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Would really need confirmation if the motherboard in question is a P67 board or not for overclocking.

If it isn't then the 3770 or 3350P aren't bad choices. Personally I would get the 3770 while they are still available if you intend to keep the system for a good while. Hyperthreading may not be useful for most games right this minute, but in a year or two, especially with the new consoles, it will become more common.
 
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Mike359

Mike359

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I do want this processor to last, because the next major upgrade I do will involve a new Motherboard, which means a new CPU and at that point I'll just end up building a whole new computer.

Also if I get SLI 770s in the future would I benefit from a better processor?
 
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Eximo

Eximo

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Hmm, according to what you have listed in your profgile you have a Z77 board, so never mind on the P67 thing. You can also go for a 3770k if you want, keep in mind that for the overclocking chips you will need a heavy duty heatsink/fan combo to reach the high frequencies.

Which chip you pick comes down to budget.
 
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Mike359

Mike359

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Will the fact that it is a server processor cause problems? This is probably a stupid question, but I don't know anything about Xeon processors.
 
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logainofhades

logainofhades

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It will not as it is a desktop socketed one. Read the reviews on it. Many are running it in regular Z77 desktop boards. A guy I know and I both ran Core 2 Quad based lga775 Xeon chips in regular desktop boards years ago. He had some Asus and I ran mine in an Abit P35 Pro.
 
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MC_K7

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The only problem I would see is the BIOS not detecting or supporting it. But if logainofhades said it works and that many people are doing it I guess it will work. Still I'm not sure if you will see many performance gain for gaming compared to a i5...
 
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logainofhades

logainofhades

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It will do better than a similar clocked i5 in more multithreaded titles like Crysis 3. The near i5 price and the low TDP make that a really nice chip/$$ if you want a better multitasking CPU.
 
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MC_K7

MC_K7

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For games supporting hyper-threading maybe, but there are not many of them and there's no guarantee there will be more in the future. For all I know Intel might even drop hyper-threading for its next generation of CPU. Also threads aren't like physical cores, so even for applications supporting it most of the time the performance gain is not that big. Still, you are totally right that overall this is a better CPU for the same price.
 
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