Should I upgrade to Haswell or Ivy?

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Reiss-E-boy

Reiss-E-boy

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Mar 20, 2013
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Hello

Basically Im wanting to upgrade my current Gaming PC. Which is Currently sitting on sandy bridge now should i save up and get Haswell and new motherboard or should i just buy a Ivy Bridge CPU? Also I would like it to be not too expensive also what motherboard should i get? Thanks

Specs

Intel i3 2120 3.3GHz
ASUS P8H61-MX
4GB G.skill RAM
Geforce GTX 650 Ti 2GB
500w Xigmatic PSU
Coolermaster 430 Case
 
Solution
Sakkura
The difference between Haswell and Ivy Bridge is pretty small. Under 10% extra performance. So I would recommend Ivy Bridge, unless you really want/need some of the Haswell features (such as more SATA3 ports on the motherboard). You can keep your current motherboard, with a BIOS upgrade it is compatible with many Ivy Bridge CPUs.
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Sakkura

Sakkura

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Aug 22, 2011
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The difference between Haswell and Ivy Bridge is pretty small. Under 10% extra performance. So I would recommend Ivy Bridge, unless you really want/need some of the Haswell features (such as more SATA3 ports on the motherboard). You can keep your current motherboard, with a BIOS upgrade it is compatible with many Ivy Bridge CPUs.
 
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BSim500

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Apr 6, 2013
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If you want the cheapest possible upgrade, since you already have a Skt 1155 board which seems to supports Ivy Bridge (as of 0701 BIOS), you might as well just keep the board and swap out the CPU. If you're not planning to overclock (or can't with your board), just get a cheap i5-3470.
 
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Sakkura

Sakkura

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Aug 22, 2011
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Those two are actually not on the list of compatible CPUs. There's a good chance they'd work anyway, but I wouldn't want to take any chances when there are confirmed compatible CPUs available.

Also, the 3570K can't be overclocked with the current motherboard anyway, so that would be a bit of a waste.

I'd probably recommend a Core i5-3550 or 3450.
 
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Reiss-E-boy

Reiss-E-boy

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Mar 20, 2013
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Is there a noticeable difference between the i5 3550 and the i3 2120?

Also should i upgrade to 8GB of ram?
 
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Sakkura

Sakkura

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Aug 22, 2011
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Yeah, especially in games or programs that can use more than 2 cores. Since it's a quad core while the i3 is a dual core. It has slightly more performance per clock cycle, and slightly higher clocks; the Core i3-2120 runs at 3.3 GHz while the Core i5-3550 can run at anywhere from 3.3 GHz to 3.7 GHz depending on amount of active cores (3.7 GHz is only with one core active, with more cores it runs at slightly lower clocks).

More RAM, well... it won't matter in most current games. But that may change with upcoming games. And some programs can use a lot more than 4 GB.
 
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logainofhades

logainofhades

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Apr 27, 2009
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I would recommend upgrading the ram to 8gb. I personally need more just because of my habits. I tend to play WoW on one monitor and have Chrome with multiple tabs open and playing Netflix or Hulu+ on my other monitor while I game.
 
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