i7-2600k to i7-3770k Upgrade. Should I?

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PMad

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I currently have the Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UP5 TH motherboard with the i7-2600k CPU and im crossfiring two XFX ATI Radeon HD 6950 2GB's.

I'm wondering if anyone knows how good of an upgrade the i7-3770k is? I was going to stick with what i have for awhile longer, but i've been having an issue where I cannot boot into windows and browsing around the internet seems to show that its the Sandy Bridge processor in this board. Well, seeing as how once every week or two i spend 1-3 hours in one sitting trying to start my computer, i figured i might give an upgrade a go.

Here's what i'm looking at... I do a lot of gaming, video editing, photoshop, programming, and all kinds of stuff on this PC so I like and need the 4 cores and 8 threads of these two i7's. But will I notice an increase in CPU speed between the two? I OC the i7-2600k to 4.5GHz just fine on air (with a Noctua heatsink).

Another thing i'm wondering is moving from Sandy Bridge to Ivy Bridge allows me to use PCIe 3.0 which has increased bandwidth.. Will I see an increase in GPU speed by doing this?

I need to figure out if the $300 i'm going to spend on this processor is worth the upgrade or not. I'm willing to take the chance at it for fixing the problems I have, but if it doesnt work, i'd prefer it to be quite a decent upgrade as well.

Any ideas? Thoughts? Theories? Experience?
 
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clutchc

Ahh. That is news. Yes, something other than software is at play, I agree now. I can't imagine the IB based MB not being fully compatible with the SB processor. I haven't heard anything about that particular board, either. You may have hit on something with the RAID problem, however. New board, fresh RAID install of Win7... the MB is the only thing I can think of other than the very slim chance of a suddenly failing processor.

Can you make a disk...
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Cons29

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i would not go with the upgrade, in fact i have 2500k @4ghz, i play bf3 most of the time and afterburner shows (together with another software) that my gpu is being utilized very well 95-99%, while my cpu is at around 65-80+ i think.
and i doubt that a 4.5ghz will be a bottleneck for any game. but that is just my opinion of course. not worth it
 
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bryonhowley

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I would agree with the above I do not think it is the CPU either you would be having more problems than that if it were. If cleaning out the crap does not work I would also try a OS reinstall before sidegrading your hardware. Really going to a i7 3770K would be more of a side grade than a upgrade from the CPU you already have. Not worth it unless the CPU is really bad that is.
 
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wdmfiber

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I was in the same boat, but actually had the 3770k and sold it. The chip ran crazy hot. And that was before anyone had taken a razer blade to the IHS and found out why. Plus I think the first run had garbage thermal paste.

Also, the 2700K was at EOL... so I quickly ordered one up and I haven't looked back!
Current GPU's are too slow to need PCI 3.0, maybe crossfired(quad) R9-290's? As you can run a 7970 in an old 1.1 slot and barely take a performance hit:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Ivy_Bridge_PCI-Express_Scaling/23.html

The 4770K could be great, but almost all it's extra transistors went to the integrated graphics.
The darn thing will ~match a 7750.

If you want good performance over a 2600K, you'll have to make the move to LGA 2011.
 
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PMad

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Well.. I've had this problem for over a year, and i've reinstalled the OS at least 10 times... I did CCleaner again and it really didnt find anything, i run it once a week. I have 11 things running in my system tray, but i dont see how that would prevent my computer from starting up. When I turn it on, i see the windows logo while its loading as well as the animation... The animation never stops it just runs forever... Sometimes it'll reboot itself if i leave it for a few minutes.

I've always thought the problem may have something to do with my RAID... I have a Raid 0 setup with two 7200 RPM 1.5TB Seagate hard drives.

I had a previous post on here awhile back where i was trying to decide what motherboard to upgrade too. I had the Asus P8P67 Deluxe and was having a problem where my SATA6 drive was not being detected. I was 100% sure it was my motherboard but eventually found out my hard drive needed a firmware upgrade, which solved the problem.

But now I have two older 1.5TB drives in a RAID0, but here's something weird.. Check out this picture i took:
http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/2918/tbcg.jpg

Those speeds seem quite a bit faster than a 7200RPM Raid 0 using two non-ssd drives... I've also noticed that after the bios screen when booting up, sometimes it takes up to 5 seconds for the RAID screen to pop up showing my RAID configuration.. It seems something is wrong with it, but i've remade it maaaany times.
 
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clutchc

clutchc

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11! Some of those "things" could be in conflict with each other. Check your System Configuration/Start Up and see how many boxes are checked. I try to keep mine at 6-8 or less. I'm betting you have too much stuff running in the background.

You may have a hardware issue, but the processor would be far down the list of possible culprits. What kind of PSU do you have?
 
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PMad

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Here's my full specs:

CPU: Intel Core i7-2600k (OC @ 4.5GHz)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UP5 TH
RAM: 16GB Corsair Vengeance 1600MHz (4x4, CMZ16GX3M4A1600C9, runs at 1333 because of the processor, manually OC'd to 1600Mhz, which is stock speeds)
HDD: 2x Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB RAID 0 (ST31500341AS)
Graphics: 2x XFX DD ATI Radeon HD 6950 2GB (Crossfire)
PSU: OCZ ZX 1250W
Sound: Creative Soundblaster X-Fi Titanium (PCIe 1x)

As for the overclocking and moving the RAM back up to stock speeds, ive ran them at default stock settings with RAM at 1333 and it doesnt help anything.

The programs running in my system tray are:

  • Google Chrome
    Trillian
    Hangouts
    Rainmeter
    IRST
    Comodo Firewall
    Logitech Profiler (for my gamepad)
    Avast!
    Logitech Gaming Software (for Keyboard and Mouse)
    Catalyst Control Center

The only ones I could see causing any problems would be Avast and Comodo, but i've had those completely removed for just over a week and put them back on (this was 2 weeks ago) and with them off I had experienced the same problems. The removal of these was because I formatted and had another go at setting up the raid thinking that was the problem but it didnt fix anything, eventually put them back on.
 
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PMad

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I absolutely love the idea of an SSD, but I dont like the two problems that come with it: Storage space and organization.

With so little storage space, i'll be forced to install 50% of my programs onto a secondary drive, which is the 2nd issue. Constantly having to modify my installations. I've done this before with two normal drives and i've had several programs that required some modifications because the code for the program assumed C: as the root drive when it wasn't. I love the idea of SSD's but i prefer to wait until decently priced 2TB SSD's come out. I shouldnt have issues with those!

The problem that i've been reading is not that the CPU is bad, but that the board has issues with Sandy Bridge CPU's because it was designed around Ivy Bridge. I could see this being the case since I was not using RAID for the first month I had this board, and still had this issue. It was a minor issue at that time, but about 2 weeks after setting up the raid, the problem hit quite hard!

I'm really considering the SSD option though.. It should be faster than my RAID, and much more stable.. but.. those issues... hmm...
 
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clutchc

clutchc

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I experimented for awhile with RAID 0 using 2 x 500GB drives. I literally could tell no difference in speed or access time. Maybe a benchmark pgm could, but I couldn't. If a SSD right now is an issue you don't want to take on, I have another suggestion. An inexpensive SSD to use as a persistent cache to C; Drive. And do away with RAID 0. I use this on my 2nd machine and find it makes the entire HDD feel like a SSD: http://www.sandisk.com/products/ssd/sata/readycache/

Here is a respected review of the SSD/Cache: http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/10/17/sandisk_readycache_32gb_ssd_review/#.UkRkqRAYO2U

But back to your original problem... I'm not familiar with some of those pgms you have running in the background. But you may want to avoid running Avast and Comodo at the same time. Another thing do consider, is making note of which TSR pgms are in System Configuration/Start Up and un-check the boxes of some pgms one by one to see if the issue still persists. At worse, you've lost some time and will have to go back and re-check those boxes.

Here is a site to help with finding what TSRs do what: http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_search.php
Simply type in the executable (xxx.EXE) and what follows it in the search box. It will tell you what it does and if it is needed.
 
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PMad

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I currently have a RAID 0 with two 1.5TB drives and the only place i notice the speed difference is when saving large files, loading large files (gaming, photoshop, etc...) and when copying large files and large amounts of files. So I know i'd benefit from an SSD or a SSD RAID 0, but looking at pricing, i'm having a hard time justifying spending $300-$500 for so little space and extra problems. Especially when I dont know for sure if it will solve the problem i'm having.

As for Comodo and Avast, I dont believe that both of them running at the same time is causing a problem. Ive ran both of them together for around 2 years on my desktop, laptop, my wife's laptop, my mothers computer, and several other computers and there's never been a single issue. I've had this problem right after a fresh install of windows, before installing anything. One or two wipes ago, i finished installing windows around 1am so i went to bed. The very next morning, it was having this problem with literally nothing but Windows installed.

This leads me to believe its some sort of hardware issue. Either my motherboard doesnt play well with Sandy Bridge CPU's, or my RAID array sucks, or the board doesnt work well with RAID, or, my hard drives do not work well with RAID which is something i've seen in a couple reviews for the hard drives on different sites.

I'm at a bit of a loss right now on what to do or how to test the system without losing everything I have again or spending lots of money on things that may not fix the issue.
 
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clutchc

clutchc

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Ahh. That is news. Yes, something other than software is at play, I agree now. I can't imagine the IB based MB not being fully compatible with the SB processor. I haven't heard anything about that particular board, either. You may have hit on something with the RAID problem, however. New board, fresh RAID install of Win7... the MB is the only thing I can think of other than the very slim chance of a suddenly failing processor.

Can you make a disk image to a USB drive or something, and then do away with the RAID 0 for now? If the problem goes away with no RAID, it would lead us to believe the board/BIOS is at fault. Do you have the latest BIOS installed for the board?
 
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wdmfiber

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Lots of people only get a small SSD, ~90gb or so. The reason is they only install Windows on it. Everything else goes on a 4tb HDD, or whatever (3 or 4tb drives seem to be the best bang for the buck now). But if your worried about a few programs needing C: Then get a 120 or 240. But once you get an SSD you'll want nothing to do with raid. There is no way I would go back.
__________
Humm, another thought. Intel Smart Response Technology may be perfect for you. A small SSD and a tb+ drive, simply appear as one.

And I should also mention that I have no problems with a 2700K in an Asus Z77 pro board.
 
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Cons29

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i have ssd, and it is small. but the idea is to have the os (and maybe a few apps/games that you want to load fast) in the ssd.
the rest would go to the mechanical drive. that is what i do, and if you will do a fresh install then it would be easier, no need to move stuff since you will be installing them. ssd is A LOT, i mean a lot faster. my ssd is already old and wasn't even the fastest back then (imagine how it compares now), but it still boots like 13sec.

will never go back to mech drives alone, will always have ssd for a boot drive unless something better comes along
 
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PMad

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Looks like i'll need to do what i didnt want to do, and put in a spare hard drive, install windows, and test it for a few days to a week to see if it truly is the RAID that is causing the issue. Oh boy.. here goes hahaha
 
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PMad

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My apologies for not responding in about a year haha, but the issue was the hard drives I had in a RAID 0. I remember I did some digging and found that there was a firmware update for my 1.5TB Drives. Upon trying to do the update, it said my drives didnt need an update so I did more digging. I found the update wasnt for my version of the ST31500341AS model of drives and that they werent supposed to have the same issues that caused the need for the firmware update, yet my drives exhibited the same exact behavior as the drives that needed the firmware update.

I decided to ditch Seagate since i've had extremely bad luck with them non-stop for the past 8 years (9 now) and go with Western Digital and see if my luck changes. And it did! I skipped out on the raid this time, but I have 2 WD drives in my computer now, and they both run a ton faster than my Seagates did (which is expected, but not this much of a performance boost!).

I now have a new issue that i'll bring up in a new post. Thank you everyone for your contributions! And those ReadyCache hard drives that mix SSD with Mechanical are insane, i have one in my laptop now and it feels close to the speed of an SSD!
 
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clutchc

clutchc

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Excellent! Glad to hear of your success. I used to have a RAID 0 setup for awhile. No problems, but it was with WD drives. So at first, I never considered the HDDs.

Btw, I still have a Sandisk Readycache drive I use when I work on a new build intended for re-sale. It is indeed a low cost solution to making your system feel like it has a huge SSD by persistent caching your HDD. For a person whose daily PC use is 80% the same day in and day out, it really does make it feel like you have a SSD instead of a HDD.
 
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