Worth upgrading gaming rig from i7 860 to i5 4670?

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jimmy85_42

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Mar 3, 2013
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10,510
Hail internet peeps!

I intended to get a whole new rig when Ivy Bridge came out, but found wouldn't really get much performance for the money spent so I did a partial upgrade with a new GPU and ssd.

Now that my CPU and mobo are several generations old, I'm thinking of upgrading the other components.

I've done some research, and theoretically the Haswell i5 is at least 20% faster in non-memory itensive applications. Plus the i5 will use less power, and has the integrated GPU to save even more power.

That's not the only factor I'm considering though. Fact is, I bought a SoundBlaster ZX (bit of an audiophile, have good speakers and headphones), but since the HD750 takes up 3 slots and my itx mobo only has 2 slots, I couldn't even use it. I also bought a 16gb pack of RAM, but can only use 8gb, so I'd also get those two things out of a new and bigger mobo.

I'm thinking of getting the Asus Z87 Gryphon with the 4670, and a TP link TL-WN722W for wifi. All up will cost me about $500 here in Australia. I was thinking of getting a r9 280x, but I concluded it wasn't worth it for the price over my current 7950.

I use this pc mostly for gaming, with some video watching, I mostly play rts like Company of Heroes, but I'm after more fps in Skyrim (heavily modded).

Is this upgrade worth it? Are the components I chose fine?

Thanks for reading, help appreciated.

My current rig:
i7 860
Corsair H50
Zotac H55 itx
8gb corsair vengeance 1600
Asus DCUII HD7950
SoundBlaster X-fi surround 5.1 USB
Intel 520 240gb ssd
WD Green 1TB
Silverstone Temjin TJ08
 
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jimmy85_42

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Mar 3, 2013
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10,510
Whelp, since I didn't get much advice I made a decision. I went with the i5 4670k and Asus z87 Gryphon for some OCing so hopefully this will last the next 3 years until upgrade season.

In case it helps anyone else, I decided to upgrade now because Broadwell won't be a significant upgrade to justify waiting another year. If I'm willing to wait until Broadwell, then Skylake is just around the corner and I may as well wait for that except by then DDR4 will be out so I'll have to buy new RAM as well which is likely to be expensive due to the new type.

Basically this upgrade puts my whole rig in roughly the same era, and by the time I upgrade again (probably when Cannonlake comes out) I will just replace the whole system. Plus a friend is buying my old cpu and mobo which pays for more than half the cost of my upgrade.
 
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Quest_Skyrim

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Oct 10, 2013
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10,660
You have played "the waiting game" and learned that it is never wise to expect too much from a future upgrade as there will always be something "new" on the horizon! :-D

I did almost the same today lined of thought as you did when I ordered my first i5 4670k with "only" 2 x4 GB RAM instead of 16 GB which I had set as a goal, but then I thought what use it would be to pay almost double for something that isn't really doing much use (at least for playing Skyrim or transcoding video files)?

I think that your upgrade will work very well for time being and some years in the future as long you "tweak" your system with up-to-date video card and SSD or even a new psu during these smaller upgrades.

Had my eyes on Silverstones Precision PS07B (cheaper version of yours Temjin). How do think it will work with this kind of hardware and CM EVO 212 air cooler? Is this type of case good to keep noise low or will it be better to pay more for a Fractal Design mini case? This time I wanted to go to a smaller form factor on my case like micro ATX instead of ATX.
 
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