Worth upgrading from i5 2500(non k) to i7 4770k?

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Michal_Drwal

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Jun 16, 2014
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I've been thinking about an upgrade from my i5 2500(non k) to an i7 4770k and I'm wondering if it's worth it. I've to say, I'm pretty happy how my i5 2500 deals with modern games (usually 60+fps on max details) BUT there are some fps drops to 40-50fps (I play Battefield 3-4 mostly - and probably Hardline when it's out). So I'm wondering if an i7 4770k can help to keep it ALWAYS at 60+fps.

My specs:
i5 2500(non k)
ASRock Z68 Pro3 Gen3
MSI Radeon R9 280x 3GB
8 GB RAM 1333MHz
WD Caviar Green 1TB
(I'm buying an SSD drive)
PSU 600W

Thanks for your help.
 
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nikoli707
in games, the 1230v2 probably wont offer any more performance, but there are plenty of non gaming apps that would see a 20%+/- performance increase since it is virtually the same as the i5-2500 but with 4 more hyper threading cores and the usual ivy bridge optimizations.

for now you still have a pretty solid setup, i still dont see the 4770k adding anything more than at best 4-5fps. also you should be looking at the 4790k and a z97 board. the refreshed 4790k(and 4690k) overclocks much better than their little brother and sister. but you will be sinking roughly $425 at least for that a 4 core 8 thread new setup. you would gain much much more fps by just selling your 280x and getting either a regular 290, which still wont be...
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Michal_Drwal

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I think it's better to get an i7 3770k - there are some (small) advantages of the IB. I thought of getting some CPU from the "k" series to be able to OC it. I wish I had bought a 2500k - apparently it's still a beast as far as overclocking is concerned... But I like mine (i5 2500) too, I've to say, it's a decent CPU.
 
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Michal_Drwal

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I don't think that the 1230v2 will make any difference. And what's more, I borrowed from my friend his i5 3470 to test it and there was NO difference AT ALL so I really doubt there is a difference between SB and IB as far as i5's are concerned.

Or maybe my rig is really good but the games are not optimized and everyone, even with i7 4770k, gets fps drops in certain places on big maps.
 
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nikoli707

nikoli707

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in games, the 1230v2 probably wont offer any more performance, but there are plenty of non gaming apps that would see a 20%+/- performance increase since it is virtually the same as the i5-2500 but with 4 more hyper threading cores and the usual ivy bridge optimizations.

for now you still have a pretty solid setup, i still dont see the 4770k adding anything more than at best 4-5fps. also you should be looking at the 4790k and a z97 board. the refreshed 4790k(and 4690k) overclocks much better than their little brother and sister. but you will be sinking roughly $425 at least for that a 4 core 8 thread new setup. you would gain much much more fps by just selling your 280x and getting either a regular 290, which still wont be bottlenecked by your sandy bridge and would give you a huge boost to your performance.

if that msi 280x is a gaming/twin frozr, i bet you could get at least $200 for it. then a sapphire tri-x or msi gaming 290 on sale for maybe $400. also the optimizations for mantle "seem" to be slightly better on the hawaii chip than they are on the tahiti chip. that is what is going to give you the boost in fps you need. im going to guess around 20 solid fps gain for averages. even going with a 4960x@4.8ghz wouldn't give you hugely noticeable fps in games like battlefield 4.
 
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Michal_Drwal

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Thanks for your help. As far as BF4 is concerned, I get NO fps drops, stable 60 fps on ultra settings. I just put some custom options in my "user.cfg" file and it works like charm. I wish it worked for BF3. So I'm wondering if these fps drops to ~45 in BF3 depend on my hardware or software.
 
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bicycle_repair_man

bicycle_repair_man

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Jan 10, 2014
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Everyone else has beaten me to it, but just to reiterate.

1. Buy a used i7 2600k if you want to overclock. The Sandy Bridge line make much better overclockers and the performance difference between Sandy, Ivy and Haswell is pretty negligible.
2. Buy a Xeon 1230-V2 if you don't want to overclock; it's i7 performance for i5 money. It won't offer much better gaming performance, but that could change in the near future.

I'm well aware that the LGA 1155 socket is dead, but that doesn't mean it should be ignored. Chances are, the LGA 1150 socket will also be dead in the next few years anyway.
 
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leeb2013

leeb2013

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It doesn't really blow it away, the only way you can tell is by running single thread benchmarks, which the overclocked i5 will score higher. Any recent stuff that can only use 4 threads isn't that demanding anyway, so no real world difference. However most recent aaa games, including bf4 that the op mentioned, use >4 threads, in which the xeon excells. On top of that, it runs 10-15c cooler and uses 45w max.
 
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Michal_Drwal

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BF4 runs smooth at stable 60fps with no lags, stuttering etc. I achieved that after creating "user.cfg" file and messing around with some settings. But it worked, it couldn't be better.
 
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