Worth Upgrading i7 920??

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
J

jcrobinson139

Honorable
Jul 22, 2013
11
0
10,510
Hey all!

PC Specs:
i7 920 @ 2.67 (though i plan on clocking it to 4.0 soon)
Asus P6X58D-E mobo
Corsair Vengeance 8gb ddr3 1600mhz
seagate 2tb 7200rpm
Gigabyte gtx770 2gb windforce
Thermaltake smart m 750 modular psu

I am a hardcore gamer, and I play almost everything that comes out. As of May this year, I was running that same system with a crappy mobo and an AMD athlon II x4 630 and had no real problems.

A 920 has fallen into my lap for free, just as I was getting ready to upgrade to a z97 hero with an i7 at the helm.

Money is not really an issue as I was getting ready to upgrade anyway, but of course saving is nice.

I plan on setting up sli with 2 windforce gtx770.

Question: Is it worth it to upgrade the 920 (even if I oc to 4.0ghz) for a 4770k. As mentioned before, I mostly will use my comp for intensive gaming. So upgrade mobo/cpu and get another gtx770 later, or keep 920 and sli sooner.

Your thoughts/opinions/experiences are much appreciated as this decision has begun to hurt my brain.

 
Solution
yanis31


not nearly as bottlenecked as people would think... i can run it @ 4.7ghz which gives plenty of fps
in fact i only bought it to check for myself because i got tired of the amd FX talk from people who don't use them... and there is a noticeable improvement compared to the 770. Battlefield4 multiplayer @ 4.55ghz maps that are not that full will run between 90 and 170fps or thereabouts... more intense ones 60-90fps ... in approx 1 hour...
Sort by date Sort by votes
yanis31

yanis31

Distinguished
Jul 4, 2010
602
0
19,060
if you can overclock it without investing alot of money in expensive motherboard etc. - keep it and upgrade when broadwell comes out...
im running a GTX780 with a FX-6350 now ... weirdest combo ever!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
WINTERLORD

WINTERLORD

Distinguished
Sep 20, 2008
1,775
15
19,815
this is a very tricky question I think. my cpu is old I cant get it to run past 3.6ghz stable

I wish there was a review or comparison for a deffinative answer with proof. I have always wondered this quition myself for multi gpu setup
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
yanis31

yanis31

Distinguished
Jul 4, 2010
602
0
19,060
btw i used to have a windforce 770 myself a few months ago... (fantastic cooler on that thing) ... honestly for 1080p that's all you need.. but crysis3 can bring the card to it's knees... the 780 is giving me better performance in many situations but not always so the cpu can keep up with things for the most part... i don't think yours would be much different... but sli 770 would actually be necessary to either max out crysis or go for 1440p or multiple monitors etc. .. or play battlefield4 maxed with more than 100% resolution scale which basically renders the game at a higher resolution that that of your monitor's (huge fps drop)...
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
J

jcrobinson139

Honorable
Jul 22, 2013
11
0
10,510
Wups forgot to mention that im only gaming @1080/60fps. And that is fine for me. I would like to hit an even 60 for at least a year to come (except maybe for crysis 3 which kills all systems).
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
yanis31

yanis31

Distinguished
Jul 4, 2010
602
0
19,060


your single 770 already will do that... but in some games you might see 55-60 ish fps with all the antialiasing settings etc.
but most new games will run constantly higher than 60fps with it... some - alot higher! just need to see what the cpu is capable of
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Powerbolt

Powerbolt

Honorable
Oct 21, 2013
413
0
10,960


And a bottle-necked combo at that. Lol.

The i7 920 is a good CPU. Give it a good overclock, and it should serve you well. I would be a bit worried about running an overclocked CPU, and SLI GTX 770s on a 750W PSU though. You'd probably be better suited with at least an 850W or better. Just my $0.02.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
WhiteSnake91

WhiteSnake91

Distinguished
Jun 16, 2013
1,431
2
19,665
The i7 920 is still good,many people are still running them along with even the 1st gen i5 cpu too. And a single gtx 770 is fine for 1080p, Crysis 3 probably wouldn't be a constant 60fps, but that kills any pc like you said. I thought of trying out the i7 920 too, they're only going for like 60 bucks on ebay last time I checked. The motherboards for 1366 are expensive though. But I guess since the i7 920 is so cheap it balances out.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
S

SuperMonkeyKing

Honorable
Jan 20, 2014
22
0
10,510
I've got a 920 at 3.6 GHz and I've never seen it at 100%. I also game at 1080p @ 60Hz but through a GTX 670. It handles everything maxed (but MSAA off or x2).

I'm feeling the itch to upgrade but can't see the point just now unless I get a 1440p 144Hz screen which I've been eyeing up.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
WhiteSnake91

WhiteSnake91

Distinguished
Jun 16, 2013
1,431
2
19,665
yeah, CPU single thread performance really hasn't increased that much in recent years, a good GPU matters much more.

I found a thread over on the tek syndicate forums where a guy was having the same problem. He got an i7 920 about 5 years ago and over time through the upgrade itch he got a big SSD and gtx 780,etc but never needed to upgrade the 920 cpu. Somebody recommended the 1366 Xeon 6 core cpu, they claim it's overclockable and has hyperthreading, so 12 threads.

It's only 77 bucks right now for the 6 core Xeon, seems like a steal........that's usually the price an i7 920 goes for anyway, I've seen the 920 really cheap at only 60 bucks though.

Link to 6 core Xeon, http://www.ebay.com/itm/261360305231
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
yanis31

yanis31

Distinguished
Jul 4, 2010
602
0
19,060


not nearly as bottlenecked as people would think... i can run it @ 4.7ghz which gives plenty of fps
in fact i only bought it to check for myself because i got tired of the amd FX talk from people who don't use them... and there is a noticeable improvement compared to the 770. Battlefield4 multiplayer @ 4.55ghz maps that are not that full will run between 90 and 170fps or thereabouts... more intense ones 60-90fps ... in approx 1 hour of gameplay i saw it dip below 60fps just once for a few seconds... far cry3 runs better than with 770 as well... i only have the card for 2 days so havent done much testing yet but i will...

back to the point and topic - i think you will see a similar scenario with the intel if you can overclock it, fact of the matter is - games are very GPU bound... if you are looking for 60fps you can still wait for a bit... people who want close to 100 all the time can put their 4790k under watercooling and push them to the limit ... but better ask someone who is actually using the 920... i have no experience with them
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
J

jcrobinson139

Honorable
Jul 22, 2013
11
0
10,510
Thanks for all of the answers. Id like to get as many different opinions as possible. Is anyone running a system similar to mine? Care to share your experience thoughts?

I havent actually hooked mine up yet, so I have yet to see how it'll perform.

You'd probably be better suited with at least an 850W or better. Just my $0.02.
Click to expand...

^^^^I agree Powerbolt.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
yanis31

yanis31

Distinguished
Jul 4, 2010
602
0
19,060
i'm also thinking you might wanna trade in the 770 and get a 780 instead...(that is if you feel its actually not enough/my windforce was boosting over 1300mhz with a lil oc on it) + you wouldn't need to change the PSU ... i run mine off of a CX600M, however i do want to upgrade it at some point since the system is probably consuming close to 500w on full load...
you'll still have only 2 gigs of vram with another 770 unless you already have the 4gig version... also 880/870 should appear in september or october... but they are always expensive on launch so why bother, doubt they will bring a massive boost compared to 7 series
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom