Is it worth upgrading my i7-2600 for gaming?

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y2thez

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Mar 19, 2014
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Hello,
I have an intel i7-2600 3.4GHZ quad core processor.
Recently I decided to update my rig to get ready for the upcoming games like Witcher 3 and GTA5. I would love to play them at ultra graphics on 1080

I got myself a new GTX 970 graphic card, but looking at the recommended specification of witcher 3, it needs an Intel CPU Core i7 3770 3.4 GHz.

will my intel i7-2600 be a bottleneck for that? is it worth spending money to upgrade it to an i7 3rd or 4th generation?

Thank you for any input on this
 
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FunSurfer
To OP - Well the situation is a bit more complicated than the answers above.
First, you need to worry more because of the recent games that required the i7 4770/4790.
Second, there are two possible situations:
1) Games that are well optimized for 8 threads. in this case the i7 2600 will run like a dream:
http://gamegpu.ru/action-/-fps-/-tps/metal-gear-solid-v-ground-zeroes-test-gpu.html
notice that the recommended CPU for this game is i7 4790.
2) Games that are badly optimized and will use only 1-2 threads :
http://gamegpu.ru/action-/-fps-/-tps/the-evil-within-test-gpu.html
here there is a noticeable difference between the 2600 and 4770 because that is the single core and clock advantage of the latter over the former.

The good news...
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XiPH3R

XiPH3R

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nope you dont need to buy a new processor. your i7 is a high end cpu and should last for more 3 year or so. it wont bottleneck a single card atm
 
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FunSurfer

FunSurfer

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Oct 26, 2009
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To OP - Well the situation is a bit more complicated than the answers above.
First, you need to worry more because of the recent games that required the i7 4770/4790.
Second, there are two possible situations:
1) Games that are well optimized for 8 threads. in this case the i7 2600 will run like a dream:
http://gamegpu.ru/action-/-fps-/-tps/metal-gear-solid-v-ground-zeroes-test-gpu.html
notice that the recommended CPU for this game is i7 4790.
2) Games that are badly optimized and will use only 1-2 threads :
http://gamegpu.ru/action-/-fps-/-tps/the-evil-within-test-gpu.html
here there is a noticeable difference between the 2600 and 4770 because that is the single core and clock advantage of the latter over the former.

The good news are that the game developers can release a patch that improves multithreading use, I have seen that in a game CPU benchmarks but unfortunately I don't remember its name.
I can tell from personal experience that in graphical intensive games the i7 2600 will not bottleneck the GTX 970, I also own an i7 2600 and upgraded from GTX 760 to GTX 970 to play FC4 at ultra settings and I am seeing usually close to 99% GPU usage in GPU-Z when playing the game.
 
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y2thez

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Thank you, I think I'll stick with it until I notice performance issue.
 
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Undying89

Undying89

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i7 2600 will be fast as any new 4th gen i7. Its still a beast. Shame its not 'K' so you can overclock it.

This is how Sandy performs, not worth upgrading at all :

http--www.gamegpu.ru-images-stories-Test_GPU-Action-Battlefield_Hardline-test-bfh_proz.jpg
 
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