Should I upgrade to an i5-2500 or an i7 2600 to avoid a gtx 970 bottleneck?

k4ever

Distinguished
Jan 26, 2012
172
0
18,690
Please dont reply that I should better get a skylake or lga 1150 processor because thats not an option for me right now. I currently have an i3 2120 paired with a 7870 xt and they work wonderfully. But now I wanted to start maxing out some recent games like fallout 4, farcry 4, gtav, witcher 3, so Im thinking in getting a gtx 970. I know I wont get 60fps maxed in many titles, but at least I dont want my new 970 to not use all its power (get a bottleneck). Will an i5 2500 be enough to achieve this, or an i7 2600 would be necessary? Keep in mind my mobo cant overclock any cpus, so I will just use their regular stock speeds.

Or hey, maybe an i7 2600 will still bottleneck my 970 ... Im not sure.

Also, an i7 cpu will cost me $80~100 more than the i5 one. I want to know if its worth it overall.
 
Solution
^ its true , even on sata 2 an ssd gives very very good performance over a tradititional drive.

What's your actual motherboard model ??

If it supports Ivy bridge then it opens up a fairly big range of cpu's.

I dropped a 3470 in a build with a 970 a few months back & it performed absolutely admirably imo - I'd stick to an i5, & the best priced one you can find.
$100 extra for an old i7 is not worth the extra for primarily gaming use.

k4ever

Distinguished
Jan 26, 2012
172
0
18,690


So would you say that spending an extra $80~100 is worth it? I love open world games by the way.

Or I could use that money to buy maybe an ssd? Problem is that my motherboard supports only sata 2.0 and there is no ssd that go lower than 3.0.
 

Geef

Distinguished
Getting an SSD was the biggest change to the way I game in a long time. I play a lot of MMO games and so zone loading time was something I hated. An SSD almost eliminated it. When I got an SSD I was in same boat your talking about. Older MB with only sata 2.0 support but since sata 3.0 is backward compatible it wasn't an issue, the speed increase is still amazing. I don't know how I lived without SSD when I think about it now. :)
 

k4ever

Distinguished
Jan 26, 2012
172
0
18,690


I just want to squeeze the last ounce of juice I can get from my current system. A new build will cost me: $200 cpu, $80+ mobo, $50+ RAM, $100 win 10 license since mine is OEM, and $90 SSD. I will keep my psu (cx600m), haf 912 case, and just transfer my future gtx 970. It will cost me around $550 plus taxes to get a basic future proof system that I can upgrade down the way.
Thats why I wanted to just spend less than $200 (not counting the gpu) and keep this system hoping it will last me one or maybe two more years.

EDIT: Those $350 I would save could go to a ... ps4 maybe? I really want to play FFXV, and maybe some Call of Duties on console.
 

k4ever

Distinguished
Jan 26, 2012
172
0
18,690


I keep hearing the same thing over and over. The speeds will be reduced by half by using sata 2.0, but if you compare it to keep using an hhd, the difference is still significant.
 
^ its true , even on sata 2 an ssd gives very very good performance over a tradititional drive.

What's your actual motherboard model ??

If it supports Ivy bridge then it opens up a fairly big range of cpu's.

I dropped a 3470 in a build with a 970 a few months back & it performed absolutely admirably imo - I'd stick to an i5, & the best priced one you can find.
$100 extra for an old i7 is not worth the extra for primarily gaming use.
 
Solution

k4ever

Distinguished
Jan 26, 2012
172
0
18,690


Unfortunately my motherboard is the one that came from an OEM hp desktop I bought 4 years ago. Model was p7-1110 and doesnt support Ivy Bridge. It doesnt have a firmware/BIOS update that will allow me to use ivy bridge cpus (I already have done my research), so the best cpus I can get is an i5 2500 or i7 2600.
 
^ yep mate , just checked your board model out.
Its fairly basic & non upgradeable which is the norm with old HP/dell prebuilds :-/

Its unfortunate it won't take an ivy chip - not necessarily because of any performance increase, you've obviously researched & will know that a 2500 is very very close to a 3450/3470.
But mainly because you have a much better chance of grabbing a second hand bargain with a bigger range of CPU's.

In the uk I grabbed a second hand h61 board + i3 3210 + 8gb ram last year for £70.
Sold the i3 for £35 , grabbed a 3470 off the bay for £70.
Instant i5 setup for just over £100 which in the UK at least is a great price .

The 2500 is absolutely capable of running a 970 though , make no mistake,
You may find in extreme cases though , & if you can grab a real bargain on a locked ivy chip (they actually go cheaper than Sandy bridge the majority of the time over here) that you can squeeze a budget h61 board in under budget.
 

Geef

Distinguished


Three quick things to also consider:
Your current setup is really old so unless you go all the way on new motherboard/cpu at same time its not gonna be a huge change compared to what you'd get for same price on newer stuff.
Make your upgrades to things you are sure to be able to use in your next future machine. Like your idea for a video card.
If you consider an SSD, Don't look at the transfer rates and numbers. I am pretty sure everyone here who has already upgraded from HD to SSD will agree: The difference is like "Night and Day"
Sorry to try to stuff that SSD info down your throat but I'm sure you'll like the taste :)
 
^ agreed - an ssd is still worth it on sata 2 though IMO.

What you don't want to do is pay a premium for one if the fastest drives like the evo.
Sata 2 will be the limiter speed wise & any of the cheaper kingston/sandisk/crucial models will still saturate the bus - you will however get around twice the read/write rate of a traditional 7200 platter drive though.

What you won't get on an old amibios board like yours is the instaboot hibernate features built into windows 8.1/10 as those boards have to go through a full bios post first .
 

k4ever

Distinguished
Jan 26, 2012
172
0
18,690
I remember amazon had a black friday sale for an samsung evo 850 250gb for around $75, but now they sell it for a little less than $90.
I just checked other ssd brands on newegg if I can find some cheaper ones. The cheapest ssd with one of the brands madmatt mentioned was a crucial 240gb for $70 plus tax (a little more than $75). There is a PNY 240gb for $60 plus tax ($65), but Im not sure about that brand.
 


if youre talking about the crucial bx then steer clear,theyre not particularly good drives.
The PNY drive is far far better,nothing wrong with them as a brand ,they dont have great market penetration in the usa but theyre a solid manufacturer.
Thats an excellent price at $60
 

k4ever

Distinguished
Jan 26, 2012
172
0
18,690


Thanks man for your suggestions and opinions. I will get that PNY ssd then.