Upgrade Kaveri A10-7850K to i5-2500K

Indra_gwn

Commendable
May 5, 2016
4
0
1,510
I am buying Kaveri APU because of its powerfull IGPU, but unsatisfy with its limitation so I put a discrete card GTX950 on it. It does could run most modern games in 1080p...however thinking that all APU's never have very good CPU performance compare to Intel's, I am wondering if I will get significant boost in gaming performance by upgrading to Core i5-2500K processor pairing with Z68 board and GTX950 card. I know the socket difference so beforehand I have to sell the APU, FM2 board -and possibly RAM too, to buy a used i5-2500K with Z68 board.
I need some advice if this upgrade worth the troubles or not.

My system :
AMD APU Kaveri A10-7850K
MSI A88X G45 Gaming
Galax GTX950 2GB DDR5
Patriot Viper 8GB (2x4) DDR3 PC17000
Corsair VS450
 
Solution
It depends on the game. In some games you might see true "bottlenecking" (CPU usage at 100% with GPU usage below 40%), but in other games it won't be as noticeable. That's why you need to check benchmarks for the games you're interested in, so that you can get a better idea. Techspot (http://www.techspot.com) is a great place to check, because they first test their GPUs by using a system with the fastest/best performing mainstream CPUs (i.e. an Intel Skylake i7), but then they'll go back & pop in one of the top-line GPUs (currently a GTX 980Ti) & test with different CPUs (including both overclocking & downclocking their 'K' series i7). Not only does it let you see any performance differences between CPUs (not only Intel vs. AMD, but...

Indra_gwn

Commendable
May 5, 2016
4
0
1,510
I pick 2500K because they are used hardware and cheapest i5 in my area :)
Newer Haswell or Skylake will cost me fortune, while I read they are not significant improvement over sandybridge... 2500K also very capable in overclocking to match haswell/skylake so it has very good value even today.
 


You read wrong... Both can be a huge improvement, especially when both of those i3 chips have base frequency of 3.7GHz and between 25-30% faster single thread performance at the same frequency, faster memory, and PCIe 3.0 (not too much of an issue with your 950, but better future compatibility). I'm sure that if you looked around you could find an i3 4370 or 6100 with H97/H170 for nearly the same price
 

spdragoo

Expert
Ambassador
What you should be doing is looking at benchmarks for specific games that you're either currently playing or are interested in playing in the near future, & deciding from there.

Other things to also consider are whether you can make any improvements in your current build. For example, the GTX 950 is one of Tom's Hardware's recommended GPUs, but it's the "playable" recommendation (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107.html); that means that it'll work, but as the games get newer you'll have to keep turning the details down. Switching to a 960 (http://anandtech.com/bench/product/1670?vs=1596), or better yet a 970 (http://anandtech.com/bench/product/1670?vs=1595) -- the latter being Tom's Hardware's "Maxed out" recommendation -- will provide you some boosted performance without having to get a whole new motherboard/CPU/RAM (& thereby avoiding having to reinstall everything from scratch).
 

HTTPRO

Reputable
Oct 7, 2014
70
0
4,630
The 2500k is a very capable CPU but the performance only becomes close or equal to a i5 Haswell/Skylake if you can overclock it, also if you can find a decent and cheap Z77 motherboard plus a cooler. If I were you just buy a locked i5 Haswell/Skylake a cheap B170/H170/H110/B85/H97/H87/H81 motherboard and just plug in and play.
 

Indra_gwn

Commendable
May 5, 2016
4
0
1,510
@spdragoo : I opt i5 over i3 in anticipation of future games being more utilizing multi thread cpu. Upgrading vga is a dream come true but expensive...My question does A10-7850K cpu could somewhat bottlenecking gtx 960 or 970 ?

@httpro : that exactly why choosing 2500k because its overclocking ability could lengthen its life and compete with newer gen cpu.

The question remain "how significant will I see performance difference in games by upgrading from A10-7850K cpu to 2500k/i3 haswell cpu using same gtx950 card ?"
 

spdragoo

Expert
Ambassador
It depends on the game. In some games you might see true "bottlenecking" (CPU usage at 100% with GPU usage below 40%), but in other games it won't be as noticeable. That's why you need to check benchmarks for the games you're interested in, so that you can get a better idea. Techspot (http://www.techspot.com) is a great place to check, because they first test their GPUs by using a system with the fastest/best performing mainstream CPUs (i.e. an Intel Skylake i7), but then they'll go back & pop in one of the top-line GPUs (currently a GTX 980Ti) & test with different CPUs (including both overclocking & downclocking their 'K' series i7). Not only does it let you see any performance differences between CPUs (not only Intel vs. AMD, but also Skylake vs. Haswell vs. Ivy Bridge vs. Sandy Bridge & FX vs. A-series/Athlons).

If the games you're playing or interested in show consistent and significant performance disadvantages with A-series chips (whether using the iGPU or a discrete GPU), then it's probably time to consider going with a new build....if you have the budget for it. If you don't have the budget for it now, or there's a better potential to improve performance by upgrading the GPU, then go for that instead.
 
Solution