What is the best CPU upgrade option for me? (old 1366 platform)

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Blarzor

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Currently I own i7-920 @ 3,5 ghz. In near future I'm planning to get GTX 1070 which will almost certainly be bottlenecked by CPU (I'll game in 1440p). I know that the most popular upgrade option to i7-920 is Xeon X5650. However, my motherboard (GA-EX58-UD4P) does not support that CPU (would technically work, but would not allow overclocking - unstable). My question is, what is the best upgrade to i7 920 other than X56** series? I was thinking of getting i7-970 and overclocking it. Is there any other Xeon that would work or I'm best with going with i7-970?

This is what my motherboard supports:
http://www.gigabyte.com/support-downloads/cpu-support-popup.aspx?pid=2986


I do not have money to get new platform, so I just want a decent upgrade to i7-920. A CPU which I can overclock so it won't bottleneck the GTX 1070 hard.

Thanks.
 
Solution
chemmajorp53


I don't think you should buy an i7 970, it's wasting money on an outdated CPU. IMO, get the 1070 and overclock the 920 as much as you can, get a good cooler that you can carry over to your next platform if you need to. When you have the money in the future, upgrade your cpu and mobo and carry over the gpu and cooler, just my 2c.
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amtseung

amtseung

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I haven't heard of any motherboard allowing overclocking on a xeon. You might be able to do some trickery with boost clocks, but it wouldn't be a true overclock.

Will the i7-920 not overclock any farther? From this test, it doesn't look like bottlenecking is that big of an issue. A bigger/better/badder CPU cooler is definitely cheaper than a brand new CPU and/or brand new platform overhaul.
 
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Blarzor

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I've heard about people overclocking Xeon x5650 hard many times. Lots of people on internet report it. My specific motherboard just simply doesn't work well with that Xeon series. I heard that i7-920 bottlenecks GTX 1070 pretty hard.
 
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chemmajorp53

chemmajorp53

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I don't think you should buy an i7 970, it's wasting money on an outdated CPU. IMO, get the 1070 and overclock the 920 as much as you can, get a good cooler that you can carry over to your next platform if you need to. When you have the money in the future, upgrade your cpu and mobo and carry over the gpu and cooler, just my 2c.
 
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Blarzor

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Good tip, thanks.

 
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