Upgrade from my i5 3330 to i_ 3______?

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
L

lswanie

Distinguished
Sep 17, 2013
37
0
18,530
Hello everyone. I am currently running on my trusty rusty i5 3330, which has been running strong for over four years now. It was part of my budget build way back then, and it is starting to show its age in some CPU intensive games. I was going to upgrade it when I bought my Oculus...but I spent all of my money on the oculus haha (it actually does alright with 90% of oculus stuff).

I am wondering, what should I upgrade to? Here are my specs:

i5 3330
MSI z77 mobo
Evga GTX 970 SC
16gb ram
128gb Kingston ssd
960gb Sandisk ssd

The i5 3570K or i7 3770K would be ideal. Used, the i5s run around 100-150 and the i7s run 200-250, depending. This is based on my ebay observations over the past week. Speed wise they are essentially the same, so I guess the decision there is based on the usefulness of hyper threading. It would be great to ride out another few years and upgrade the gpu one more time (1070 or equivalent next gen) before doing a completely new build.

Also, I have noticed the locked versions of both are way way way cheaper, and if I am not mistaken, you can still overclock the older locked intel cpus correct? Is that really a viable option or just something people do for the sake of doing it while dealing with headache after headache?

Thanks!

 
Solution
Supahos
I have a similar setup. If I were going to upgrade it would be to a 2500k or 2600k. They oc better than their ivy counter parts so the net speed is the same and they are cheaper. 3350p z77 board for me.
Sort by date Sort by votes
geofelt

geofelt

Titan
Oct 9, 2006
54,379
4,185
174,240
I see no negative in hyperthreading, but few games are going to use more than 2-3 threads so I5-3570K would ceem to be better.

When you look for selling prices on ebay, cllck on used and filter on completed auctions.
In green, you will see what they actually sold for.

Plan on overclocking, your motherboard supports it.

As to overclocking locked processors, I think that is limited to BCLK overclocking which is worth perhaps 2%.
Not worth it.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
imsqam

imsqam

Splendid
Mar 25, 2011
1,912
1
23,960
We are currently entering a grey area with regards to the necessity of having more than four threads. Most games do not at this point benefit although some already do. And the trend is toward more than four. If you are trying to squeeze out two or more years I would go with the i7.

Now a locked CPU means that the CPU multiplier can not be changed. Changing the CPU multiplier allows for the greatest increases in overclock performance hence the desirability of unlocked CPU's. It is possible to overclock non-K CPU's by increasing the base clock but it is not very effective.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
L

lswanie

Distinguished
Sep 17, 2013
37
0
18,530
Alright, looks like I am potentially swooping a 2550k lightly used with the original heat sink. Also looks like I will be able to sell the 3330 for around 40 or so bucks, which should buy some aftermarket cooling!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
L

lswanie

Distinguished
Sep 17, 2013
37
0
18,530
It is official, just scooped a 2550k for 70 bucks! Will update thread once I receive it. All in, assuming this works, looking at spending 100 bucks on what appears to be a heck of a step forward. Wish it was a 2600, but hey, this is just temporary. Thanks guys!
 
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