Upgrade from i5 7400 to i7 7700k

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
M

marianmmn

Prominent
Feb 14, 2017
43
0
530
Hello guys!
I am so so so undecided.
So I am gonna need your help a little bit.
Last year, in dec 2017 i built a new pc with:
- i5 7400 + deepcool gammax v40
- asus gpu rog gtx 1060 6gb 192bit
- asus rog strix b250f
- 8 gb adata xpg z1 2400mhz ram
- 3 hdds and 1ssd but i am replacing the hdds soon with 1 ssd and 1tb hdd
- thermaltake smart rgb series 600w psu

Ok so, with this specs, to be honest i just played a few months, like 2-3 months only, because i didn't had much time.. and during these games i got good fps and good temps with few little drops like big temps and kinda little laggy pc during multitasking (gaming + browsing the internet on chrome at the same time).. and now i am in a trip in the US and i found i7 7700k on amazon, on a good price at 340$, while in Romania that cpu costs 500$ .. and my whole pc build was around 600$, just a little bit over the i7 in my country. I paid for this i5 7400 like 150$.
Ok so, after all this story, i found this i7 7700k a lot cheaper and i know that it has more clock speed like 4.2ghz and 4 cores, 8 threads (hyperthreading) unlike the i5 with 3.0ghz and turbo 3.5ghz and 4 cores only, and i am willing to buy it, but i dunno if it is going to worth, or it will be just some money thrown away. Even if i would like to buy it, i know that with this mobo i cannot OC it, so i am not willing to OC this cpu anyway at the moment.
Or should i spend a little more on adding some extra ram?

I am also ok with this i5, works fine, it does great besides my old fx 6300 black edition vishera.. i felt a huge difference.

Any suggestions please? I have only couple of days remaining here so I want to know what should i do...
 
Solution
Eximo
Memory compatibility can be tricky. Worst case you have to set everything manually, and if the timings don't match it will be difficult.

You can mix 2x8GB and a 2x4GB kit if the voltages and timings match well enough. With two JEDEC profiles to choose from, it will default to the 1333 or 1600. As long as it boots you will be able to get into the BIOS and fiddle with it.

If you want 16GB of memory, you can go ahead and buy it. Worst case, you just use the 16GB, best case you'll have 24GB. If you get another set of 8GB, and they don't work, you are stuck with two sets of 8GB.
Sort by date Sort by votes
B

bmockeg

Dignified
May 11, 2018
5,170
358
14,990
You have 1 or 2 sticks of RAM? The best way to know what is bottlenecking your system is,for you to have a hardware monitor open during gaming. See what is working 100%. That is your weakest part or bottleneck. The CPU upgrade is good but still not worth the money IMO. 7700k is about to,be 2 generations old and still the same,price as launch.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Eximo

Eximo

Titan
Ambassador
May 27, 2010
25,913
4,222
139,340
It should still automatically boost to 4.5Ghz as well.

Well, a lot of that depends on the games you play. There are some recent releases that are asking a lot of a quad core and a few that exceed 8GB of memory. But if you only play older titles, then it is probably fine as is. Your graphics settings will mostly be determined by your GPU, but GPUs can also be replaced.

If that price is a good deal to you, I say go for it. Only other option is spending even more on a new motherboard and getting a six core i5-8400 on the cheap, or blowing everything and getting an i7-8700k (typically $370 in the US)

The CPU is not really two generations old. Intel has made very small improvements since Skylake. 6th, 7th, 8th, and even 9th gen are all the same basic design. The only difference being that Intel did add more cores to 8th and 9th gen (and increased prices). When buying brand new 6th and 7th have little value over 8th gen. When upgrading an existing system, that benefit is still there.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
M

marianmmn

Prominent
Feb 14, 2017
43
0
530
Well.. i play Dota, World of Tanks, Gta 5, some fps and also i do some CAD things..
I just bought all of these so... i am not going to buy new mobo in next 2 or 3 years, only if it's hardly needed. The gpu was at normal states, i didn't touch anything in control panel or i didn't OCed it.. i was just thinking about that i7 7700k could be a good one for few more years because of hyperthreading and more clock speed and it's also almost twice as better than i5 if i am not wrong.. or i will stick with this i5 for a while and get 8gb or 16gb of ram more
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Eximo

Eximo

Titan
Ambassador
May 27, 2010
25,913
4,222
139,340
If you had your CPU hitting 100% under some circumstance that you will regularly do, then yes, sounds like a sensible upgrade. Heaviest game there is probably GTA5, I know it will run on less, but more never hurts (I think it is mostly running all the AI cars and bystanders that makes that a CPU intensive game).
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Eximo

Eximo

Titan
Ambassador
May 27, 2010
25,913
4,222
139,340
Yes, I plan to keep mine for a good while yet. Already had it two years, I suspect it will last through 2020 at least before I get the itch to replace it. That would keep with my current practice of upgrading every three generations.

Though I may be tempted when Intel releases PCIe 4.0 or DDR5 systems. Though I am beginning to wonder if they'll skip PCIe 4.0 entirely in favor of PCIe 5.0. As far as I know PCIe 4.0 is only used in high end network switches at the moment.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
geofelt

geofelt

Titan
Oct 9, 2006
54,333
4,161
174,240
Buy the 7700K.
You will not be able to overclock with your motherboard, but the stock clocks will go higher and the extra threads will help with multitasking.
i5-7400 passmark rating is 7357 with a single thread rating of 1953. The single thread rating is most important for games.
The i7-7700K has a rating of 12,046 and a single thread rating of 2583.

The ram is another issue.
Consider carefully.


Ram is sold in kits for a reason.
A motherboard must manage all the ram using the same specs of voltage, cas and speed.
The internal workings are designed for the capacity of the kit.
Ram from the same vendor and part number can be made up of differing manufacturing components over time.
Some motherboards, can be very sensitive to this.
This is more difficult when more sticks are involved.
That is why ram vendors will NOT support ram that is not bought in one kit.

If you do buy more disparate sticks, they must be the same speed, voltage and cas numbers.
Even then your chances of working are less than 100%

What is your plan "B" if the new stick/s do not work?

Sometimes increasing the ram voltage in the bios will make things work.

If you want 16gb, my suggestion is to buy a 2 x 8gb kit that matches your current specs.
Then, try adding in your old 8gb,
If it works, good; you now have extra ram.
If not, sell the old ram or keep it as a spare.




 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Eximo

Eximo

Titan
Ambassador
May 27, 2010
25,913
4,222
139,340


Not sure how much clearer I can be. This will be the third time I have said to do it.

If you are hitting 100% CPU usage and you don't want to replace the motherboard, getting an i7-7700k is the best chip for the socket. Nothing is going to change that.

A quad core with hyperthreading is still a very competent CPU in a world of dual cores with hyperthreading being the most common Intel CPUs. Adoption rates seem high for AMDs higher core count CPUs, but most people are still buying quad cores.

It is going to be a long while before games developers targeting the mainstream will demand high core count CPUs to run their software. Always the least common denominator. (Though the consoles put a little cramp in that since they have a decent core count as well, but they are just now trying to catch up on graphics with the XBox One X and PS4 Pro)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
M

marianmmn

Prominent
Feb 14, 2017
43
0
530


Ok I will see what i can do soon :D I hope I'll be able to get asap. Also buying from amazon, gives me some warranty?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
M

marianmmn

Prominent
Feb 14, 2017
43
0
530


So, I got this type of ram: AX4U2400W4G16-SRZ and I just saw now that 16gb of ram and they are different AX4U240038G16-DRZ .. I think they will not pair.. so if I am planning to buy the 16 pack (2x8) I could test them together and if they are not working I will sell the 8 gb ones, but would be a waste i think... Or should i get 8gb more, i mean 4x2 like the same type?
Also getting the i7 7700k will could be a little upgrade for the future too, no?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
M

marianmmn

Prominent
Feb 14, 2017
43
0
530


Ok, I understand that.. also.. about ram.. Yeah.. it is so weird, i got a dual channel thingy 2 x 4 gb of these ax4u2400w4g16-srz but i bought them separately, as a single stick of ram, but they have the same code.. also adding those 2 x 8 gb won't be so good because they got different code, also even if they got the same speed (2400mhz)... so strange
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Eximo

Eximo

Titan
Ambassador
May 27, 2010
25,913
4,222
139,340
Memory compatibility can be tricky. Worst case you have to set everything manually, and if the timings don't match it will be difficult.

You can mix 2x8GB and a 2x4GB kit if the voltages and timings match well enough. With two JEDEC profiles to choose from, it will default to the 1333 or 1600. As long as it boots you will be able to get into the BIOS and fiddle with it.

If you want 16GB of memory, you can go ahead and buy it. Worst case, you just use the 16GB, best case you'll have 24GB. If you get another set of 8GB, and they don't work, you are stuck with two sets of 8GB.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
Eximo

Eximo

Titan
Ambassador
May 27, 2010
25,913
4,222
139,340
Wait a few hours, the ones you are probably seeing are returns. Likely people who bought Z370 motherboards while only checking the socket type.

You can probably just wander over to a retail computer store like Fry's, Microcenter, etc and pick one up if you are visiting. Try Microcenter if you can, they usually have really good bundles.
 
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