Would I gain anything by upgrading CPUs?

gac77

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I currently have a core i7-975 @4.2 on a ASUS sabertooth x58 MB with 6 gb of 1600mhz ddr3 tri channel ram. I want to upgrade to the sandy bridge 2500k. I will OC. Primary use games.I know I will need a new mother board and ram.

In the near future I will most likely buy a 6970 2GB gpu.
 

gac77

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I would still be gpu limited with the 6970? What would you recomend as a gpu.I have a 470 1280mb gtx now. I'm just tired of the nvidia drivers,so I thought about ati.Budjet is about $350usd.
 
generally, a cpu like the i7-975 at 4.2 isn't going to be limited in any game even with 3 or 4 gpus for multiple monitors.

I think the 6970 will be great, it will give you amazing graphics at 1080p enough to max almost every game.
 

bwrlane

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Yes, you will be gpu limited. I have GTX 560 ti in SLI and am almost always gpu limited (CPU is i7 920 at 4GHz.) CPU is very rarely a limiting factor in current gains if you have a fast processor like yours (and mine).

The performance gain of an overclocked 2500k vs an overclocked i7 975 is not that great even in CPU limited situations such as video editing. In games you won't see any benefit at all.

Btw there's one quite popular fallacy doing the rounds. People know that the CPU and the gpu are important determinants of performance in games. But they take it a step further by thinking that if they have the most modern generation of gpu, then they must also have the most up to date CPU. Not true at all.

If it were my money I'd leave the CPU and mobo alone and spend what you save on a faster gpu configuration. This could be either 2*6970s or the recently launched 7970.