560ti's over 465s or 2500k over Q9550

[benski]

So I've got a q9550 and SLI GTX 465s. I've got the urge to upgrade (to try and boost BF3 performance) and was wondering if I would get more of an increase from replacing my 465s with 560ti's, or from replacing my old socket 775 quad and motherboard (and ram) with an P67 board and a 2500k. Cost is about equal.

 

[4745454b]

What games and res? My gut says the GPU upgrade will be better, but if your res is small and/or your Q9550 is stock clocked then you might need a monitor or CPU upgrade.

 

[LokalHero]

Instead of the P67 board, go with a Z68. The 2500k will be a noticeable improvement over the Q9550 (it was for me).
Of course, upgrading your GPUs will also benefit the system, although I'd probably be tempted to run just one card, and make that card a GTX680.

 

[monsta]

You can get decent performance with your cpu if you overclock it, Im running a similar system with a QX9650 and 560ti SLI and it runs very well in BF3 at ultra at 1080, but you gotta have 8GB of ram as it was stuttering at 4GB.
At 8gb it runs smoothly and perfectly.
I also feel that the gpu upgrade will give you more over the cpu upgrade.

 

[benski]

What games and res? My gut says the GPU upgrade will be better, but if your res is small and/or your Q9550 is stock clocked then you might need a monitor or CPU upgrade.

I play mostly in 1680x1050, sometimes in 3D, some 720p 3D on my projector, and occasionally at 1080p on my TV. I just got BF3 a few weeks ago, that's the main impetus for wanting to upgrade since I can't max it out in multiplayer. I play alot of other games but I am satisfied with the performance of all the others (except Tribes: Ascend and that's because SLI won't work in it which I assume will be fixed as some point)

 

[benski]

Instead of the P67 board, go with a Z68. The 2500k will be a noticeable improvement over the Q9550 (it was for me).
Of course, upgrading your GPUs will also benefit the system, although I'd probably be tempted to run just one card, and make that card a GTX680.

The thing is I can get the 560ti's for 300 bucks a pair refurbed from a place I trust, and the 680 is like 500 bucks and out of stock. I would prefer a single card but duals seem like a better value. The price difference between a p67 board and a z68 is like 25 bucks, is it going to effect performance?

 

[stingstang]

Upgrade the 465. Your cpu can get up to 3.9 ghz without stressing it out past 1.41v, which is safe.

 

[johnners2981]

I'd go with updating the graphics but I wouldn't go with sli 560 tis, I'd get a single 7970 or gtx 680 (when they're in stock).
Around the same price and performance without sli issues

 

[Stubs101]

Check out this web site. I did side by side comparison of the of the q9550 vs. 2500k and then 460sli vs 560 ti sli. Sadly they didnt have the 465s but the 460 are close to it the 465 are just a little bit better.
CPU
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/50?vs=288
GPU
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/441?vs=314

Couple of issues with these comparison the gpu one doesnt use bf3 as a test platform but bf2 among other games. The cpu only compares using crysis, farcry2, l4d, and Fallout 3.

It seems like you will get a bigger performance gain from upgrading your GPU, but bf3 might utilize more cpu power than bf2 I dont know. Also, the performance of your 465 still seems descent based on those charts the lowest fps is 40 which is still good seems like the average is like 70. Also if you look on passmark your gpu is much more competitive with newer stuff then you cpu is with newer Cpus. All and all its a very hard question. Independent of one another the cpu is the weaker link and the 775 is out of date. From what I have read the Ivy bridge was a let down compared to te sandy bridge and the sandy bridge is a great budget build. For those reasons I would probably upgrade the cpu. You can always continue to save money and upgrade your gpu a little later by then maybe you could get a 580 or 680 and at that point your system would really sing. Plus the 2500 is great for overclocking and when benching you will for sure see some big improvements; however, in game and depending on what game will be a different story. Hope this helps good luck.

Just noticed johnners post and I would agree with that.

 

[stingstang]

I would suggest a gtx 570, hd 7870, or lower.

 

[benski]

I've been running SLI for 18 months with no real issues other than the occasional game that doesn't use SLI out of the box, so that's not really a concern, and I can get 2 zotac amp GTX 560ti's for 295 bucks shipped, otherwise I would agree about the 680. AMD products are not an option because I've already invested in 3D vision hardware that would be wasted.

 

[benski]

I would suggest a gtx 570, hd 7870, or lower.

Those would be signifigant downgrades from what I already have.

 

[benski]

Check out this web site. I did side by side comparison of the of the q9550 vs. 2500k and then 460sli vs 560 ti sli. Sadly they didnt have the 465s but the 460 are close to it the 465 are just a little bit better.
CPU
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/50?vs=288
GPU
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/441?vs=314

Couple of issues with these comparison the gpu one doesnt use bf3 as a test platform but bf2 among other games. The cpu only compares using crysis, farcry2, l4d, and Fallout 3.

It seems like you will get a bigger performance gain from upgrading your GPU, but bf3 might utilize more cpu power than bf2 I dont know. Also, the performance of your 465 still seems descent based on those charts the lowest fps is 40 which is still good seems like the average is like 70. Also if you look on passmark your gpu is much more competitive with newer stuff then you cpu is with newer Cpus. All and all its a very hard question. Independent of one another the cpu is the weaker link and the 775 is out of date. From what I have read the Ivy bridge was a let down compared to te sandy bridge and the sandy bridge is a great budget build. For those reasons I would probably upgrade the cpu. You can always continue to save money and upgrade your gpu a little later by then maybe you could get a 580 or 680 and at that point your system would really sing. Plus the 2500 is great for overclocking and when benching you will for sure see some big improvements; however, in game and depending on what game will be a different story. Hope this helps good luck.

Just noticed johnners post and I would agree with that.

Thanks for the links. Seems like the difference between the 560it's and 460/465 is much less than I imagined in alot of games. CPU difference is signifigant but maybe not so much for games.....

 

[Stubs101]

Thanks for the links. Seems like the difference between the 560it's and 460/465 is much less than I imagined in alot of games. CPU difference is signifigant but maybe not so much for games.....

I know I upgraded from a q9650 and a 3870 both on liquid and the cpu I had at 3.8 i think. I went to an i7 920 at 4.2 and two 5770 in CF all on air and the improvement was huge plus the i7 runs much cooler and more stable. I went from 3dmark 06 19000 to 27500. I then upgraded to 6950 in CF and reflashed to 6970 and really wasnt that impressed with the gains I got compared to the 5770s. Thats why i think CPU is the way to go it wont be long till you can get a new gpu as well and then you see huge improvments. Also, dont forget you can probably get some cash by selling your old stuff on ebay to help pay for the upgrade.

 

[Deeks]

first off i wouldn't upgrade to two 560 ti's. you might be able to get them cheap but the difference from two 465's wouldn't be a huge jump. Like all others said i would save a bit more and go for a 680 or 7970. if you would rather go sli then two 7870's or wait for the 670 or 660 ti to come out. As for your processor i would just overclock it to give you a bit more performance. if you are really itching to upgrade then grab a 2500k but i would say OC and live with it as it was a really good processor and with a bit of OC could live another year or two longer.

 

[benski]

Best answer selected by benski.

 

[benski]

Thanks for the advise everyone. I decided to do neither upgrade at this point and just try to overclock the CPU. Bought a SSD to temporarily satisfy my upgrade itch, I'll just wait a while and see how kepler's mid range cards turn out.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey