Switch to Ivy Bridge? Thoughts?

[mojin7]

Hi Folks. Ill start by detailing the rig.

Currently:
I7 2700k @ 4.8 Ghz H100 Cooler
Asrock Z77 Extreme 4 Mobo
16 GB Corsair Vengeance 1600 Mhz
Intel 840 256GB SSD for OS and games
(2) MSI GTX 680s in SLI (4GB Twin Frozr)
Seasonic X650 Gold +

Im asking this because this build started as a Sandy bridge build for one GPU. Now it has 2! I can not help but think that my external storage is running on USB 2.0 instead of 3.0 (not that big of a deal), my SSD is running at Revision 2 as well with read and writes at close to 250MB/s instead of over 500MB/s (is this a big deal?), and also my 2 OCed GTX 680s using PCIE 2.0. I have read that PCIE 2.0 is not saturated by one or two cards but we're talking two overclocked 680s. Does this matter? Also could the 2700 be a bottleneck with 2 of them? With the increase of speed on my SSD, and the change to PCI 3.0, and the small upgrade to IVY show me some increase? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

P.S. I game like crazy. I play all the latest games at high res. The system as it sits gets TAXED on a daily basis.

 

[scannall]

Hi Folks. Ill start by detailing the rig.

Currently:
I7 2700k @ 4.8 Ghz H100 Cooler
Asrock Z77 Extreme 4 Mobo
16 GB Corsair Vengeance 1600 Mhz
Intel 840 256GB SSD for OS and games
(2) MSI GTX 680s in SLI (4GB Twin Frozr)
Seasonic X650 Gold +

Im asking this because this build started as a Sandy bridge build for one GPU. Now it has 2! I can not help but think that my external storage is running on USB 2.0 instead of 3.0 (not that big of a deal), my SSD is running at Revision 2 as well with read and writes at close to 250MB/s instead of over 500MB/s (is this a big deal?), and also my 2 OCed GTX 680s using PCIE 2.0. I have read that PCIE 2.0 is not saturated by one or two cards but we're talking two overclocked 680s. Does this matter? Also could the 2700 be a bottleneck with 2 of them? With the increase of speed on my SSD, and the change to PCI 3.0, and the small upgrade to IVY show me some increase? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

P.S. I game like crazy. I play all the latest games at high res. The system as it sits gets TAXED on a daily basis.

Now is not the time. Haswell hits the street in a couple months. Ivy won't show much if any increase.

 

[The_OGS]

Hi Mojin,
Well... I guess you could upgrade your motherboard if you have lots of money.
Sure, why not? USB3, SATA3 and PCIE3.0 will not hurt (though I struggle along with the previous versions, heheh).
Simply transfer your existing CPU and memory.
Otherwise I agree with dirtyferret!

 

[mojin7]

Im not familiar with Haswell. This is a new cpu from Intel? Good for games in some way?

 

[mcnumpty23]

nothing wrong with what you have

but--Intel 840 256GB SSD?

thats surely not right?

 

[scannall]

Im not familiar with Haswell. This is a new cpu from Intel? Good for games in some way?

Haswell is the next generation of Intel CPU's, and should bring a measurable difference in both performance and using less energy. (Easier to cool). They should hit the market at the end of March or early April. Not very long from now.

 

[Traciatim]

Im asking this because this build started as a Sandy bridge build for one GPU. Now it has 2! I can not help but think that my external storage is running on USB 2.0 instead of 3.0 (not that big of a deal)

Buy a USB3 add on card if you are that concerned.

my SSD is running at Revision 2 as well with read and writes at close to 250MB/s instead of over 500MB/s (is this a big deal?)

Not really, you probably wouldn't even notice a difference.

my 2 OCed GTX 680s using PCIE 2.0. I have read that PCIE 2.0 is not saturated by one or two cards but we're talking two overclocked 680s. Does this matter?

Also not really. Many tests have been done on PCI-E x16 and x8 with SLI'd cards and notice no real noticeable difference . . . See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFMzRZqFh-w and then 16x - 4x on a 6990 here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSfifE2Domo

Also could the 2700 be a bottleneck with 2 of them? With the increase of speed on my SSD, and the change to PCI 3.0, and the small upgrade to IVY show me some increase? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Probably noting noticeable. Though I suppose it depends on the resolution... You say you game like crazy at the highest res, so you are running something like 3 2560x1600 monitors or something with all that power?

 

[mojin7]

nothing wrong with what you have

but--Intel 840 256GB SSD?

thats surely not right?

Yep you got me My old SSD was the Intel. I have Samsung now.

 

[mcnumpty23]

Yep you got me My old SSD was the Intel. I have Samsung now.

then you shouldnt be getting those low speeds

the samsung 840 is 6gbs

 

[4745454b]

I'm on a P55 board now with an i5 750. I know haswell is coming but I don't think its going to be that much better then IB. Probably similar to how IB is better then SB. At least for the CPU. For the same reasons you list (lacking any of the "3s". SATA 3, USB 3, PCIe 3) I'm going to upgrade to an SB/IB platform that has them. SB/IB/HW will all perform similarly for gaming so I don't need to worry about upgrading early. USB 3 for your external drive and SATA 3 will be the game changers for you. PCIe 3 doesn't make any difference yet.

Edit:

then you shouldnt be getting those low speeds

the samsung 840 is 6gbs

Not totally meaning to be rude here but you might want to go do some math and reading.

 

[mcnumpty23]

Edit:

then you shouldnt be getting those low speeds

the samsung 840 is 6gbs

Not totally meaning to be rude here but you might want to go do some math and reading.[/quotemsg]

whats that meant to mean?

 

[mojin7]

Buy a USB3 add on card if you are that concerned.




Not really, you probably wouldn't even notice a difference.



Also not really. Many tests have been done on PCI-E x16 and x8 with SLI'd cards and notice no real noticeable difference . . . See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFMzRZqFh-w and then 16x - 4x on a 6990 here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSfifE2Domo



Probably noting noticeable. Though I suppose it depends on the resolution... You say you game like crazy at the highest res, so you are running something like 3 2560x1600 monitors or something with all that power?

I don't really care about the USB speed. Just in retrospect after the system build Im thinking of everything running at "last years" speeds. Old revisions of USB, SATA, PCI E for example. This is the one thing I regretted while building this rig as I found out all of this while reading the MOBO manual. So I guess Im just looking for some clarity as to whether any of it matters. Just feels like I bought a Ferrari and put "good enough" tires on it. After reading your response Im thinking it wont matter at all though so thank you. I do appreciate it. And yes I run 3 monitors while gaming sometimes. 2560x1440. Any other thoughts?

In response to an earlier remark by somebody else the system does get taxed by some current games.

 

[mojin7]

Edit:

then you shouldnt be getting those low speeds

the samsung 840 is 6gbs

Not totally meaning to be rude here but you might want to go do some math and reading.

whats that meant to mean?[/quotemsg]

You are missing something. SB does not support SATA 3. Therefore the SSD will revert to SATA 2 speeds. Thats the topic of the day.

 

[4745454b]

SB does not support SATA 3

Sure it does. It doesn't support PCIe 3.0.

 

[mcnumpty23]

whats that meant to mean?

You are missing something. SB does not support SATA 3. Therefore the SSD will revert to SATA 2 speeds. Thats the topic of the day.[/quotemsg]

sorry to say

but you are the one who needs to go do some reading

sandybridge does indeed support sata 3 6bs

what it doesn't support is pci-e 3

since my samsung 830 ssd tests in atto at 500mbs on a z68 motherboard with a 2600k

its clearly not reverting to sata 2 speeds

 

[mojin7]

It does support SATA 3? Im so confused. Thank you for the response. I had some bad information. I have been thinking this whole time that with SB everything is running at revision 2.

 

[mcnumpty23]

It does support SATA 3? Im so confused. Thank you for the response. I had some bad information. I have been thinking this whole time that with SB everything is running at revision 2.

your motherboard has 4 sata 3 ports

you probably connected the ssd to a sata 2 port

should really be on the intel sata 3 port

edit--it also has 4 usb 3.0 ports so if your external storage is usb 3.0 then that should run at usb 3.0

 

[Traciatim]

In response to an earlier remark by somebody else the system does get taxed by some current games.

Then it's probably just that the game isn't designed for scaling with CPU cores. Changing up from a 2700k - 3770k isn't going to change frame rates in a very perceptible way.

You can do some testing to figure what's slowing things down. For instance if you run fraps and have it log your min/avg/max FPS scores and play a game you like for 10 minutes or so in an area that you always notice it slowing down. On the first run leave anti-aliasing off, and on the second turn on super sampling AA and do the run again.

If you notice that your minimum frame rate doesn't drop but your max does then it's not very likely that your video cards are causing the slow down. This points to the slow down being caused by your processor just not being able to feed the cards the scene fast enough for them to render.

In either case though... there really isn't all that much to do to your machine that is going to make it more than a few percent faster, which may not even be perceptible.

If you look at http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/287?vs=551&i=60.61.62.129.337.338.339.340.341.342.342.343 you'll notice most games (except for maybe SC2) are so close, but keep in mind that chart is a 2600k vs a 3770k at stock speeds so the 3770k has a 100Mhz advantage over whatever efficiency gains the chip change would have.

Another thing to consider is that you have a pretty aggressive overclock on there, and it may be likely that switching up to a 3770k may not hit the same speed that you are running now, which might hurt performance, especially considering Ivy Bridge is thought not to overclock as well in general.

So in a whole summary, will you see the performance? In certain cases you may be able to notice something . . . is it actually worth the money/risk to do it? I think that's an absolute no.

 

[mojin7]

Best answer selected by mojin7.