upgrade question..

[BigR]

Right now I am playing with an AMD 955 Black Phenom II quad core, 8gigs ddr3 1333, and a Radeon 6870. I just bought the vid card, but the motherboard and chip are almost a couple years old. In general...for gaming performance, do the new i5 2500k's outperform my current AMD chip by a noticeable margin? I am thinking about getting a new monitor, and i want to make sure my rig can handle the bigger native res in games. Right now i run 1680x1050. I want to at least go to 1920x1080. I read some great reviews of the new sandy bridge i5s, and if i do upgrade, thats the direction im going to go. I know certain games are more CPU intensive than others. I've always heard AH is very cpu intensive. Specifically for AH and knowing what video card i have, do any of you think having the i5 would be a big improvement over the AMD chip?

thanks!

[Easyscor]

I'm in a similar quandary. I was all set to pull the trigger on an i5-2500K until I learned that the i5s don't support hyperthreading. So in spite of great reviews for the i5, I'm leaning toward spending the extra money for an i7-2600K but I'm still doing my research.

You may be interested in the many reviews done back in January, I haven't seen many new ones recently. Google sandy bridge i5 vs i7 etc.

[BigR]

im not too concerned about hyper threading. It has 4 cores, and that is plenty for what I do on my gaming PC.

[guncrasher]

the i2500 dont support hyperthreading but the i2600 do.  if you  want to overclock then get the k.  i switched from the e8400 to the i2500k.  I had no problems whatsoever with the e8400 playing ah with all eyecandy and shadows at 2400.  but I wanted the 4 core for when I do my movies.  so  i oc the 2500k to 4.5 and it can go as high at 4.9 but I dont see the point, since at 4.2 it does everything i need at blazing speeds.

I am really happy with the 2500k and I wish I had spent the extra 100 bucks  to get the 2600k, but in my case it wouldnt have made a big difference. one thing i would recomend is to get the msi mobo that i have.  zero problems and it has such a great sound, i put my sound card away.  also it has an oc genie to go to 4.2 in one second.  no need to tinker with bios if you dont want to. 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130574  mobo
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231428  ram
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130557  video card.

one thing I would do is get the monitor that you want.  then see if your current rig can handle the resolution.  if it does great you saved some money, if it doesnt, well then you upgrade.

semp

[Debrody]

BigR,
i have a very simmilar system except the video card, what is an 5830. Its able to run AH in 1920*1080, with all the eye candy on except the self-shadowing whats at 4096, steady 50 fps without any overclock (3.2GHz). Steady 60 fps at 3.8 GHz, no overvoltage, no flashing, no anomalies.  Your system must be able to run AH very well, that upgrade wouldnt give you much unless youre planning to run something much more serious than AH.
Btw, the sandy bridge i5 is much better than the 955BE, but i would wait a couple months for the AMD bulldozer.
 

[Noir]

I believe your CPU is not old enough to justify a new Motherboard/CPU set, especially for an i5. If you want more CPU power your current one should be able to produce at least 300Mhz more with a simple multiplier overclocking.

[Tigger29]

I too don't feel that there is going to be enough of an improvement to justify upgrading to a new processor/MB.  Your current setup with the 6870 should be able to rock most games out of the water!  If you're dead set on upgrading then I wouldn't expect anything less than an i7 to be a decent upgrade (or wait for the new AMD processors coming out) otherwise personally I would say save your money.

As far as your current system handling 1920X1080 don't sweat it.  I have way inferior hardware and handle 1920X1200 with no problems at all.  I never see less than 50fps in Aces High (all settings maxed, 4096 shadows like Debrody says).  FSX also works very smooth... not at ULTRA MEGA SUPER DETAILED settings.. but still settings that look better than AH.

I have an older Core2Duo processor (E7400 2.8GHz) slightly overclocked to 3.2 GHz, a 5830 video card and 4GB of DDR3 1066 ram.

[Spikes]

A 6870 is the equiv to the 5770 series with more PCUs etc. If anything you should be upgrading the vid card to something better, your cpu is great.

[Noir]

A 6870 is the equiv to the 5770 series with more PCUs etc.

I'm negative on that, the 6870 is just under the 5870, a whole category over the 5770.

[TequilaChaser]

I'm negative on that, the 6870 is just under the 5870, a whole category over the 5770.

(Image removed from quote.)

I agree with what Noir posted!

I myself got a XFX HD6870....... while it is a smidge slower/lower than the 5870 it is way better than the 5770's and it runs alot cooler than the 58xx series ( all 68xx series run cooler than the older 58xx, 48xx ) ...... however the core clock speed is right equal or a bit better with the 6870 verses the 5870......

if you want to upgrade..... go with a 6950 2 Gig Radeon VC.. BigR...... or better to 6970 or 6990........ if you want to splurge a lot......

I recommend you sticking with your CPU AMD Phen II 955 BE x4 for you will not see a major increase switching to an i5-2500........ Benchmark Reviews even did a comparison side-by-side review on these and mentioned that they were near equal in the real wold and in gameing....... if I recall correctly

If you going to switch to Intel , really go for it and get the i7-2600k and the HD6970 or HD 6990 video..... ( you should be set for about 5 or 6 years with this ROFL..... )


I myself have the AMD Phenom II 975 BE x4 and it is factory 3.6 Ghz but I can easily bump it to 4.2 /4.3 Ghz on Air and only see my temps rize 9 to 11 Degrees Clecius....

one Good Thing about it is, they are reporting that the new AM3+ Bulldozer CPUs will be able to use on AM3 MotherBoards with a Bios upgrade....... ( for some MB manufacturer's anyways )

If I was wanting to upgrade, I would wait for the BullDozer AMD CPUs to come out and become stablized ( be out for 4 to 6 months ) before switching up to them.... or I would go the i7-2600k route and get one of the topshelf MB's for this Intel 1155 chip, like the ASUS P8Z68 Deluxe LGA 1155 Intel Z68.....

just some suggestions........

good luck in your endeavors, BigR


<S>

TC

[BigR]

Thanks guys..that's kind of what I thought. I just bought my video card, so I will not be upgrading that any time soon =). I will stick with my AMD setup for now and check out the new bulldozer when it comes out. I have a pretty high end AM3 Gigabyte MB....hopefully they will keep up with the bios updates.

[Noir]

one Good Thing about it is, they are reporting that the new AM3+ Bulldozer CPUs will be able to use on AM3 MotherBoards with a Bios upgrade....... ( for some MB manufacturer's anyways )

I've seen plenty of rumors and counter rumors on that point, I really hope that Bulldozer will fit on my Asus M4A78XTD EVO  THat way I'll be able to keep the noctua NH-D14 too