CPU Performance increase??

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by nightblade628, 3 Oct 2010.

  1. nightblade628

    nightblade628 Minimodder

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    Thanks to the forum, I've now become obsessed with upgrading my meager Core 2 e7400 to an i7 950, for longevity over an i5. Because it'll cost so much to do (£450-ish) I was wondering exactly what sort've actual improvements I'll see? Will windows run any snappier in general? Will it help much in any games? The only apps I use that could benefit are 3D landscaping programs and Photoshop.

    I guess my other question is, is it worth buying now before the January VAT hike, or should I wait for Sandy bridge?
     
  2. GoodBytes

    GoodBytes How many wifi's does it have?

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    What is your current OS? 32 or 64-bit? How much RAM you have? What is your current graphic card? Well basically, what do you have now in details?
     
  3. nightblade628

    nightblade628 Minimodder

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    It's a somewhat decent setup; 4GB DDR2 RAM, Win 7 64-bit, and GTX 260; the setup I'll be moving to would be an i7 950, Asus or Gigabyte X58 board (the ones the forums have previously recommended) and 6GB 1600MhZ RAM, while keeping my GTX 260 until the new ATi's are released - much like your rig, GoodBytes. :)

    I understand that games benefit more from GPU upgrades, but I realise that many members here probably went from a Core 2 Duo to a Core 2 Quad, up to a Core i7, and would be able to highlight any benefits they noticed from the upgrades as they performed them.

    I'm hoping to hear people say, "ZOMG my rig ran SO MUCH FASTER in everything!!11!" but if they say there wasn't too much difference in performance I'll happily hold out longer on the upgrade. This is driving me nuts because it is a lot of money to spend and if the benefits aren't that fantastic then it'll be money wasted.
     
  4. GoodBytes

    GoodBytes How many wifi's does it have?

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    Ok, my old system was slower than yours, it was a AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ 2.2GHz, 3GB of RAM DDR1 400MHz, Geforce GTX 260 (video card was obviously upgraded). It's 2005... so it's about 5 years old. It was running Win7 64-bit (and Vista 64-bit) super smoothly.
    The day I passed from an AMD Athlon XP 2500 (32-bit CPU) overclocked at 3.2GHz, to my old system, I had the: "HOLY CRAP!!! DUAL CORE IS ****ING AWESOME!!!!!!!! SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTT [seizure due to it's incredible speed!]. WOW look at firefox startup speed, look how XP loads so fast!!!".

    But, when I passed from my AMD Athlon X2 4400+ to my Core i7, and even when I look back to my old PC (which is still fully functional (I put my old Geforce 6600GT inside - so no new games support)), I am like... "Yea is nice... a bit faster, but nothing drastic" To say the truth, we are at a point where if you have the drivers, Windows will run smoothly enough to not notice a large difference, a small one only. The reason for this, I believe, is that my old 750$ CPU was powerful enough for Windows, and it's the HDD that slows everything down. I got a super fast 7200RPM HDD, very close in performance to the Samsung Spinpoint F3 7200RPM HDD, and yea, I do see my programs start faster, games load much faster. But is has more to do the HDD upgrade then CPU power, in my opinion.

    I am thinking of getting an SSD, perhaps then, I should see my CPU m ore at work for day to day tasks.

    What I did notice is in game performance. When I was playing Batman AA, Street Fighter 4 for example, the game did not runs very smooth at 60fps... it was struggling at 25fps for Batman, and 40-50fps for Street Fighter (which made the game go fast and slow in burst... which made playing it not fun). Overclocking my old computer like crazy at 2.7GHz, helped a bit, but nothing really nicely comfortable. Lowering the graphics provided no help, as the CPU is what limits things, not my GPU. Going with my Core i7, solved this problem obviously, and my games runs much much better at max max settings.

    My programming projects compiles much faster as well, which is nice. But, that is about it.


    So, in summary, in games I get the "OOOOOH and AAAAHhh's" of being able to play the latest and greatest games super smoothly, with plenty of room for possibly the next 4-5 years (assuming that I'll overclock my CPU up to 3.8GHz as I need additional performance). For Windows, starting up quicker and starting your program faster, it's more your HDD that limits things, and having a faster one helps a lot, but nothing drastic like instance OS boot up.

    But then again, at work we got some 3 year old Intel Core 2 Duo's 2.0Ghz plus, and my old AMD 64-bit dual core massacre it in day to day computer usage. I don't know what is wrong with these Lenovo or Dell system we have. Probably the cheap motherboards they use limits the CPU or the crappy HDD used from the OEM, or maybe because at home I run Win7 64-bit and where I work XP (we will upgrade to Win7 in August 2011 at work).

    My suggestions, keep you GTX 260 until you can's play games at 1920x1200 at max max settings on more than 1 game, this should last you more than a year, essentially that most PC games are ports from consoles these days (so they less fancy than what the computer can actually push, and nicely optimized), and save for a really nice kick-ass true 8-bit monitor IPS (better at colors and whites) or PVA (better at blacks), and a nice SSD with a Core i7 930 or 950 (950 is the 930 with 1 multiple higher than the 930, which you can change in your 930 CPU). Of course, if the gab in price is small, go the 950. In my case, the gab is really big.. 100$ difference (cheapest place I found)... so I went with the 930.

    I enjoyed my new monitor more (and I passed form a good CRT monitor), then my increase in speed. What I did enjoy the most with my computer, is how quiet it is. The GPU is the loudest thing on my computer. I manually lower the fan speed and GPU speed using Nvidia System tools (aka: nTunes), and load the default setting before playing a game. A bit annoying but I am making a software to fix the problem, which I'll share with everyone when it's done. It will be part of my Nvidia GPU tweak tool software, found on my signature.

    Here is my build with pictures:
    http://forums.bit-tech.net/showpost.php?p=2407833&postcount=1
     
    Last edited: 4 Oct 2010
  5. Matticus

    Matticus ...

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    I went from an core2duo e8200 @ 3.4ghz with 4gb to an i5 750 and even before I clocked it the difference was very noticeable when actually doing something. Just using windows and web browsing the differences wasn't great because lets face it, it doesn't take a core2duo at 3.4ghz to run windows or open a browser.

    Opening larger programs such as visual studio, photoshop, that sort of thing the difference was great. Especially when dealing with very large projects and building them in visual studio.

    In games the difference was huge, on the mafia 2 benchmark my fps went up by 10 fps when running at a higher res, but still with the same 5770, just shows what a processor upgrade can do with games are quite cpu dependent! The other games I play are source engine games and after 150fps+ I don't count so I couldn't tell you the difference as I always have vsync on anyway.

    Also as you said the VAT increase is coming soon, so now may be the time to buy. Try not to wait and wait for things. There will always be new tech in 6 months time so you could find yourself in a waiting cycle and never upgrading. You should be able to get an i5/7 at a very good price now, I imagine it will take Sandy Bridge a little while for the prices to settle so thats even more waiting.
     
  6. GoodBytes

    GoodBytes How many wifi's does it have?

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    Actually, come to think of it, and just tried, yes, Visual Studio 2010, Photoshop and Flash CS4 starts WAAAAY faster with my new computer, about 2 to 4 times faster. Drastically fast. It been a while I touched Photoshop, and I have Flash and Visual Studio always open, and put my computer to sleep, so I never noticed this.

    And for Matticus reminded me about your Sandy Bridge question, so thanks Matticus.
    When it will be out, it will for sure be expensive, and as mentioned, it will take time to settle down. Not only the CPU will be expensive, but motherboards as well. Then we come to question.. will it be a fully locked down chip as Intel said many times, or will it be an extra fee to pay to allow to overclock the CPU, like Intel new buisness model on select OEM computers (but it's for more speed, not the ability to overclock), or will be like the i7 series where you can push it to extremes. So... I don't think it's worth it. BUT what you can do is wait for it to be released and have the Core i7 and motherboard be cheaper a bit, or maybe not.. it might increase in price as no one, in the computer enthusiast community will enjoy a locked down chip... even the non-overclockers, as people like to have the choice.
     
  7. Ph4ZeD

    Ph4ZeD What's a Dremel?

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    When I upgraded from Q9450 to my rig, the difference wasnt THAT huge. Its obviously huge in CPU dependent tasks such as folding and encoding. My SSDs made far more of a difference in system responsiveness.
     
  8. Jipa

    Jipa Avoiding the "I guess.." since 2004

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    In the overall feel there's no huge difference to be expected, but you WILL notice the speed in Photoshop etc CPU-intensive stuff. Last upgrade for me was from E6750 2 GB to Q9450 4 GB and I think it was the memory, not the extra cores that made the difference. Right now I'm still using the Q9450 and frankly don't feel the need for any more CPU-power. Instead, it's become painfully obvious how slow HDDs are and that I'll really need to get an SSD to get this PC any faster for MY needs.

    Oh and talking of upgrades that make you jizz, my father used his P4 2,4 GHz (1,5 GB memory) rig for ages, without ever re-installing the XP (must have been atleast 4-5 years?) and even when the USB started to act up. I then built him a Q6600-build with 4 GB of memory and boy did he turn into an excited 5 year old girl when he first tried to edit some photos :D It kinda makes me sad to say this, but you just aren't going to get such a huge difference anymore. Not in reasonably priced desktop PCs anyway.
     
  9. nightblade628

    nightblade628 Minimodder

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    Thanks guys, you've been an enormous help. I've noticed the 950's starting to creep back up in price which is slightly worrying, as the only way I can afford an i7 upgrade is by stripping an old PC and selling all the components individually (as well as my current mobo/cpu/ram which will be replaced); I probably won't get much for them, but it's better than nothing, and I refuse to borrow money I don't have because I feel it's a false sense of economy and ends up costing more in the long run.

    I was heavily debating spending £300 on an i5 setup instead of £450 on an i7, but I know the i7 will be more than ample for another 2-3 years. An i5 will start showing its age in the next year, and 2 years on it'll definitely be time for another upgrade. I also don't think it's a big enough step up from a Core 2 in terms of performance, although I may be wrong as I have no point of comparison.

    I work in a little backwater PC repair place and you would not BELIEVE the number of people bringing in Pentium 4's with 512mb RAM and Windows VISTA installed on them. We did a reformat for them, and to get Vista up and running again took 9 hours. Opening Control Panel took 2 and a half minutes. It was just ridiculous how many people hang onto old hardware despite terrible performance. In the end, to get anything done we have to install extra RAM at the start just so it doesn't become an overnight performance.
     
  10. Jipa

    Jipa Avoiding the "I guess.." since 2004

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    The best part is when the said people tell they bought the computer "ummm... Maybe one or two years back"! Been there, heard that. Damn is it hard to keep a straight face when they ask if the build still has a warranty.
     
  11. nightblade628

    nightblade628 Minimodder

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    The sad thing is, nowadays, buying a Pentium-IV 2 years back is plausible; every time a new architecture is released, retailers still seem to be flogging old stock 6 months later priced as if they were top-range products!! I remember when the Core 2 Duo line was released, it took PC World around 5 months before most of their new PC's were Core 2's.
     
  12. Bumfluff101

    Bumfluff101 Minimodder

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    I have exactly the same spec as you and was pondering what to do. Im now leaning towards upgrading the monitor and then get an SSD before upgrading cpu/mobo as the core 2 does all it needs to at the moment
     
  13. rollo

    rollo Modder

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    i went from q6600 CPU to the i7920 in gaming there wasn't a large difference but in general tasks there was a huge difference

    then I brought a i930 for over-clocking ideas, Then a I980 for a high end work rig that I use for multiple different tasks from website editing video creation, Photo shop work, Don't play alot of games these days, Civ5 runs pretty nice. as does FF14 but there's very little games i play that are great fun.

    Its worth the upgrade just don't expect a huge JUMP in performance that you might think. Good points are it will last you 3-5 years before you will ever need an upgrade. assuming you upgrade graphics cards every now and again and maybe add up to 12gb of ram into it.

    if your still running 2gb of ram then the jump to 6 gb is a huge performance increase in itself.

    any old duel core cpu with 4gb ram and a decent graphics card will run games though for the next year at least ( 260 4890 270 280 ect ) 5770 5830 460 5850 are all mid range cards that most people into games might own, 260 and 5770 are the weakest of them the rest are nearly identical performance and is based on the game more than the card.
     
  14. bdigital

    bdigital Is re-building his PC again

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    Im putting together a very basic system for my flatmate at the moment.

    When finished it will be:

    Pentium D 820 (2.8Ghz) (Dual core)
    Gigabyte Motherboard
    2gb of DDr2
    Gainward Golden Sample Nvidia Geforce 9600 512Mb ram
    XP SP3

    Im hoping it will be enough to run some basic games for him like Monkey Island special edition, and the MI episodes, plus the latest Age of empires, maybe rome/medievil total war etc
     

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