# Upgrade i7 920, or wait out for 5th gen I7s



## Nostalgic Hardware (Jun 10, 2013)

Hey guys,

Well my sig rig is a bit over 3 years old now, I'm wondering if should upgrade Mobo, CPU, Ram, and add a 2nd 7970?

I play @ 2560x1440 Res, I don't lag on anything at the moment besides DayZ pretty much. I get near 90fps on BF3 with Ultra everything, Metro Last Light runs around 60fps maxed.

At 4.5Ghz, I'm a bit above a stock 2700k from looking at benchmarks.  The biggest problem I hate is having capped SSD speeds due to a 2GB/s south bridge transfer. 

Is it worth upgrading so i'm ready for newer games, or just wait it out and see what the new consoles bring to new game's spec requirements, etc?

Thanks,


----------



## Fourstaff (Jun 10, 2013)

Currently the only noticeable difference (to me) between a 1366 platform and a 1155 platform is the power bill, once you get to games and such they perform similar enough (to me). My advice is to just wait a bit more, unless you see a good deal on the 1150 in which case you can jump in and reduce the power bill. I wouldn't add a second 7970 just yet, the potential crossfire problems (microstuttering) do not outweigh your lack of fps.


----------



## ogharaei (Jun 10, 2013)

I did simply because parts, like i7 9xx chips, were becoming increasingly more difficult and expensive to replace, including the triple-channel memory. All of my parts were out of warranty, some drivers were outdated, and "upgrading" to, in my case, Z77 didn't cost me much of anything after I sold off my X58 system.

I honestly see no reason to if you are happy with the performance, aside from SSD speeds (some of the more expensive X58 boards actually have mediocre SATA III support). General day-to-day work will be a wee bit snappier, the OS will load a little faster, but you won't notice a real difference while gaming.


----------



## Nostalgic Hardware (Jun 10, 2013)

Yeah that would be the biggest difference. 

I've got the X58A UD7 Rev 1.  It was literally the 2nd best board at the time and still is, I was told. It has Marvell SATA 3 and NEC USB 3.0 chipsets.  They really suck, Proper Intel SATA 3 and USB 3.0 would be much better.  I have seen 990X cpus go for $350 lately, I was thinking about one but yet again.  I'm still on a dead-end socket.

What is all the fuss about the 2011 sockets/builds, my friends have all rushed onto them.  I reckon they wasted their money big time like I did with 1366. 

My SSD is connected to the Marvell SATA 3, I got the latest firmware and drivers, etc.  I get around 400 Read and 90 - 200 write sometimes.  The SSD is rated for 510 Read and Write, which I wouldn't believe anyway.

I did have a GTX590 in my rig originally, I got sick of Nivdia driver issues, SLI scaling, and also lack of vram for 2560 x 1440.  So I got the 7970 for $300 from a mate.

I reckon I will just stick with my current rig.

Thanks guys!


----------



## Tatty_One (Jun 10, 2013)

I bought myself a little PCI-E SATA3 card for a few $$, not expensive, whilst they generally are not a match, my read and write speeds improved considerably.


----------



## Bo$$ (Jun 10, 2013)

don't bother right now......... that CPU is damn amazing


----------



## Fourstaff (Jun 10, 2013)

LegendofMadness said:


> What is all the fuss about the 2011 sockets/builds, my friends have all rushed onto them.  I reckon they wasted their money big time like I did with 1366.



For all those PCIe, all those rams and 6 cores (zomgz!). Well if you don't need any (first one fixed using bridge chips, second is irrelevant unless you need superfast 128Gb rams, third one is for people more concerned with non-gaming applications), 2011 is wasted on you. Of course people will talk about how good the 2011 is, but your average techie will not be able to tell them apart unless placed side by side.


----------



## craigo (Jun 10, 2013)

Good evening Mr. Madness,
May i enquire as to which bios/firmware you have opted for?
There may be other crazy natives who have had luck modifying bios/firmware, due to the modular nature of the controllers on this board and the way the bios is implimented...maybe google f9d.
The obvious differnce to me with all x series chipsets is having to justify an upgrade after 3-4 years.. a level of platform longevity p and z series customers never seem to achive (you get what you pay for). Good luck with your decision.. maybe a hex-core 32nm for your current system is the way to go, love that VRM.

I am, You are, We are........

Craig0


----------



## Over_Lord (Jun 10, 2013)

I would wait another year and grab the 14 nm parts directly with the next-generation HD 8000 GPU


----------



## Nostalgic Hardware (Jun 10, 2013)

craigo said:


> Good evening Mr. Madness,
> May i enquire as to which bios/firmware you have opted for?
> There may be other crazy natives who have had luck modifying bios/firmware, due to the modular nature of the controllers on this board and the way the bios is implimented...maybe google f9d.
> The obvious differnce to me with all x series chipsets is having to justify an upgrade after 3-4 years.. a level of platform longevity p and z series customers never seem to achive (you get what you pay for). Good luck with your decision.. maybe a hex-core 32nm for your current system is the way to go, love that VRM.
> ...



I currently have the F9A bios, The marvell firmware was updated via the F9A I think.  

I never heard of this F9B bios?

Well, I'm gonna wait out for HD8000s and 5th Gen Intels, Unless I get offered a 2700K for a really good price.  I had enough of Nvidia now, They are milking everyone's wallet and building bad PCBs with terrible VRM designs.  I hope they get their heads together.

Thanks guys!


----------



## Jack1n (Jun 10, 2013)

A 920 at 4.5ghz 24/7 is pretty damn amazing,just stick a second 7970 in there and wait for broadwell\skylake (pretty sure your cpu will still be relevant when skylake comes out).


----------



## The Von Matrices (Jun 11, 2013)

Are you using not only the updated Marvel firmware but the Marvel drivers?  There's no easy setup package offered but if you download the INF you can manually install them like I did.  It gave me some SSD performance improvement.

Edit: Latest version released on 1/24/2013  (http://www.station-drivers.com/page/marvell_sata.htm)

As far as Crossfire I am frustrated with AMD right now.  NVIDIA may be more expensive but at least SLI has fewer problems than Crossfire.  The runt frame problem is ridiculous; I get no performance improvement with Crossfire in some games like Bioshock Infinite due to runt frames.  I would not buy a second card for Crossfire until the drivers are confirmed fixed.

I know our systems are not directly comparable, but my system (albeit at 3.7GHz) is starting to become CPU limited in certain games.  With your system and a single GPU it's probably pretty balanced, but once you add another GPU the CPU will definitely be a bottleneck.


----------



## Jack1n (Jun 11, 2013)

The Von Matrices said:


> Are you using not only the updated Marvel firmware but the Marvel drivers?  There's no easy setup package offered but if you download the INF you can manually install them like I did.  It gave me some SSD performance improvement.
> 
> Edit: Latest version released on 1/24/2013  (http://www.station-drivers.com/page/marvell_sata.htm)
> 
> ...


It will not bottleneck, a 920 at 4.5ghz is a very fast cpu to this day,and you are right about 3x crossfire but 2x is mostly fine.

Edit: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_7970_CPU_Scaling/15.html this is the same cpu vs a 2500k in a cpu bound game,only in the review the cpu is clocked at its stock 2.66.


----------



## Nostalgic Hardware (Jun 11, 2013)

The Von Matrices said:


> Are you using not only the updated Marvel firmware but the Marvel drivers?  There's no easy setup package offered but if you download the INF you can manually install them like I did.  It gave me some SSD performance improvement.
> 
> Edit: Latest version released on 1/24/2013  (http://www.station-drivers.com/page/marvell_sata.htm)
> 
> ...



Thankyou!

I have seen weird things with crossfire on my spare rigs, All depends what driver is being used.  I used to be a die hard Nvidia fanboy.  I had the 6800 Ultra, 7800GTX SLI, 8800GT, 9800GTX+ 1GB SLI, GTX295, GTX580, GTX590, than finally moved to my 7970.  Even SLI would do whacky things. 

I couldn't even fit a 3rd 7970 anyway, So no problem there.  I do get weird bugs @ 4.5ghz, My Realtek lan blue screens a few times every now and than, and such.  I'm not too bothered about that.

It took me a few weeks to even get 4.5ghz running good.


----------



## The Von Matrices (Jun 11, 2013)

Jack1n said:


> It will not bottleneck, a 920 at 4.5ghz is a very fast cpu to this day,and you are right about 3x crossfire but 2x is mostly fine.
> 
> Edit: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_7970_CPU_Scaling/15.html this is the same cpu vs a 2500k in a cpu bound game,only in the review the cpu is clocked at its stock 2.66.



I think this would be a better review.  It tests Crossfire 7970 vs a single 7970 using an i7 920 at 3.8GHz.  http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/HD_7970_CrossFire/1.html  At 2560x1600 scaling ranges from negative to about 75%


----------



## Jack1n (Jun 11, 2013)

The Von Matrices said:


> I think this would be a better review.  It tests Crossfire 7970 vs a single 7970 using an i7 920 at 3.8GHz.  http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/HD_7970_CrossFire/1.html  At 2560x1600 scaling ranges from negative to about 75%



Thats not the CPU's fault,its the GPU drivers fault,this review is from January 2012 right when the 7970 was released,most of the issues it had back then had been ironed out.


----------



## Aquinus (Jun 11, 2013)

Fourstaff said:


> Of course people will talk about how good the 2011 is, but your average techie will not be able to tell them apart unless placed side by side.



This. I also didn't invest in a 6c CPU though, too expensive. The 3820 had a nice price on it and offered everything skt2011 had to offer. You're completely right though. In all seriousness, performance isn't going to really make a huge difference between any modern i7 quad core wrt real world performance. With all this said, skt2011 has been a pleasure to use. I haven't had any problems with it and there isn't much I don't like about it.

Also you have to keep in mind that I invested in skt2011 when the other options were either a 2600k or 2700k, both of which lacked VT-d (a minor consideration).

I also like saying: "If you have to ask, skt2011 is not for you."


----------



## Melvis (Jun 11, 2013)

I got my i7 940 rig off a guy that updated his CPU to a 3770K matched with a GTX680 and he was ticked off that his FPS in battlefield 3 didn't increase, hence why i got his GA-X58A-UD5, i7 940 and 6GB of ram for $140 lol


----------



## brandonwh64 (Jun 11, 2013)

I went from a I7-920 to a 2600K and gained around 10FPS in some games. I would say jump on haswell if you have the money.


----------



## Nostalgic Hardware (Jun 11, 2013)

Melvis said:


> I got my i7 940 rig off a guy that updated his CPU to a 3770K matched with a GTX680 and he was ticked off that his FPS in battlefield 3 didn't increase, hence why i got his GA-X58A-UD5, i7 940 and 6GB of ram for $140 lol



Hahaha xD

Battlefield 3 is pretty much all GPU based.  This is why research before a new build is essential.


----------

