How much better are the new processors compared to my i7 920?

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ellover009

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I have an I7 920 and I am considering building a new system with a 7700k. I want to know if it would be a big enough jump and if it would even be perceivable.

I considered a 6800k when it was on sale recently but decided that I might benefit more from higher clock speeds for playing games. I also didn't see enough yields on quad channel memory since I do photography on Photoshop instead of videography. I considered the ryzen but there's not enough info on it and I don't know if it will end up coming out before I do my build.

Which of the Asus Z270 motherboards do you recommend? I can spend about $235 on it, but I won't go up to the $500 one. I looked at the different models there's too many overlaps. I don't necessarily need wifi on it.

I know it's dual channel platform, but is there any performance difference from only using 2 slots with dual 16gb ddr4 over splitting it 8gb modules across 4 slots?
 
What do you do with your pc? If you game what resolution do you play at? What are your system specs?
 
Asus P6T deluxe LGA 1366 X58 ATX. I7 920.
Corsair XMS 3 6BG (3 X 2GB) DDR3 1600 PC12800 triple channel kit Model TR3x6g1600c9 9-9-9-24 CAS 9.
Crossover 2795 QHD 2560x1440 IPS monitor.
Evga gtx 970 ftw + ACX 2.0+
Noctua NH-U12P SE1366 120mm SSO cpu cooler.
Windows 10

I game at 2560x1440 @ 85Hz, I had to dial it down to 60hz for some games including battlefield 1 to make it playable. I narrowed down the frame problem on BF1 to not having enough ram. I looked at the prices and I have a difficult time justifying the cost when it could go towards newer better ram. I can max 110Hz on the monitor on the stock cable and will artifact at 120Hz.

I mostly game on my pc. I process raw files / photo editing on Photoshop cc 2017 and DXO 8, watch videos, Sometimes i have to install odd software for college to process recorded data like vermier logger pro.
 
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Are you running your 920 at stock speed? If so, you'll notice the performance increase going to something recent like a 7700. Bumping up to 16+GB ram will help, too. Then there is the platform improvements between the x58 and recent platforms. I assume you already have an ssd? If it is a recent model ssd you will benefit from running it at full speed, too.

However, if you have the 920 around 3.6GHz or higher then you won't notice as much of bump in performance. And you will notice the ssd speed increase on specific tasks, like loading a game, but normal windows operations won't benefit much more than on the x58. If you aren't using the platform improvements or pushing through significant bottlenecks on your current platform then the cost/performance improvement ratio may not be to your liking. Up to you, as that's subjective.

On another note, I picked up a 6GB set of corsair CMP6GX3M3A1600C8 to match a set I had in a P6x58d a couple months ago for $20. 12GB is working well, since the most this system has used since the upgrade is just over 8. An LSI 9260-4i running my ssd's in RAID 0 solved my storage speed "problem". $60 for the controller. I already bought into the x58 and Xeon craze early, picking an old x5670 server chip up for $150 a few years ago. Those go for $60 these days. So, running that at 4.2GHz gives me plenty of speed and cores to handle what I do.

Maybe spend the $20 on some extra ram and wait to see what AMD does? If nothing else, maybe they will put some competition back in the game and you can get more bang for your buck.
 
Running stock. Haven't bothered with ssd to run it at half speed. I have six sockets for the ram, I remember when the board came out and was untested people were claiming 24gb or so, but now on the newegg listing they are saying that boards is limited to 12gb.
Where did you find the ram so cheap?
 
ellover009 said:
Asus P6T deluxe LGA 1366 X58 ATX. I7 920.
Corsair XMS 3 6BG (3 X 2GB) DDR3 1600 PC12800 triple channel kit Model TR3x6g1600c9 9-9-9-24 CAS 9.
Crossover 2795 QHD 2560x1440 IPS monitor.
Evga gtx 970 ftw + ACX 2.0+
Noctua NH-U12P SE1366 120mm SSO cpu cooler.
Windows 10

I game at 2560x1440 @ 85Hz, I had to dial it down to 60hz for some games including battlefield 1 to make it playable. I narrowed down the frame problem on BF1 to not having enough ram. I looked at the prices and I have a difficult time justifying the cost when it could go towards newer better ram. I can max 110Hz on the monitor on the stock cable and will artifact at 120Hz.

I mostly game on my pc. I process raw files / photo editing on Photoshop cc 2017 and DXO 8, watch videos, Sometimes i have to install odd software for college to process recorded data like vermier logger pro.
Click to expand...

Obviously anything in the converting / encoding area will get a nice buff, gaming not so much... rocking a 2500k myself and so far can't find enough justification to upgrade.
 
ellover009 said:
Running stock. Haven't bothered with ssd to run it at half speed. I have six sockets for the ram, I remember when the board came out and was untested people were claiming 24gb or so, but now on the newegg listing they are saying that boards is limited to 12gb.
Where did you find the ram so cheap?
Click to expand...

If it had 3 slots you would be limited to 24GB of RAM. 6 slots should let you use 48GB of RAM.

Not supported, but it should work just fine. The reason they had those "limits" back then is because they just hadn't tested it with more.

In any case, bumping that thing up to 3.6Ghz+ will gain you a nice speed increase.

However, a new system is going to be night/day speedwise in anything that is processor intensive.

The new dual channel setups are going to have much higher throughput even if clocked at the same speed. The memory controllers have gotten that much better.
 
If you do upgrade let me know if you would sell your mobo, i got a Xeon X5650 chip here doing nothing ;)

I would say go buy an Intel Xeon X5650, then you can get upto 48G of memory, overclock to 4Ghz and have a kick ass box!
 
I think going from X58 to Z270 is a reasonable time to upgrade regardless. But as Cyclone stated if you do OC your 920, you'll likely get some gains back, but given you are running a 1440p monitor, your GPU is still your primary factor.

That being said, 16GB DDR4 RAM, 7700K, and a nice Z270 Asus Strix board will do you nicely. (TBH the 7600k would likely even be 'enough' but given you seem to upgrade ~5 odd years, the 7700k will give you a better run for your long-term money) (I went from a 930@4ghz to [email protected] and found the 2500k still beat out the i7 at almost everything) now we're a few generations past this. so I can imagine a reasonable jump for you.

EDIT:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/47?vs=1826
for a direct comparison. though no gaming numbers here yet.
 
My X58 motherboard died so I replaced my OC'd 920 with an OC'd 6600k.

UEFI is nice, and the parts look a lot better than they used to. Horribly optimized games like TF2 and GTA 4 run better. Other than that, just about worthless.

Not worth it at all imo.
 
Depends on the things you do.

If gaming is your concern, the money is better spent on a nice monitor and a modern card. Game FPS is within 10% of recent i7 generation systems clock for clock and a GPU OC will drop that gap further.

I did the upgrade to a 1080gtx with my i7920@ 4.0ghz. I had USB 3.0 on my mobo so other than the boring "productivity" benchmarks, I don't notice much of an day to day productivity difference than a buddy's skylake recent build.

These 3 upgrades will improve the gaming experience on a x58 system.
Save up and get a nice SSD for a gaming install drive. Upgrade video card to 1080 (a 1060 is around 780ti level and 1070 is 980ti I think). Upgrade monitor to gsync 1440 screen.

When Ryzen gets released, make decision then on kaby lake/ryzen system for best feature/performance upgrade path then as those pieces will migrate over and still give the performance boost you want now.
 
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There was an article that did some benchmarks on systems from i7 2nd gen (8-9xx), sandy bridge to 6th gen. The video card was kept the same. The gaming performance numbers showed the delta from 2nd to 6th gen only within a 10% margin average where in a lot of cases the performance of the games were GPU limited. Keep in mind that this is for overclocked speeds when measured clock for clock. Comparing 2.6 vs a 4.0ghz cpu will yield a wider gap. Note also that if you can clock up a 5th, 6th or 7th gen i7 to 4.5+ then you yield some more performance.

A quick look at your CPU usage for the majority of the games finds that your CPU's are not burdened all that much making the IPC not making all that difference. Now if you want to upgrade to render things, do a lot more productivity, encoding, multimedia extensions etc and/or get newer features and support for m.2, faster SSD, USB 3.x and USB-C then go for it.

I'm really curious on the Ryzen front for a next build and am hoping AMD does something which can spark a bit of a price/performance war for once. I was about to spring on Kaby lake this Jan, but CES has me rethinking that.
 
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ellover009 said:
Running stock. Haven't bothered with ssd to run it at half speed. I have six sockets for the ram, I remember when the board came out and was untested people were claiming 24gb or so, but now on the newegg listing they are saying that boards is limited to 12gb.
Where did you find the ram so cheap?
Click to expand...

ebay. You can try matching the kit you have. Check the "sold" listings for the ram you are looking for and sort by date to see what they are trending. Try "best offer" if you find someone with the right kit and wrong price. The x5670's are going for cheap. I picked up a couple of those for an SR2 build years ago and they both hit 4.2Ghz on three different boards, EVGA, ASUS and Gigabyte. I liked them for the slightly higher multiplier over the x5650, but the '50's are so cheap now it's almost silly not to toss one in and try for 4.2GHz just for kicks.

As someone else mentioned, there was an article comparing the different architectures here: http://www.pcgamer.com/bloomfield-takes-on-skylake/

I ran my system against the results listed and can't justify spending what it will cost for a platform upgrade for the dismal gains in gaming. For about what you are looking to spend on the MB you can add 6GB ram, upgrade to a x56x0 (adding 2 more cores - 6 total) and add an SSD for your boot drive (~500GB recommended). The SSD upgrade is not only about speed but I/O operations per second. It really makes a difference when you don't have to move the needles to search for all those small files when windows boots or you are doing daily tasks. Big files from games, maybe not as much of an impact, but saves go quicker. You should have enough left over for a new AAA title game or a cheap night out. Or just wait for AMD and see if they bring some pressure to the mainstream price points.

I do some video editing and the extra cores help in certain workloads. For gaming it's all about the core clock speed and the GPU('s), then memory (size matters now) and storage. Once you get over 3.6GHz on a core i7 most games run fine.

Here's the article and my scores. The game settings were not listed in the article so I'm not including any of my results. You can get a sense for what a massive multiple core system will and will not do for you at a couple of different speeds against a Skylake cpu.

upload_2017-1-6_15-13-34.png
upload_2017-1-6_15-16-3.png
 
Thanks guys. Still tempted due to memory improvements and faster ports all around.

I noticed most new motherboards ditched e-sata. I use a e-sata enclosure to transfer pictures into my backup. I noticed most boards carry a single Ethernet and some even usb type c.
Man thunderbolt has not dropped much or gained adoption over the years. I thought by now id be cheaper and more accessible. Asus doesn't offer it on their new boards unless you get an addon card.
You would think in all these years there would be a more significant difference for gaming.

The ryzen looks interesting, I went to the amd thread where they asked if people were gonna leave intel for amd. I said I doubt it. But it did make me more interested in it because they recently started to release more info on it. I still have my doubts about amd because in the past they messed up the bulldozer processor and they don't have the ability to react to the market that the other companies have. But it looks like they have some momentum going and all they need to do is launch a good product, react quickly to the market, and hit while it's hot.

I have considered the xeon option and more ram. I did check ebay, there's one 2gb x 6 set that's available at a more reasonable price if you get the low bid. Otherwise once you go for the more unreasonable kits it seems more sensible to put that towards the new stuff.
 
If you're going to stay X58: Don't bother with trying to stay triple-channel, the benefit just isn't there. Dual channel kits are cheap and plentiful.

A couple years ago I went from 3x2gb to 2x8gb as I was running out of memory in games, it was a great upgrade and made things nice and smooth again. About 1.5 years ago I dropped in an X5670 and cranked it up to where my 920 was, and my living room stopped being a sauna while I got a significant improvement in CPU power (most notable when running multiple things, or intensive stuff like converting video with Handbrake).

I'm not saying you should stay with X58, it was an easier answer 2 years ago. I've got the upgrade itch again (happens every Intel release), but my machine just doesn't feel slow at all and the few performance comparisons from Skylake/KabyLake to the 980x (basically the same) don't show a large enough gap. The platform features would sure be nice, but it's not often enough that I'm transferring games to my SSD to warrant SATA3 over SATA2.
 
I went from an X58 i7 960 4.6Ghz to a X79 4960X 4.6Ghz and saw an appreciable improvement everywhere. Everything just felt more snappy. Games ran about 15-20% faster, which IRL is actually more noticeable than one would think.
 
Get an SSD, it's a whole new world.

It doesn't matter it won't run at its max speed, it make everyday computing better.

I like my X5670 and I recommend it, it felt much snappier coming from an i7 [email protected]. It's lower TDP so you can for sure OC it. Did I mention the X5670 has 6 cores and hyper Threading?

Ram is cheap but you are right, it's money that doesn't go to new tech.

IMO, SSD first, ram or X5650/5670 second. I bought a 2x8gb and a 1x8gb of DDR3L. It's overkill, but 2 or 3 4gb sticks would do you well. 8, 12 or 16gb would be fine. I haven't tested dual vs triple but from what I remember the difference is negligible in most applications

8gb for $40 https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Ballistix-Tactical-PC3-12800-BLT4G3D1608DT1TX0/dp/B006YG9C2Q/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1483839206&sr=8-16&keywords=Crucial+ballistix+ddr3&th=1

Also if you're curious about joining the cult...https://hardforum.com/threads/1366-x58-xeon-enthusiast-overclocks-club.1820772/page-68
 
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Just remember just because your cores aren't 'pegged at 100%' that doesn't mean you won't see an improvement over your current CPU.. They don't need to be at 100% to be a bottleneck.

At bare minimum grab more RAM, OC, SSD and you should see a reasonable gain for now..
 
Regardless of what you do, GET AN SSD!! It's a part you will take with you to your next build and WILL make your current computer feel much much much snappier. Also, snag some more RAM and like others have suggested, OC that 920 and wait a month or two for things to iron out with the CPU market. Launch time is almost the worst time to put together a new system with the latest and greatest as it will usually carry a small to moderate premium.
 
Stock 920 to a 7700K would be a substantial upgrade. Do it, and don't look back. :cool:

You can sell your X58 motherboard for some good money as well. Those things are still a hot commodity.
 
Most people who rely on SSD speeds (not enthusiasts) don't run them at max speed. Its rare to get a system that can take advantage of those speeds. Most of the benefits come from the lack of a seek time and reliability. Your SSD won't have any of the problems a traditional HDD will have and on the top side the latency is almost nil.

I other words a SSD these days is almost a MUST HAVE when compared to other upgrades. They won't increase your FPS in games but man those load times...
 
I'm running SSD, with 16 gig of ram in a dual channel setup on my current system. I'm targeting a 7700 with 32gig of ram on a new generation mobo currently.
 
Your upgrades in order of importance for overall system usability and performance:
1. SSD (Even on SATA1, a SSD makes a wold of difference)
2. CPU minor upgrade (X5650 is $40 on ebay, overclock it and have a pretty nice hexacore setup)
3. GPU. If you are doing 1440p gaming you should be running a 1070 at a minimum.

If you don't think the CPU would be big enough, go with a new Kaby setup, but only after a new GPU. Also keep in mind that you can probably fetch a pretty decent price for your X58 since there are still plenty of guys that would love it for OCing a X5650/X5670.
 
Napoleon said:
Get an SSD, it's a whole new world.

It doesn't matter it won't run at its max speed, it make everyday computing better.

I like my X5670 and I recommend it, it felt much snappier coming from an i7 [email protected]. It's lower TDP so you can for sure OC it. Did I mention the X5670 has 6 cores and hyper Threading?

Ram is cheap but you are right, it's money that doesn't go to new tech.

IMO, SSD first, ram or X5650/5670 second. I bought a 2x8gb and a 1x8gb of DDR3L. It's overkill, but 2 or 3 4gb sticks would do you well. 8, 12 or 16gb would be fine. I haven't tested dual vs triple but from what I remember the difference is negligible in most applications

8gb for $40 https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Ballistix-Tactical-PC3-12800-BLT4G3D1608DT1TX0/dp/B006YG9C2Q/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1483839206&sr=8-16&keywords=Crucial+ballistix+ddr3&th=1

Also if you're curious about joining the cult...https://hardforum.com/threads/1366-x58-xeon-enthusiast-overclocks-club.1820772/page-68
Click to expand...

Have you considered an add in card to get your SSD's running at 6gbs? Think I paid about $80 for mine last year, and the difference was night and day vs the on chip (x58) sata controller.
 
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SSimmons05 said:
Have you considered an add in card to get your SSD's running at 6gbs? Think I paid about $80 for mine last year, and the difference was night and day vs the on chip (x58) sata controller.
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No I haven't, my board has SATA3 and $80 would be better spent on a GPU IMO. My SSD isn't holding me back
 
I can't find the article, but a few years back [H] was still testing new GPUs w/ an i7 920, and Kyle then compared Ivy or Sandy Bridge to the Nehalem and found their minimums and averages being held back by the older CPU. That pushed them to update their testbed.

So I'd say it's time to update the CPU (and as everyone has already mentioned, the GPU, and memory, and SSD).
 
DrLobotomy said:
Get a real air cooler from Scythe and overclock that CPU to around 3.8 Ghz and put an SSD in there and you WILL have a new PC.
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Overlocked I7-920 is kinda hot and power hungry.
Main reason I switched from 920 was the compatiblity issue with R9-290, but the quieter computer is definitely a bonus.
 
Buy 6 core Xeon for under $100 on ebay.
Get an SSD (even at half speed, it is a night and day difference between a mechanical drive)
Add another 12 gigs of ram (so 18 total)
Overclock Xeon to 4.2Ghz (or more)

For about $250, you will have a system that keeps pace with pretty much any modern configuration.

The real knock against LGA1366 is the lack of USB3 and Sata 6, both of which can be added in via PCI-E card.
 
Yea, I'd agree. Pick up a 5650 or 5670 off Ebay. Even stock clocks are respectable since 5670 Turbo's at 3.3 GHZ.. If your board can push a decent OC, than you're golden.. The popularity of the X58 Xeon comes from the retired/ refurbished workstations now flooding the market. That leaves the lower clocked processors cheaper since those workstations cannot OC.
 
TrailRunner said:
I can't find the article, but a few years back [H] was still testing new GPUs w/ an i7 920, and Kyle then compared Ivy or Sandy Bridge to the Nehalem and found their minimums and averages being held back by the older CPU. That pushed them to update their testbed.

So I'd say it's time to update the CPU (and as everyone has already mentioned, the GPU, and memory, and SSD).
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I see War Thunder and nearly every game I play single thread and GPU limited. People who game on these 6-10 core CPUs are seriously stupid. If you game with 2 screens and watch GPU utilization and CPU usage you will see that you frame drop and GPU isn't maxed meaning it is a single thread limit!

All you have to do is watch GPU utilization and FPS and it is clear as day and you can see my rig below and i am CPU and GPU limited at 120hz 1440P in nearly every game!

People who say games aren't single thread limited either only play COD/BF that is actually multithreaded or never actually paid attention and are talking out of their ass.
 
I had a I7-920 DO about 3 years back and I had 12GB of RAM - in tri-channel 3x4GB. It was overclocked to 4.0 Ghz.
I sold it to a bud and bought a I7-4770K and overclocked it to 4.0Ghz initially. (now overclocked to 4.5GHz)

I couldn't tell the difference in general use or gaming between the two systems, except the newer setup booted to windows faster since the X58 board I had was pretty slow to post. Once in windows - no noticeable difference.

Seeing the reviews lately at anandtech, tomshardware, and here, your looking at like a 20% upgrade or thereabouts in general going from a I7-920 overclocked to 4.0Ghz to something newer. If that's worth it to you - then so be it. In hindsight it wouldn't be worth it to me, unless I was just wanting to play with something new --- which is where I was. (I'm in the tech industry and it feels wrong somehow to keep tech longer than about 3 years, when your peers are upgrading all the time.)

My friend I sold that rig to brought it to a LAN party in the last six months with an upgraded graphics card in it - a 1060 IIRC. I used his PC for a bit in windows while he was there, and it felt snappy as ever with a SSD in place.

Realistically I agree with some of the others here ---

Buy an SSD like the mx300 from corsair for like $70 bucks off ebay and use it as an OS drive, put in three 4GB sticks of RAM for next to nothing off ebay to continue to utilize the tri channel, buy a compatible hex core off ebay, overclock to an easy 4.0 Ghz with a Corsair H80i v2, and buy a new graphics card like a Fury X or a 1070 if you consider your gaming is too slow at 1440p. Enjoy what you have for another few years - it has plenty of merit for that. The CPU isn't likely to be any kind of bottleneck you could actually appreciate, and the hex core might give you a bit more flexibility than a new quadcore - or at least equitable. The X58/socket 1366 has been probably the single longest lasting, most viable platforms that ever came out in PC hardware - I'm not sure there is anything even close. I.E. That I7-920 came to light in 2008, and overclocked to 4.0Ghz, doesn't give much up to the newest stuff in 2017 in real world use. (not talking about synthetic benchmarks)
 
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Then again. That setup is old. I wanted to upgrade mine three years ago --- EVEN knowing it won't help you that much - I know I'd want to upgrade if I were you. So it's good you at least know the aspects to both paths. Also consider that motherboard is probably getting some age. Unless they used solid caps and such - it is possible it will start to fail sooner or later. That might be five years out or more, it might be tomorrow.
 
drlqpham said:
I went from an X58 i7 960 4.6Ghz to a X79 4960X 4.6Ghz and saw an appreciable improvement everywhere. Everything just felt more snappy. Games ran about 15-20% faster, which IRL is actually more noticeable than one would think.
Click to expand...

i7-960@ 4.6GHz?? maybe you meant 3.6GHz? I couldn't get mine stable past 3.6GHz on air.

But to the OP, I would definitely upgrade even if the CPU is not much more than a sidegrade for gaming. The platform improvements are more than worth it and it will give you an excuse to get a new SSD and jump right into the PCIe storage generation. If you OC the 920 and double the RAM, it's going to get too toasty even for a good Noctua. 6 DIMMs on X58 needs a voltage bump that will hurt even without an OC.
 
rastaban said:
i7-960@ 4.6GHz?? maybe you meant 3.6GHz? I couldn't get mine stable past 3.6GHz on air.

But to the OP, I would definitely upgrade even if the CPU is not much more than a sidegrade for gaming. The platform improvements are more than worth it and it will give you an excuse to get a new SSD and jump right into the PCIe storage generation. If you OC the 920 and double the RAM, it's going to get too toasty even for a good Noctua. 6 DIMMs on X58 needs a voltage bump that will hurt even without an OC.
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I had my i7-960 doing 4.2GHz so I don't know why you are stuck @ 3.6... The base clock was already 3.2GHz, remount your cooler or something.
 
Gasaraki_ said:
I had my i7-960 doing 4.2GHz so I don't know why you are stuck @ 3.6... The base clock was already 3.2GHz, remount your cooler or something.
Click to expand...
Come to think of it, I think my wall was 3.8 or 3.9, not 3.6. But the chip has been long sold.
 
Well guys, I made a choice. There was a deal on ebay on the Ryzen 1700 + 8% ebaybucks, and went for that. Now I have to slowly sort all the other details.
Almost went with 7700k, but I play at a resolution of 1440p, some frame loss can be improved with ram, it will be a good multi task machine. I did not see point of going from a quad-core to another quad-core.
 
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