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Just upgraded from I7 [email protected] (mostly), couldn't take the upgrade itch any more. I have been pretty vocal in this thread so thought I would offer some feed back
New Rig
Gigabyte GA-Z87X-OC Mobo
Intel Core i7 4770K [email protected]
Corsair Hydro Series H110 Closed processor water cooler
CoolerMaster RC-942 case
16Gb 1600MHZ ram (already had)
SSD (already had)
GTX 680 (already had).
Games tested
Gaming resolution 1080P and all games set pretty high quality where GPU is usually the bottleneck even at a modest 1080P.
Bioshock Infinity (no FPS gain)
Metro Last light (no FPS gain).
Starcraft 2 (no FPS gain)
Supreme commander forged alliance (around 20-30% sim speed increase but STILL maxes 1 core, no surprise there).
Crysis 3 (no FPS gain)
**didn't feel the need to test more.
The results above I was expecting as the only games I play where a core was maxed was Supcom Forged Alliance large maps with ALX etc.
Advice for gamers with Bloomfield/Nehalem @3.8 or better.
How do I put this........um..............DON"T DO IT !!!!!!, seriously NO, use the money on hookers!
Its the worse money I have spent in a long time, I am thinking why the hell didn't I just jam a Corsair hydro on the 920 and OC a little more for fun, may have satisfied the itch. My 920 is looking at me in the corner wondering what the hell it did wrong!, I cant even look at it little own try and explain why he's been replaced.
Bloomfield/Nehalem owners please feel free to flame me for being a idiot.
Thanks much for the feedback. The upgrade itch has been pretty strong with me lately too. I ordered the new Corsair 540 case to hopefully scratch it some. After reading your experience and similar others...think I'll throw any other upgrade money at replacing my 580 and ride my 920@4ghz a little longer.
Just upgraded from I7 [email protected] (mostly), couldn't take the upgrade itch any more. I have been pretty vocal in this thread so thought I would offer some feed back
New Rig
Gigabyte GA-Z87X-OC Mobo
Intel Core i7 4770K [email protected]
Corsair Hydro Series H110 Closed processor water cooler
CoolerMaster RC-942 case
16Gb 1600MHZ ram (already had)
SSD (already had)
GTX 680 (already had).
Games tested
Gaming resolution 1080P and all games set pretty high quality where GPU is usually the bottleneck even at a modest 1080P.
Bioshock Infinity (no FPS gain)
Metro Last light (no FPS gain).
Starcraft 2 (no FPS gain)
Supreme commander forged alliance (around 20-30% sim speed increase but STILL maxes 1 core, no surprise there).
Crysis 3 (no FPS gain)
**didn't feel the need to test more.
The results above I was expecting as the only games I play where a core was maxed was Supcom Forged Alliance large maps with ALX etc.
Advice for gamers with Bloomfield/Nehalem @3.8 or better.
How do I put this........um..............DON"T DO IT !!!!!!, seriously NO, use the money on hookers!
Its the worse money I have spent in a long time, I am thinking why the hell didn't I just jam a Corsair hydro on the 920 and OC a little more for fun, may have satisfied the itch. My 920 is looking at me in the corner wondering what the hell it did wrong!, I cant even look at it little own try and explain why he's been replaced.
Bloomfield/Nehalem owners please feel free to flame me for being a idiot.
Just upgraded from I7 [email protected] (mostly), couldn't take the upgrade itch any more. I have been pretty vocal in this thread so thought I would offer some feed back
New Rig
Gigabyte GA-Z87X-OC Mobo
Intel Core i7 4770K [email protected]
Corsair Hydro Series H110 Closed processor water cooler
CoolerMaster RC-942 case
16Gb 1600MHZ ram (already had)
SSD (already had)
GTX 680 (already had).
Games tested
Gaming resolution 1080P and all games set pretty high quality where GPU is usually the bottleneck even at a modest 1080P.
Bioshock Infinity (no FPS gain)
Metro Last light (no FPS gain).
Starcraft 2 (no FPS gain)
Supreme commander forged alliance (around 20-30% sim speed increase but STILL maxes 1 core, no surprise there).
Crysis 3 (no FPS gain)
**didn't feel the need to test more.
The results above I was expecting as the only games I play where a core was maxed was Supcom Forged Alliance large maps with ALX etc.
Advice for gamers with Bloomfield/Nehalem @3.8 or better.
How do I put this........um..............DON"T DO IT !!!!!!, seriously NO, use the money on hookers!
Its the worse money I have spent in a long time, I am thinking why the hell didn't I just jam a Corsair hydro on the 920 and OC a little more for fun, may have satisfied the itch. My 920 is looking at me in the corner wondering what the hell it did wrong!, I cant even look at it little own try and explain why he's been replaced.
Bloomfield/Nehalem owners please feel free to flame me for being a idiot.
Bloomfield/Nehalem owners please feel free to flame me for being a idiot.
Does it include USB bug?For me it also brought SATA3, USB3, UEFI bios for quicker boots, a low power graphics solution if I ever needed it, etc. The sata3 difference really can't be understated if you have an SSD, and if you don't have one, buy that before you upgrade your CPU. USB3, on the devices that support it, is a pretty massive improvement as well.
My 920 is looking at me in the corner wondering what the hell it did wrong!, I cant even look at it little own try and explain why he's been replaced.
I won't flame you nor do I think you're even remotely an idiot, but I do tend to disagree, albeit with an argument different than the one you make. Is it worth the upgrade from strictly a gaming aspect? Not really, although I do seem to have higher minimum FPS in WoW (main game I play), it's not a huge difference and I could have easily done without it. Most of the games I see you listed are very GPU bound games, especially at higher resolutions. I'd imagine something like battlefield 3 would have a difference, especially for those who play on those crazy 64+ person servers.
From non-gaming aspects is where the questions start to arise. Did I like that everytime I played a game my room would become 3-4 degrees hotter than the rest of the house minimum? No, I didn't like that, and even when idling the 920 put out a ton of heat and really sucked up the power. The fully loaded power difference between a 3.4ghz I7 920 and a 4.2ghz 4770k measured at the wall is over 60 watts of power, with idle temps showing similar results. This thing literally just sips power like an englishman sipping tea at idle.
For me it also brought SATA3, USB3, UEFI bios for quicker boots, a low power graphics solution if I ever needed it, etc. The sata3 difference really can't be understated if you have an SSD, and if you don't have one, buy that before you upgrade your CPU. USB3, on the devices that support it, is a pretty massive improvement as well.
I just felt it was just time to move on from the computer I bought in 2008. Even though my overclocks are pathetic compared to others I don't regret it, I just wish I had gotten better luck on the CPU draw.
Edit: I just read what some others were saying, and yes, if you have an older graphics card you'll get more out of that everytime. I've been using a 7970 since january of last year so I didn't feel the need to upgrade.
I've just recently read Maximum PC's article on Haswell and while they have a lot of gripes about it, in the end it is faster than Sandy Bridge (they say roughly 20%) and Ivy-Bridge. It is important to note that this wasn't gaming though, as you mentioned as such.
My big question for you is, Haswell really runs that much cooler for you? My 930 puts out a ton of heat while on idle just like yours. All I've read about Haswell has been that it's not a great overclocker due to heat issues... Unless you de-lid it, and I'm not sure I'm ready for that. At least not on a brand new $300 CPU.
I won't flame you nor do I think you're even remotely an idiot, but I do tend to disagree, albeit with an argument different than the one you make. Is it worth the upgrade from strictly a gaming aspect? Not really, although I do seem to have higher minimum FPS in WoW (main game I play), it's not a huge difference and I could have easily done without it. Most of the games I see you listed are very GPU bound games, especially at higher resolutions. I'd imagine something like battlefield 3 would have a difference, especially for those who play on those crazy 64+ person servers.
From non-gaming aspects is where the questions start to arise. Did I like that everytime I played a game my room would become 3-4 degrees hotter than the rest of the house minimum? No, I didn't like that, and even when idling the 920 put out a ton of heat and really sucked up the power. The fully loaded power difference between a 3.4ghz I7 920 and a 4.2ghz 4770k measured at the wall is over 60 watts of power, with idle temps showing similar results. This thing literally just sips power like an englishman sipping tea at idle.
My big question for you is, Haswell really runs that much cooler for you? My 930 puts out a ton of heat while on idle just like yours. All I've read about Haswell has been that it's not a great overclocker due to heat issues... Unless you de-lid it, and I'm not sure I'm ready for that. At least not on a brand new $300 CPU.
People that manually set there Bloomfiled Mobo voltages could/can easily reduce power and heat, when left on Auto many boards go nuts as seen in many of the early reviews. If we save 30-60 watts on "average" with Haswell that's not exactly a lot, I suspect mileage will vary. I understand running the PC in small room you many notice a heat difference, but I have always run these fairly large rooms.
oh I turn off all CPU throttling on both.
Does it really "feel" a lot cooler to me no, not around 4.4Ghz.
I won't flame you nor do I think you're even remotely an idiot, but I do tend to disagree, albeit with an argument different than the one you make. Is it worth the upgrade from strictly a gaming aspect? Not really, although I do seem to have higher minimum FPS in WoW (main game I play), it's not a huge difference and I could have easily done without it. Most of the games I see you listed are very GPU bound games, especially at higher resolutions. I'd imagine something like battlefield 3 would have a difference, especially for those who play on those crazy 64+ person servers.
From non-gaming aspects is where the questions start to arise. Did I like that everytime I played a game my room would become 3-4 degrees hotter than the rest of the house minimum? No, I didn't like that, and even when idling the 920 put out a ton of heat and really sucked up the power. The fully loaded power difference between a 3.4ghz I7 920 and a 4.2ghz 4770k measured at the wall is over 60 watts of power, with idle temps showing similar results. This thing literally just sips power like an englishman sipping tea at idle.
For me it also brought SATA3, USB3, UEFI bios for quicker boots, a low power graphics solution if I ever needed it, etc. The sata3 difference really can't be understated if you have an SSD, and if you don't have one, buy that before you upgrade your CPU. USB3, on the devices that support it, is a pretty massive improvement as well.
I just felt it was just time to move on from the computer I bought in 2008. Even though my overclocks are pathetic compared to others I don't regret it, I just wish I had gotten better luck on the CPU draw.
Edit: I just read what some others were saying, and yes, if you have an older graphics card you'll get more out of that everytime. I've been using a 7970 since january of last year so I didn't feel the need to upgrade.
Upgraded to 4770k from a delidded 3770k that I could pass Intel Burn Test at 5GHZ standard run.
Without delidding i can only over clock 4770k to 4.6GHZ without it getting to hot.
I'm not sure if I should keep it or not. Thinking about getting a 4670k which may over clock better and wait till Intel fixes 4770k.
I think anyone who upgraded from Sandy bridge/Ivy Bridge did not make a smart move upgrading to haswell.
Don't get me wrong I love the upgrade itch But it just wasnt worth it to upgrade.
Now if you were able to sell off your old mobo/cpu then yea it would be worth it, otherwise your money would be well spent in other area's. Like a new SSD or Video card.
It's worth it to me because I enjoy the experience. Even though its not going well with the chip that I got I know that good ones can be found.
Yep, it's cooler in general in terms of total heat output. From what I've been reading (I didn't really keep up with ivy bridge since I didn't have a desktop part, just a laptop with no OCing), the whole TIM thing causes the heat from the core to not efficiently get to the heat spreader, so the heat on the core stays there instead of transferring. The bloomfield and lynnfield had been soldered on, thus providing a much better transfer of heat. That's why people risk deliding them, they can lower temps 15 degrees just by popping the top off and putting some good TIM in. I haven't researched it since my processor is so horrible it doesn't warrant deliding, but I remember reading about the usage of a hammer and vice or a razor, and I'm not confident enough in my handiwork to use either of those things around a processor.
So ya, it's much cooler overall in terms of the heat it puts out. My new system idles at about 80 watts of power usage (I have a lot of stuff in my case); my old 920 idled around 160 watts, with nothing changing except the processor, RAM, mobo, and now I'm using an H100i instead of air cooling. Note that I left on all the speedstep and even the turbo, running my 920 undervolted (1.075v) at 3.4ghz for day to day usage since I didn't feel I needed more.
I haven't recorded prime95 temps but I know that during general gaming (using GPU power too so it's not exactly apples to apples), I now have about 220 watts usage compared 300 or so on the undervolted 920.
Haswell doesn't really work like the older architecture from what I've seen, I'm almost always in some sort of low power state unless more is needed. Even when playing WoW most of the cores are running slower than 4.2ghz and only one is usually at the defined voltage. Even at 100% load it's still not terrible, the cores will go to full turbo but the power draw isn't too crazy, it's only when the AVX instructions are running that this thing really heats up and starts sucking down the power. Haswell just seems much, much more efficient with its speedstep than nehalem.
TLDR: Undervolted 920->4770k dropped power usage from 160 watts at idle to 80 according to my unit at the wall. Temps in my room dropped a lot too, haswell temp problem, from what I've read, is caused by a failure to adequately transfer heat from internal cores -> external facing heat spreader.
I've done quite a bit of research on the TIM thing as well because heat has become somewhat of a top priority for me in the past couple years. I'm with you on the handiwork to actually de-lid them. I have patience but I tend to rush things like that. To excited to see what kind of change it'll make, I guess.
The CPU I've been eye balling is the 4670K. Quite a bit cheaper, leaves me room to upgrade later and doesn't seem to sacrifice to much for my use. I think I could do without Hyper-Threading, and I believe it lacks a small amount of L3 Cache. 6MB rather than 8MB. The big thing Maximum PC said a few times is the processor was designed with the mobile (laptop) platform in mind. Which would explain it's better efficiency with Speed Step and what not.
I have my machine hooked up through a CyberPower UPS that tells me through the PC the wattage it's using. Granted I believe the UPS is monitoring everything plugged into it which includes speakers and the monitor (plus the PC of course) and my idle wattage consumption is 228 watts. Lowest it ever gets. I've also got my CPU voltage relegated by the motherboard. A few weeks ago I tried lowering the voltage keeping my overclock and nothing lower than what it runs (1.376 volts idle/1.34 volts load) was stable under Prime95. So I'm just going to leave it the way it is and hope a new build lowers temps and power consumption.
For me... It still comes down to whether or not I want to drop a ~$700 to upgrade. Is it worth it? From a performance standpoint, probably not. So I'm continuing to contemplate whether I should do it or not. I'd also make the jump from Windows 7 to Windows 8 as well. Frankly, $700 isn't worth the lowered power consumption/heat output for me. It'd be a nice sized side benefit for me to go along with killing the upgrade itch and better overall performance.
For heat and power it would be a huge upgrade indeed. Also sata 6.0 and usb 3.0 as well.
It all depends on your gaming situation TBH. If your running at 1080p with your 930@4ghz, then you probably wouldn't see much of an upgrade if you run it at 60hz. You would see a greater increase by getting another 680 GTX. Of course this my opinion and some may disagree.
Bit of a side question here, but for someone like me (I don't see myself going to a higher resolution any time in the near future) would it make more sense to go SLi, or CrossFire or continue just trying to get a better single GPU?
It's been a long time and the technology has probably improved a lot, but after having crossfired 4970s I swore off ever using 2 graphics cards again. Between microstutter problems, needing new profiles for new games or adding them yourself, and the fact that it didnt work for anything in windowed mode I just gave up on the technology and got a 7970.
Amd drivers have come a surprisingly long way since I got my card last January, so much so that the 3dmark comparison tests I ran increased by over 10%. That being said a gtx780 would be my next card, but at 1920x1200 I dont really seem to need it yet
S'all good. I value most everyone's opinion on here. I've asked many questions and never been steered wrong, or been given bad advice.
I do indeed play at 1920x1080 on a 60hz monitor. A year ago when I was running a Sapphire 5850 I ran a second monitor to "monitor", if you will, the usage of the CPU/GPU via Crysis 2. Obviously the GPU was at 100% for the most part while the CPU was around... 40% - 60% tops...? It was something like that anyway where I had a lot of room on the CPU yet. I jumped to a 7970 and that made a huge difference in the smoothness of Crysis 2. Only reason I went to a 680 was because of AMD driver issues.
Bit of a side question here, but for someone like me (I don't see myself going to a higher resolution any time in the near future) would it make more sense to go SLi, or CrossFire or continue just trying to get a better single GPU?
If you look, I actually undervolted my 920 for day to day operation. I was at 1.075v at 3.4ghz, sometimes when I wanted to see if there was an actual cpu limitation I'd run it at 1.325v for 4ghz. I just didn't feel that massive increase in voltage was worth it. Those power consumption numbers I gave aren't the most accurate in the world due to the equipment I used to get them, but they're good enough to give a relational comparison, and I cut my idle power consumption in half.
Just curious why on Earth you'd turn off the cpu throttling. When you're away from your computer do you really want it running full bore, max voltage? The enhanced speed step was one of the major reasons I bought the 4770k (aside from the increase in performance obviously), or atleast the power reduction was, which the speedstep is a part of. My room isn't small by any means, it's probably the warmest part of the house but it's not like an office or anything.
Side comment, someone mentioned WoW isn't CPU intensive. This is wrong. Wow is generally CPU limited not GPU limited. This is due to the way the netcode in the game is handled. As player count in an area increased so does workload on the CPU. Wow is one of the rare games which does get a bump, especially in min FPS from the CPU.
Overall, the upgrade is very nice. A lot of it has to do with moving to a new platform from the reliable but aging X58.
Are you guys using speedstep? I've got my haswell clocked at 4.5ghz now at 1.2 volts and left speedstep enabled. It's much more advanced than my old I7-920 speedstep. the MHz range on haswell is all over the board. It clocks down as low as 800mhz and seems like it can do any MHz it wants - where as the old I7-920 simply was one of two speeds with speedstep engaged.
Are you guys using speedstep? I've got my haswell clocked at 4.5ghz now at 1.2 volts and left speedstep enabled. It's much more advanced than my old I7-920 speedstep. the MHz range on haswell is all over the board. It clocks down as low as 800mhz and seems like it can do any MHz it wants - where as the old I7-920 simply was one of two speeds with speedstep engaged.
Just upgraded from I7 [email protected] (mostly), couldn't take the upgrade itch any more. I have been pretty vocal in this thread so thought I would offer some feed back
New Rig
Gigabyte GA-Z87X-OC Mobo
Intel Core i7 4770K [email protected]
Corsair Hydro Series H110 Closed processor water cooler
CoolerMaster RC-942 case
16Gb 1600MHZ ram (already had)
SSD (already had)
GTX 680 (already had).
Games tested
Gaming resolution 1080P and all games set pretty high quality where GPU is usually the bottleneck even at a modest 1080P.
Bioshock Infinity (no FPS gain)
Metro Last light (no FPS gain).
Starcraft 2 (no FPS gain)
Supreme commander forged alliance (around 20-30% sim speed increase but STILL maxes 1 core, no surprise there).
Crysis 3 (no FPS gain)
**didn't feel the need to test more.
The results above I was expecting as the only games I play where a core was maxed was Supcom Forged Alliance large maps with ALX etc.
Advice for gamers with Bloomfield/Nehalem @3.8 or better.
How do I put this........um..............DON"T DO IT !!!!!!, seriously NO, use the money on hookers!
Its the worse money I have spent in a long time, I am thinking why the hell didn't I just jam a Corsair hydro on the 920 and OC a little more for fun, may have satisfied the itch. My 920 is looking at me in the corner wondering what the hell it did wrong!, I cant even look at it little own try and explain why he's been replaced.
Bloomfield/Nehalem owners please feel free to flame me for being a idiot.
Thanks for this post. After reading this, I spent money on a new SSD, GPU, and 24gigs of ram. I think that was money well spent after looking over this thread. My 4.2Ghz Oc is still doing fine.
I haven't really noticed much of a benefit moving from a 4.5GHz 2600K to a 4.3GHz 4770K. I know it's faster, obviously, but I probably should have just put the money towards a second GTX 780. Live and learn!
Look at this WOW performance review, even at a low 1680x1050 (to ensure GPU is not the bottleneck) a modest I7 875 at only 3.73Ghz is hitting a really good 94FPS. hmm so maybe WOW is not really that CPU intensive
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/world-of-warcraft-cataclysm-directx-11-performance,2793-9.html