Intel i7-920 x58 vs Haswell @1080p and above - Still no urgency to upgrade?

H

Hurin

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So, does the consensus remain that so long as you don't need native USB3 or 6Gbps SATA, that there's no point in upgrading from a decently overclocked "Nehalem"-era CPU and x58 chipset?

As someone who likes everything maxed out at 1920x1200 and will possibly be going larger (30" 2560x1600 some day), am I likely to even notice a difference with Haswell so long as my i7-920 is OCed to 4.09GHz?

I get the sense that the x58's PCIe bandwidth/lanes plus a good overclock for the CPU keeps this aging platform in contention and won't cause more than a few percentage points of "bottlenecked" performance in resolutions at or above 1080p.

Please, correct me if I'm wrong. . . so I can better direct my upgrade budget in the coming months.

I would love to see a gaming-oriented review of Haswell where a 4GHz+ i7-920 is put into the mix. But that's been hard to find. :(

--H
 
In the same boat as you but I am thinking that currently there wouldn't be much. If you look at reviews that do gaming at 1080p it is all video card limited and the CPUs they use are all withing 1-3 frames generally.

I think I'm going to stick with my 950/680 gtx for another year and do a total upgrade next year to Broadwell and the 800 series from Nvidia.
 
Fourth boat here, I game at 2560x1440, and I'm thinking my dollars will be better spent on a GTX 780 or maybe a Titan (if I can swallow the pricetag :( )
 
I'm thinking I'd be better off increasing my RAM from 6GB to 12GB, and replacing my GTX 580s with GTX 780s. . . and leaving the CPU and motherboards as-is.

And with the money I save on not upgrading the CPU and motherboard, I'd then start saving towards a 30" LCD (waiting for an LED-based one that's good since I tried CFL-based and noticed the heat output too much -- could feel it on my face!).
 
I had a 920 OC'd to 4.2ghz and tried out the 3770K for about 2 weeks clocked at 4.6ghz. I definitely noticed a change in speed and higher FPS when I was playing Black Ops 2. I now have the 4770K (still waiting on motherboard) but imo, it's worth it to me.
 
Oh forgot to add, I game at 1080p with 144mhz refresh rate and a GTX 690, just for some background.
 
All input is welcome. However, if I had a nickel for every time I've heard one of my users say that they "definitely noticed" something that was later definitively demonstrated to be a placebo effect, I'd have. . . probably about a buck. :)

Which is just my way of saying that if anyone comes across some hard numbers of the i7-920 OCed decently against a Haswell, please share!
 
I decided it's not worth it, at 2560x1600 I'm rarely ever CPU limited anyway. Only games that gave me trouble was Arma 2 and GTA IV.

Getting a new case and more RAM to satisfy my upgrade itch :cool:

Hopefully my 920 lasts another 2 years or so lol, I can't imagine Broadwell will bring much to the table. Skylake is the next big thing and that's not out till 2015. I'll be going on 6 years without a CPU upgrade by then.
 
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There's only one game I've ever managed to be cpu limited in at 1080p and that was World Of Tanks. It's limited to using one core for most of the game(sound can make use of a second I've been told).
 
I believe my case is completely unique. I don't know any players that I play Black Ops 2 with that actually runs at 144mhz refresh + GTX 690. When you're a hardcore FPS player, ever frame counts so in essence you want the fastest and smoothest frames possible. So when I went from my 4.2ghz 920 DO to a 4.6ghz 3770K there was a very noticeable difference. I was almost hitting the 200 fps ceiling constantly no matter where I was whereas with the 920 I would be hovering around the 180 fps and sometimes hitting 200 fps in small areas. I get accused of cheating constantly if that's anything.

I also used the iGPU to run my second monitor so having a iGPU actually was great thing for me. Problem was that the Intel 4000 could not do a 120mhz refresh which is native on my second monitor so all I could do is hope that the Intel 4600 can otherwise, I'll just be selling my Planar 120mhz monitor and replacing it with a cheaper 60mhz one.

In the end I decided to return my 3770k setup once I got to reading about Haswell even though I know it's just a minor bump and that was a month ago. I did it primarily because I wanted all my SATA ports to be 3 and more USB 3.0 ports. With more and more motherboard previews, things looked even better. So here I am, with a 4770K and the G1 Sniper 5 board on the way, I couldn't be happier.
 
WeaponX said:
So when I went from my 4.2ghz 920 DO to a 4.6ghz 3770K there was a very noticeable difference. I was almost hitting the 200 fps ceiling constantly no matter where I was whereas with the 920 I would be hovering around the 180 fps and sometimes hitting 200 fps in small areas.
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So that's less than a 5% difference that may or may not be solely attributed to the CPU/chipset.
 
I'm personally on the boat of waiting for next year to see what Broadwell / Haswell-E bring us and the next generation AMD/nVidia cards, at which point I will just build a new computer. It's fine anyway... this year's bonus will go towards going on vacation to Japan and such :)
 
I went from a 920 D0 to a 2700k and I've been very happy with my upgrade, I probably won't upgrade until DDR4 hits mainstream.
 
In the same boat, with the difference being that I occasionally do a lot of video/graphics work on the side, in addition to gaming, so raw CPU performance does show itself.

Ugh, this is a hard decision...
 
I have a similar problem to you guys, except I run at 2560x1600. Haswell doesn't look as if it's worth the effort, and I'm waiting to see what Ivy Bridge-E has to offer. I'm not holding my breath however since Intel seems to be set in phoning in every "new generation" from here on.
 
mrtheshaggy said:
920 was great, but I upgraded to a 2500k and noticed an improvement. Focus less on benchmarks and more on user experience.

However, if benchmarks are your deciding factor: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/47?vs=837
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That link is useless

Show me a 4 - 4.2ghz 920 vs a 4.0 - 4.3ghz 4770k. Remember, we aren't upgrade stock chips at 2.66. Most people are around 4ghz or so on these. With that in mind the upgrade doesn't look nearly as good.
 
Dextar said:
I went from a 920 D0 to a 2700k and I've been very happy with my upgrade, I probably won't upgrade until DDR4 hits mainstream.
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mrtheshaggy said:
920 was great, but I upgraded to a 2500k and noticed an improvement. Focus less on benchmarks and more on user experience.

However, if benchmarks are your deciding factor: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/47?vs=837
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Need to know the clock speeds before and after for these to constitute good feedback.

As others have pointed out, we're talking about 920s that are at 4+ GHz. So if people are going from 920s at stock (or thereabouts) to newer CPUs with higher default clocks. . . then yah, you'd expect a noticeable difference.
 
I can't believe that my 2500K after all this time still holds its own with the latest gen...wtf
 
mrtheshaggy said:
Focus less on benchmarks and more on user experience.
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Even [H]'s "user exerience-based" reviews still use numbers to get their point across. Just hearing people say "it felt faster" isn't very convincing considering how susceptible we all are to placebo effect. If we expect something to be faster, it will "feel" faster whether it actually is or not. Or, if we're worried that we wasted our money, it won't "feel" as fast as we think it should. Hence, the need for numbers to verify our biased and easily confused perceptions.
 
Same boat but i have the D0 i7-930 .. i have only seen one test WPrime 32m ran 3 years ago with the i7-930 @4.3Ghz and it scored 5989

That is faster the both SB and IV in Kyle's test and eating Haswell up clocked at 4.5Ghz
 
Hurin said:
Even [H]'s "user exerience-based" reviews still use numbers to get their point across. Just hearing people say "it felt faster" isn't very convincing considering how susceptible we all are to placebo effect. If we expect something to be faster, it will "feel" faster whether it actually is or not. Or, if we're worried that we wasted our money, it won't "feel" as fast as we think it should. Hence, the need for numbers to verify our biased and easily confused perceptions.
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I went from a 920 to a 2500k thinking there would be no improvement. There was.

I went from a 2500k to a 3770k thinking there would be an improvement. There wasn't (except when i was plowing all four threads and trying to watch a movie on top of it).

Placebo's don't seem to work on me :/
 
Just an a quick test. Can't really replicate too many of Kyle's tests since I don't have the right setup, I did do a quick cinebench run on my 4ghz i950. 6.87 compared to Haswells 9.89. Remember the Haswell also has a 500mhz clock advantage over the i950.

I would almost be tempted to pull the trigger if hitting 4.5 was relatively easy. Very curious to see what Kyle gets on his retail cpus.
 
Hurin said:
So, does the consensus remain that so long as you don't need native USB3 or 6Gbps SATA, that there's no point in upgrading from a decently overclocked "Nehalem"-era CPU and x58 chipset?

As someone who likes everything maxed out at 1920x1200 and will possibly be going larger (30" 2560x1600 some day), am I likely to even notice a difference with Haswell so long as my i7-920 is OCed to 4.09GHz?

I get the sense that the x58's PCIe bandwidth/lanes plus a good overclock for the CPU keeps this aging platform in contention and won't cause more than a few percentage points of "bottlenecked" performance in resolutions at or above 1080p.

Please, correct me if I'm wrong. . . so I can better direct my upgrade budget in the coming months.

I would love to see a gaming-oriented review of Haswell where a 4GHz+ i7-920 is put into the mix. But that's been hard to find. :(

--H
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Your coming from sli 580s. It doesn't matter if Haswell benched 50% faster than your cpu, if you want better gaming, buy sli 780s (or 770s). That's the best use of your $$ for gaming b/c it will cost you almost $1k to upgrade cpu, mobo, and ram.
 
inglewood78 said:
Your coming from sli 580s. It doesn't matter if Haswell benched 50% faster than your cpu, if you want better gaming, buy sli 780s (or 770s). That's the best use of your $$ for gaming b/c it will cost you almost $1k to upgrade cpu, mobo, and ram.
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WHAT?

You can get a 4770k, Asus Z87-A, and 16gb of Crucial Balistix 1866 ram for $500+ tax out the door at Microcenter. Not sure where you are getting your totals from sir.
 
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demingo said:
WHAT?

You can get a 4770k, Asus Z87-A, and 16gb of Crucial Balistix 1866 ram for $500+ tax out the door at Microcenter. Not sure where you are getting your totals from sir.
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Fine fine, maybe $1k is a bit on the high side estimate, haha.

I was thinking $279 4770k, $250 Asus Maximus VI Hero, + some Corsair Dominator Plats :p
 
Probably because the 1366 socket was enthusiast and performance focused. 1155 is actually a mainstream socket (like the 1156 before it) and was focused on power reduction, just happened to be slightly better so the motherboard manufacturer's promoted it as the next enthusiast/performance platform. But then the 2011 enthusiast socket/CPUs being the actual intended upgrade have focused on power reduction too, making the performance boost kind of lackluster.
 
Went from a 920 @ 4ghz to a 2600K at 4.5ghz and noticed a substantial improvement in several games, but not all of them. Ironically, I took the advice of a few posts and made that swap, despite even [H] reviews, and many other reviews, saying otherwise. This was at 1080p.
 
920-co here @3360. Been waiting for Haswell too but now I might stretch this out a little longer.
I know any upgrade will show improvement but nothing is killing me right now.

Finishing up Tomb Raider at a constant 60fps with a GTX460.
I love my 920/1366
 
I have an i7 920 with an amd hd7970. At stock clocks, most of my games will dip into the low 20's frequently during action packed scenes (at 1920x1200). This includes Tomb Raider, Borderlands 2, and BF3 that I'm playing nowadays. Oc'ing to 3.2ish brings the minimums to above 30fps, making the gameplay experience much more enjoyable, but there is still plenty of room before I reach a consistent 60 fps. I am always surprised when I see tech sites claiming CPU's don't matter for gaming. I only game occasionally so I normally have my CPU at stock, but it is not a pretty experience if I forget to reboot.
 
My resolution is 1920x1080 and the 460 is a MSI Talon Attack 460 factory oc'd.

I'll lower aa if my fps are low in some games but TR is smooth.

Back on topic, If I do build a new rig I'll go with Haswell as it's the latest unless there is some crazy deal on an IB or SB. I would consider that too.
 
Now is the time to upgrade. Get yourself a Sandy Bridge or Sandy Bridge E. Go LGA2011 its not a dead socket. Go 6 core if you can, future proof yourself for PS4/XBOX One games.
 
WeaponX said:
I had a 920 OC'd to 4.2ghz and tried out the 3770K for about 2 weeks clocked at 4.6ghz. I definitely noticed a change in speed and higher FPS when I was playing Black Ops 2. I now have the 4770K (still waiting on motherboard) but imo, it's worth it to me.
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BO2 runs amazingly well on just about anything made in the past 2-3 years. lol
 
Personally I'd be skipping this generation and holding over to see how the ivy-e performed. Alas, my X58 board fried, taking the CPU with it. I'm one sad panda - even more so looking at the price of 4770k cpu's in Australia.
 
Bloefield said:
920-co here @3360. Been waiting for Haswell too but now I might stretch this out a little longer.
I know any upgrade will show improvement but nothing is killing me right now.

Finishing up Tomb Raider at a constant 60fps with a GTX460.
I love my 920/1366
Click to expand...

I'm in the same boat as you, c0 920 at 3.4. Wish I had a d0 but oh well, it gets the job done. Short of components failing, I don't see myself replacing it this release.
 
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