Is it worth even bothering to upgrade my CPU?

Y

y0bailey

Gawd
Joined
Mar 31, 2003
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558
Hello dearest friends. I am super bored and when I am bored I spend money (mostly in a senseless fashion).

When BF3 came out in late 2011, I upgrade my CPU/GPU to the Phenom x4 955/Nvidia 570gtx. Overclocked the sucker to 4ghz, and haven't even paid any attention to the CPU charts since (never felt the need since this sucker flew at the time). All of my games are still running fine, so if that answers any questions there.

I will likely keep play BF3 and other FPS until BF4 comes out, then start to get the urge to upgrade. I might want to do that ahead of time, but I need someone to convince me that it is dumb.

Can anyone see any reason why I would upgrade at this time? I feel like grabbing an i5 and overclocking will increase my e-penis size, but realistically in games I feel like 16ghz of processing power is probably going to hold me over another year.

I know my GFX card will get an upgrade come Oct, but will my CPU be any significant bottleneck at that point?

I know this question is terrible, but like I said I am bored.
 
A P2 X4 @ 4GHz will be able to adequately feed modern GPUs for a while longer. I'd not hesitate to give it something meatier to chew on than a 570.
 
With Haswell just around the corner, Nvidia supposedly releasing the higher end 700 series GPUs this month, I would at the very least wait for that if you must upgrade.

Although your setup should be fine for a while.
 
y0bailey said:
*snip*
All of my games are still running fine, so if that answers any questions there.
*snip*
Click to expand...

That's really the only question. Do you play benchmarks? My guess is no, so that's probably the same answer to the upgrade question.

Let me just say that I do sympathize with how you feel. I've been running my current equipment since 2009 with the exception that I upgraded my GPU in 2011. I'm going on my 4th year now without a CPU upgrade and internally it's frustrating. Externally, I can't justify it. The only game I really play anymore is Skyrim and that runs fine on my rig at 1920x1080. The best bang for the buck would be to upgrade the GPU anyway, which puts me even further out from a CPU upgrade.

Fact is, some games demand more CPU power than others but for the most part CPUs like ours (and mine is only a 2-core) provide plenty of horsepower to enjoy modern games. We could delve into all kinds of reasons as to why (*cough* consoles *cough*), but in the end it doesn't make a difference. I say stick with what you've got and wait for new games which demand more power before you upgrade. Chances are there will be better stuff out for the same price by then anyway, as Skillz has noted. Just put the money you would spend on an upgrade into some kind of savings or investment account instead, that way you make a couple bucks along the way and don't spend it on beer :)
 
Sometimes I just need someone else to tell me not to be dumb...and you guys have done that for me!

I am going to bury the money in the back yard and dig it out when BF4 comes out...then blow too much on a GFX card and dance.
 
its all your games keep running well why upgrade? wait until the next GTX7XX nvidia cards and upgrade to a GTX 770 you will notice a big jump on performance, but also you will need a better processor to avoid any bottleneck. you have 2 ways... jump the fence to intel when haswell arrive and pick a i5 haswell or benefict from the price drop on actual ivy bridge and upgrade.. actually a ivy i5 3570k stock its a huge performance over your X4 955.. so if you move to a i7 3770k the performance gain will be even more.. and you can keep that rig for really long time... just wait a month or two if u want to save some money..
 
y0bailey said:
I am going to bury the money in the back yard and dig it out when BF4 comes out...then blow too much on a GFX card and dance.
Click to expand...
Why do that? Let someone else blow too much on a GFX card and buy their old one when they sell theirs!

Win-win :cool:
 
Araxie said:
its all your games keep running well why upgrade? wait until the next GTX7XX nvidia cards and upgrade to a GTX 770 you will notice a big jump on performance, but also you will need a better processor to avoid any bottleneck. you have 2 ways... jump the fence to intel when haswell arrive and pick a i5 haswell or benefict from the price drop on actual ivy bridge and upgrade.. actually a ivy i5 3570k stock its a huge performance over your X4 955.. so if you move to a i7 3770k the performance gain will be even more.. and you can keep that rig for really long time... just wait a month or two if u want to save some money..
Click to expand...

except sandy bridge cpu's never dropped much when ivy bridge came along.

even last gen gpu's dont drop anymore.

you cant get something for nothing anymore.
 
We should go to console upgrade timelines. Wait until next year, then buy the latest and greatest then keep it till retirement.
 
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