Should I upgrade?

[KingJames84]

I found what I think is a pretty good deal for a nice upgrade. What do you guys think?

Current rig:

Asus p5q Pro - 771 pin modded
xeon x5640
4 gb g. skill 1066 ddr2
sapphire 7890

What I wanna upgrade to

i7 4790-k
msi z97-g45
16gb Team Vulcan DDR3 1600
Keep my sapphire 7890

I can get the board, cpu, and ram for $532.97 through newegg. I think it's a heck of deal, but what do you guys think? The upgrade should be pretty dang significant I think lol, going from a 775 setup to a 1150 setup. I even tried to find a cheaper setup but all around that is the best deal I can find. I tried the new i5 and a mobo, but I don't upgrade to often as you can see

The power supply I am using is an Ocz GameXstream 700 watt. It has some age but all the rails are still within spec, so I keep using it. It's never let me down, but I did try to upgrade it a couple years back to a corsair 850watt HX. First one almost took my system with it, rma'ed the psu, then the replacement failed after a week. I went back to my old game x stream psu.... that was at least two years or more ago. I just kept the psu and didn't mess with an rma again. I'm done with corsair after that debacle :/ That was 90 bucks for a nothing upgrade that almost killed my 775 rig twice...


edit --- oh wow, my sig is way out dated lol. The gamexstream is the only thing left from that rig that I still use. The rest of it became an htcp aside from the 8800gts, that went into my ex's pc before we broke up, she still has it but that's another story lol

 

[RamonGTP]

Yes

 

[Dangman]

Yes but only if you upgrade the PSU as well. That OCZ PSU is not good enough for a newer system.

 

[KingJames84]

I could try to rma the corsair, who knows maybe they will try to make it right. Why wouldn't the game x stream be able to handle the upgrade? Is it just the age of the psu, or the specs of it?

 

[Dangman]

Age and quality. It wasn't that good of a PSU to begin with due to it being based on the FSP Epsilon design.

 

[Tsumi]

I suggest waiting for Broadwell if you can. Then again, Broadwell desktop processors might not be out until early 2015, so...

 

[RamonGTP]

If we're talking about laptops or a desktop where you'll be making extensive use of the IGP, waiting for broadwall MIGHT make sense. Otherwise it really doesn't. I doubt the CPU side will be anything more than a very marginal improvement.

 

[KingJames84]

I'll be honest, I bought the psu when they first released. Man it has seen so much hardware, so much over clocking. It's kinda insane, but this psu has been the best single piece of hardware I have ever owned. Thing takes some abuse, doesn't skip a beat, and keeps on going.

But the age does bother me as well. And the reputation of the later models of it was not so great :/ That is why I got that corsair a couple years or so ago. But that thing failed right off the bat, and then failed after being rma'ed. Kinda made me a little scured to upgrade the psu after how reliable and long lasting this game x stream has been.

I can defiantly wait to upgrade. I just seen that deal and was like no freaking way. Pretty much get a z97 motherboard for 55 dollars.... and that memory, holy smokes that stuff has some tight timings on it. 9-9-9-24 hmmmmmmm decisions, decisions

 

[Tsumi]

Lower power consumption and probable better overclocking are the two benefits to Broadwell. But with the way Intel prices things, the Broadwell K i7 will be the same price as Haswell K i7, so if an upgrade can be held off, something better can be had for the same price. Although I don't know whether Broadwell desktop will come 3 months or 6 months from now.

1600 mhz CAS 9 is very typical memory clocks. I think the 11 is a typo. I don't think any memory is capable of 9-9-9-11 timings. It's probably 21 or higher.

 

[KingJames84]

yup the 11 was a typo Hoping I changed before anyone read it lol the timings for that vulcan ram is 9-9-9-24, whoops

 

[RamonGTP]

Lower power consumption and probable better overclocking are the two benefits to Broadwell. But with the way Intel prices things, the Broadwell K i7 will be the same price as Haswell K i7, so if an upgrade can be held off, something better can be had for the same price. Although I don't know whether Broadwell desktop will come 3 months or 6 months from now.

1600 mhz CAS 9 is very typical memory clocks. I think the 11 is a typo. I don't think any memory is capable of 9-9-9-11 timings. It's probably 21 or higher.

Lower power consumption generation to generation is rather meaningless on a desktop though. Overclockablilty is even more meaningless than that considering IB and Haswell, both have lower consumption than SB and both overclock worse.

 

[Tsumi]

Lower power consumption generation to generation is rather meaningless on a desktop though. Overclockablilty is even more meaningless than that considering IB and Haswell, both have lower consumption than SB and both overclock worse.

To some people power consumption is important, or at the very least an influential factor. Overclocking might be better as Broadwell will be a simple die shrink with a larger iGPU, rather than a die shrink + 3D + architecture tweak in the case of IB, or new architecture + first implementation of integrated VRMs in the case of Haswell.

yup the 11 was a typo Hoping I changed before anyone read it lol the timings for that vulcan ram is 9-9-9-24, whoops

Yeah, those are very typical timings. 1600 mhz 7-7-7-18 would be considered tight timings.

 

[DejaWiz]

Lower power consumption generation to generation is rather meaningless on a desktop though. Overclockablilty is even more meaningless than that considering IB and Haswell, both have lower consumption than SB and both overclock worse.

True. However, with the IPC improvements of releases after SB, higher OC's aren't needed to match a SB clocked at 5.0 GHz or more. But heat will be a huge factor since Intel went the dipshit route of ditching solder under the IHS starting with IB.

 

[silk186]

Just go for it. The performance increase will be huge. CPU and MB development is not what it used to be. The should last you a goop many years.

 

[RamonGTP]

True. However, with the IPC improvements of releases after SB, higher OC's aren't needed to match a SB clocked at 5.0 GHz or more. But heat will be a huge factor since Intel went the dipshit route of ditching solder under the IHS starting with IB.

I'm not debating that, the comment made is that it would overclock higher, not that it would perform better, which is what I responded to. Recent years have shown is that this (higher overclocks) is not the case, and there's no reason to believe it will be with Broadwell. If Broadwell has some compelling reason for a desktop user to wait for it, by all means wait. I just haven't heard any compelling arguments being made.

 

[DejaWiz]

I'm not debating that, the comment made is that it would overclock higher, not that it would perform better, which is what I responded to. Recent years have shown is that this (higher overclocks) is not the case, and there's no reason to believe it will be with Broadwell. If Broadwell has some compelling reason for a desktop user to wait for it, by all means wait. I just haven't heard any compelling arguments being made.

I was merely stating that clock speed isn't everything when taking IPC into consideration. I'm not trying to put you down and refute what you said...just elaborate on it. I 100% agree that we will likely not see another "SB-like" OC'er (until maybe Skymont/Cannonlake...or beyond). Well, and that's if Intel switches back to a soldered IHS.

 

[RamonGTP]

I was merely stating that clock speed isn't everything when taking IPC into consideration. I'm not trying to put you down and refute what you said...just elaborate on it. I 100% agree that we will likely not see another "SB-like" OC'er (until maybe Skymont/Cannonlake...or beyond). Well, and that's if Intel switches back to a soldered IHS.

I understand, I didn't take it personally. I'm just trying to keep it on the topic of whether or not it would be a better overlocker.