To CPU upgrade or not to?

Rajincajun

Weaksauce
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Nov 30, 2010
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Looking for some advice on what I should do with my current setup. I have a i5-2500K running @4ghz and running with no issues.

I just purchased a Gigabyte G1 970 and am thinking of going SLI with 2x 970's. I would like to keep the 1155 socket motherboard (to save money) and upgrade to a faster processor. What would be a good chip to go with that's a 1155 socket and can handle 2x GTX 970's?

I been running this i5-2500K for a couple of years and If I can get my system to be relevant lol for a year or two more am I asking to much from the 1155 chips?

Thanks in advance.
~R~
 
You have two options. First overclock the hell out of your chip to at least 4.7ghz. anything between 4.8ghz and 5.0ghz would be the ideal if you have a good cooler and voltages are low enough, however that will still represent a thread bottleneck in a several games... if you don't want to overclock your only other option its to go straight to the higher 1155 chip available which its the 3770K which at 4.5-4.6ghz it's still a must but it will be able to give you a lot of performance gain. specially if you jump from sandy at 4.0 to ivy at 4.5.. you are adding more cache and double the threads which its necessary for a lot of games today.
 
Thanks Araxie, over clocking what I have to over 4.0 Ghz would need water cooling right? And I would still have the bottleneck to some degree?

I don't mind overclocking but needing to have water cooling etc to keep the chip cool might be more than I willing to commit to.

Looking at pricing for the i7-3770K Lowest price is $305.00 Intel Core i7-3770K SR0PL Socket H2 LGA1155 is thhs what you're talking about? I also see the same chip for Intel Core i7-3770 Quad-Core Processor 3.4 GHz 4 Core LGA 1155 or $405. Thses should be the same chips? Sorry man I'm not the best with all the specs on a CPU.

And thanks again for pointing me in the right direction.

~R~
 
no, you don't need to keep the chip under water to achieve higher clocks.. in fact with cheap coolers like the Thermalright True-Spirit 120 or 140. you will be achieve higher levels of performance with extreme cooling possibilities even 4ghz is nothing crazy even for stock cooling in those 2500K...

in the other hand yes, that's the chip in referring to, I7 3770K. forget the other 3770, see the difference it's the "K" at the end which mean unlocked multiplier for maximum overclock possibilities... if you want my opinion right now first focus in overclock more your chip and squeeze the max juice possible and see how comfortable are you with it, if you feel you need more, then the i7 3770K its the way to go to keep your current platform.
 
OK sounds like a plan. One other question. If I decide to SLI my 970, I would need to upgrade the CPU then for sure? What do you think?

~R~
 
I think yes, Upgrading to SLI will require you to upgrade, not only due to CPU performance but by PCI Limitations, your Sandy Bridge chip only support PCI-E 2.0@x16 so splitting you will have 2 cards running at x8 which may be a possible performance issue, upgrading your CPU to ivy bridge will allow certain motherboards to run at PCI-E 3.0@x16 which allow more bandwidth to breath those cards... What motherboard are you using right now?.
 
Better off with one 980 Ti rather than 2x970
This.
Alas, another 970 is going to be a lot cheaper than a 980 Ti.

OP: I think that your CPU will likely be fine for 970X2 if you want to go that route. My 2500K is running at 4.2 under air (a Thermaltake Jing)
[H] Review: http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010...oled_processor_heatsink_review/4#.Vkt2o9KrRpg

I've not made any manual changes except for upping the multi to 42.

That said, it kind of depends on your monitor resolution, which is...?
 
The 2500k will be fine with 2x 970 as long as its running 4.0ghz + you shouldn't see any major bottlenecking if any.
 
The 2500k will be fine with 2x 970 as long as its running 4.0ghz + you shouldn't see any major bottlenecking if any.

This could be 90% of the time true but both cards running at PCI 2.0 x8 can be a problem. also he will deal with heavy CPU games that in the actuality can crush an i5 and make it cry for more speed.
 
Your CPU will be fine.

Use your money elsewhere. Save it for a better GPU later that will be better than 2 970s...
 
He probably has a Z68 board with PCI-e 2.0 so he would need a Z77 board along with a 3770K to get the benefit of PCI-e 3.0 speed on his slots for SLI (yes, there are Z68 boards that will do PCI-e 3.0 but they were later in the lifecycle of that platform).
 
I'd do a single 980ti over 2x970s. As others mentioned if you're running 8x PCIe 2.0 that's going to hurt.

Or keep the 970, wait a year, rebuild the whole rig with Pascal + Skylake.
 
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