Why should I upgrade my CPU?

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PHeeNIxx

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Oct 19, 2004
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I have an i5-4670K OC'd to 4GHz, purchased > 5 years ago. This morning I was looking around at black Friday deals and thinking maybe it's time to give my core system components (CPU/MB/RAM) a refresh. i5-8600K or Ryzen 7 2700X seem like good bang-for-the-buck upgrades, along with some DDR4.

Then I went looking for benchmarks, and was basically seeing almost no tangible improvements over what I was already running. It seems like single core performance has basically hit a wall completely, and the only benefit of getting a new processor is that I'll have a few more cores (6 or 8), which is only valuable for those games/applications that take advantage of it.

My main application requiring horsepower is gaming, with some photo editing on the side. It seems as far as a gaming rig goes, upgrading core components will get me very little, even after 5 years!

I'm trying to be a good consumer and spend money here but they aren't making it easy. Somebody convince me of all the benefits I'll see with a fresh new CPU please!
 
Other than core count nothing revolutionary has happened. It is time for the sandy bridge and first gen core CPU owners to upgrade though.
 
PHeeNIxx said:
I have an i5-4670K OC'd to 4GHz, purchased > 5 years ago. This morning I was looking around at black Friday deals and thinking maybe it's time to give my core system components (CPU/MB/RAM) a refresh. i5-8600K or Ryzen 7 2700X seem like good bang-for-the-buck upgrades, along with some DDR4.

Then I went looking for benchmarks, and was basically seeing almost no tangible improvements over what I was already running. It seems like single core performance has basically hit a wall completely, and the only benefit of getting a new processor is that I'll have a few more cores (6 or 8), which is only valuable for those games/applications that take advantage of it.

My main application requiring horsepower is gaming, with some photo editing on the side. It seems as far as a gaming rig goes, upgrading core components will get me very little, even after 5 years!

I'm trying to be a good consumer and spend money here but they aren't making it easy. Somebody convince me of all the benefits I'll see with a fresh new CPU please!
Click to expand...
Depends what you play, but games like BF on 64 man servers can choke a 4c/4t cpu.
 
I feel your hesitation, I just went from a xeon 1231v3 (4c8t haswell) to a 1700x, and you are right basically no single thread difference. What it did help was in an itx form factor being able to go to 32gb ram and doubling the count for server stuff like vms and Plex. FYI I do have that xeon for sale if you wanted to jump on HT.
 
I could see the use for an upgrade if you play at higher resolutions (at least 1440p or 4K). Other than that, if you're not doing other heavy workloads like video editing, there's little use in upgrading your CPU, focus your money on GPUs. I have an i5-7500 - a "bad" buy considering the upgrades that the 8000 series got, but I needed a computer at that moment so I bought what was out there - I'm not planning on upgrading the CPU for at least another 2/3 years, easily. If you're gaming at 1080p (16:9 or 21:9), 4 cores are all you need for the next couple years. More cores won't help 1080p much, if at all.
 
An upgrade is something you either need or really want for whatever reason. In either case you know you need / want one and don't need anybody to convince you.

If you don't know you need an upgrade, then perhaps you shouldn't.
 
I just got into DVD ripping and DVD Video creating using Pinnacle Studios. Sucks having 'only' 4 cores with HT, but I am on a budget for now.
 
PHeeNIxx said:
I have an i5-4670K OC'd to 4GHz, purchased > 5 years ago. This morning I was looking around at black Friday deals and thinking maybe it's time to give my core system components (CPU/MB/RAM) a refresh. i5-8600K or Ryzen 7 2700X seem like good bang-for-the-buck upgrades, along with some DDR4.

Then I went looking for benchmarks, and was basically seeing almost no tangible improvements over what I was already running. It seems like single core performance has basically hit a wall completely, and the only benefit of getting a new processor is that I'll have a few more cores (6 or 8), which is only valuable for those games/applications that take advantage of it.

My main application requiring horsepower is gaming, with some photo editing on the side. It seems as far as a gaming rig goes, upgrading core components will get me very little, even after 5 years!

I'm trying to be a good consumer and spend money here but they aren't making it easy. Somebody convince me of all the benefits I'll see with a fresh new CPU please!
Click to expand...

Save your money for next year it should be better upgrade from what you have now and with DDR4 ram prices not rising any more might be a compelling time to look for an upgrade (since zen 2 should have a good ipc increase over zen+). Then the only thing you have to worry about is if you want a 6 core or a 8 core cpu :).
 
I was sitting in the same boat recently myself ... All the way back on an i7 930 w/12GB RAM from 2010! It died recently which propelled me to look at where to go next. Ended up on the Threadripper platform, everything else too underwhelming to call an "upgrade". Well, and the Intel "X" series is just too insanely priced.
 
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