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HI guys:

I have read many reviews which seem to STILL take the old school opinion that @ 1080P and UP a 3.4ghz modern quad core amd (phenom maybe even athlon and APU's) as well as intel First gen i series processors are more than fast enough to max out a gtx680 or HD7970 level graphics card.

I play all the newst games.. Far CRY 3 Crysis 2 and 3 Metro (both old and new) tom raider (new) and want to see all the eye candy at 1080p without ruining the illusion of motion.

I know what Damage suggested in his recent CPU inside the second review... His assertion is that this old school thinking may be flawed. Intel may have less frame latency etc....

I have a Phenom II X4 BE 975 oc'd to 4ghz 8 gigs ram gtx 660 2Gb and came on a 23 in IPS DEll Panel @ 1080p. I have reserved an Ivy bridge system that I will not have to pay for until Monday. That Is a Dell XPS 8500 with an IVY i5 3450 @ 3.1 base turbo to 3.4 or so...


Every other review from almost all sites (except TR) agrees that there may only be at most a 5% gain in framerates from an HD7970 or GTX680. I am just as concerned with minimum frame rates staying above 30fps as I am with avg @ 60fps. BUT I have a gtx660 not a 680.

What about a mid range card such as my GTX660 or an hd 7870 ??? Will there be any difference at all by moving to ivy bridge from my rig? (Or will my AMD PHENOM MAX my gtx 660 thereby wasting my money by switching to intel).

Please provide links to any reviews you may think are of interest.... It seems like all sites test these processors with Hi end cards... I want to see how mid-range cards scale with modern processors.

Thanks!

My old rig was a core2 duo e8400 with a 7950, and at least in WoW before my upgrade ran around 50-70 FPS. Same settings, same windows install, with my new i7 3770k I am running around 300+ FPS now. My old rig was very much indeed holding my 7950 back...significantly. Your mileage may vary, but your improvement may be a lot bigger than you think it will be.

wow r u sure?

A good start would be to start measuring GPU usage. If GPU usage is low during gaming, a bottleneck is to be found elsewhere, most likely at the CPU.

You can measure said value most conveniently using MSI Afterburner, using the onscreen display:

• Open up MSI Afterburner.
• Click Settings.
• Go to Monitoring.
• Tick GPU usage, then tick "Show in On-Screen Display".
• Go to On-Screen display.
• Select a button to toggle the display.
• Run 32bit game (64bit isn't supported), hit the toggle button.

In the ideal case, GPU usage should stay at 99%. This was pretty much always the case when my Phenom II X4 @3.8GHz had to feed a lowly 9600GT. Now, with a HD5850, things don't look so good. Games like Starcraft 2, Civ 5 and Crysis 3 regularly push GPU usage below 80%, which indicates a CPU bottleneck. If this happens on your PC too, and to be sure it's a CPU bottleneck, clock the CPU down a bit/a lot and check if GPU usage drops even further.

You would be alright with the phenom x4 I think. Sure the i5 will give you better frame rates but not much.

.

I'm running an X4 955 (at stock 3.2) with a GTX 660 on a 1600x1200 monitor. I know that my CPU is holding things back at this point (and the CPU doesn't overclock well - 18% OC with heavy voltage - so I don't bother), but games like Metro Last Light and such seem to run fine. I ran Bioshock Infinite at 4800x1200 ("surround gaming"). If you can get your X4 975 stable at 4.0 GHz I think it will be "good enough" for most games, even the new games, while some games, a few already mentioned here, will give it trouble. Look at the games you play and if they're not the CPU-crushers then you're going to be fine.

My CPU is nearing 4-years old but it just won't stop getting the job done

You might find this article useful. It shows testing on some semi-modern games with a Phenom II x4 970 using a HD 7970.

http://www.ocaholic.ch/modules/smartsec ... itemid=828

A Phenom II 975 is no slouch, especially a heavily OC'd one. I don't think you would notice much if any difference unless you maxed out absolutely everything. That being said, an i5 will run far more efficiently (less heat, lower electric bill) and the new mobo will offer some nice features like faster memory. If you're into overclocking you'd want a Sandy Bridge, not Ivy Bridge, because IB doesn't OC well.

If I was in your position, I'd lurk the component retailer sites (and Fry's/Microcenter if you have one handy--they have great in-store deals) until a really good i5 deal pops up. At some point you'll want to upgrade to have newer stuff but it doesn't sound like a critical thing.

clone wrote:

you'll be a lot happier putting a fast SSD into your computer compared to a faster processor.

given your current cpu is already at 4ghz and you've already got a GTX 660 if you don't have an SSD it's a no brainer, get a 120gb Intel SSD or comparable, you'll love it, you'll notice a difference instantly.

going to an i5 will certainly lighten your wallet but it's not guarantee you'll notice any difference at all.

SSD all the way, best investment I've made in the last 6 years, I'm on my third, 1 for my triple core AMD, sold it along with cpu and bought another for my upgrade to FX 8320 and I was so happy I bought another SSD to use with my ancient C2D intel system.

What is the main benefit of an SSD faster load times????

If it's only going to reduce the time I have to wait for my PC to boot up and or to reduce the time it spends loading levels etc. I'm not sure I'd want to spend the money just for that... I'm patient enough to wait an extra 15 or 30 seconds.. I'd rather spend that cash on a faster graphics card or a higher end monitor..


Please elaborate... What is it that sold you on the SSD???

matdem1 wrote:

clone wrote:

Please elaborate... What is it that sold you on the SSD???

When/if you are impatient or on a time budget. I can pick up a fast 2000GB HDD for the price of a 90GB SSD. I'd advise just getting a 64GB SSD just for your OS and a couple of key applications. Games and software on a HDD.

Star Brood wrote:

matdem1 wrote:

clone wrote:

Please elaborate... What is it that sold you on the SSD???

When/if you are impatient or on a time budget. I can pick up a fast 2000GB HDD for the price of a 90GB SSD. I'd advise just getting a 64GB SSD just for your OS and a couple of key applications. Games and software on a HDD.

Here is the "thing"

If I have the OS (7 pro 64 bit) on the SSD BUT put all of my games on a 7,200 RPM "regular" hard drive will there be any benefit in load times on the games?

(I am assuming NOT).

I further assume that only the files on the SSD will benefit from the quicker load times isn't that correct?


At Present My Steam Games fill up about a terrabyte of space and I play nearly all of them on a somewhat regular basis... If I have to "juggle space" between my ssd and my regular hard drive that time consuming task will negate any real benefit .. (for me anyway)... Of the SSD.

AM I wrong?

I admittedly don't use an SSD myself but I find the claims of vastly improved performance somewhat doubtful and probably as much an artifact of getting a fresh Windows installation as anything else. Windows loading is lightning fast even on an ancient IDE drive...for about six months, at which point enough applications have crapped on the registry and left little conflicts and data corruption scattered all over everywhere that even a fast system starts getting bogged down. It's not as bad as it used to be, but this is why old-timers always say the best way to improve performance is by reformatting. Also, keep in mind that solid-state storage (SSD as well as memory sticks and the like) goes bad after some number of writes. It's a large number, but something to keep in mind when comparing against magnetic storage.

That being said, if you're interested in the performance gain of an SSD but don't want to fool with a dual-drive setup or otherwise don't want to drop a ton of dough on a reasonably sized drive, something you can look into is SSD caching. Smart Response is one of the more interesting features the blue team has cooked up lately, and I believe there are some third party dongles and software utilities out there that promise something similar. That way the stuff you read often is brought up quickly but you don't have to play storage quartermaster with a logical drive. I'm planning to do this with my next upgrade.

NovusBogus wrote:

I admittedly don't use an SSD myself but I find the claims of vastly improved performance somewhat doubtful and probably as much an artifact of getting a fresh Windows installation as anything else. Windows loading is lightning fast even on an ancient IDE drive...for about six months, at which point enough applications have crapped on the registry and left little conflicts and data corruption scattered all over everywhere that even a fast system starts getting bogged down. It's not as bad as it used to be, but this is why old-timers always say the best way to improve performance is by reformatting. Also, keep in mind that solid-state storage (SSD as well as memory sticks and the like) goes bad after some number of writes. It's a large number, but something to keep in mind when comparing against magnetic storage.

That being said, if you're interested in the performance gain of an SSD but don't want to fool with a dual-drive setup or otherwise don't want to drop a ton of dough on a reasonably sized drive, something you can look into is SSD caching. Smart Response is one of the more interesting features the blue team has cooked up lately, and I believe there are some third party dongles and software utilities out there that promise something similar. That way the stuff you read often is brought up quickly but you don't have to play storage quartermaster with a logical drive. I'm planning to do this with my next upgrade.

You think people are exaggerating only until you use one.

Smart Response is awesome and far outstrips any other implementation I've used by far (and I've used ~5 different caching strategies).

.

+1 on the SSD suggestions. It really is that good, and anyone who downplays the benefits obviously hasn't yet tried one.

Games that do dynamic loading of resources (like Diablo III and Rage) will benefit immensely from an SSD. Diablo III on a mechanical hard drive is an exercise in frustration. Every time you go to a new area, or encounter an enemy for the first time the game goes into single-digit FPS while it loads the models and textures. Also happens the first time someone of a class joins your party. SSD makes all that badness go away.

jihadjoe wrote:

+1 on the SSD suggestions. It really is that good, and anyone who downplays the benefits obviously hasn't yet tried one.

and

Waco wrote:

You think people are exaggerating only until you use one.

and

clone wrote:

more responsive system in every way, it'll feel like your cpu is 20% quicker, like you just did a reformat and "wow is this thing responsive now".

once you get one you'll never go back (so long as you get a decent one, I've only had what was rated near the top each time I bought), it's not about load times but about how the system reacts ... to everything, I can't tell you how my system performs because all of mine have them but I am immediately aware of any system I use that doesn't have one.

Back when I didn't own an SSD I was a little skeptical about the "real world" performance gains, however after receiving a cheap and free 60GB SSD that came with my motherboard I tried it as system drive and instantly fell in love with the thing. SSDs are great for more than just load times for Windows and games, but basically almost every application. Not only is the system more responsive, the read and write times for data is amazing. After that one was almost full I wiped it, and got a larger one and gave the older one to a friend, which he now thoroughly enjoys.

Putting it plainly:

When you have an SSD, your computer does not slow down. Period, full stop.

morphine wrote:

Putting it plainly:

When you have an SSD, your computer does not slow down. Period, full stop.

(*ﾟﾉOﾟ) Unless you're CPU-limited!