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homerdog
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3770K, when to upgrade?

Mon Apr 17, 2017 1:52 pm

I've seen folks stating pretty noticeable improvements in frametime consistency going from the 2500K to a modern Skylake or Kaby. My 3770K (@4GHz) is pretty old now. Do you guys think I would notice much difference going to a 7700K (my LCD goes to 60Hz)? I guess I'm asking where is the cutoff that we should start considering a new platform?
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Re: 3770K, when to upgrade?

Mon Apr 17, 2017 2:13 pm

A small portion of things are beginning to have issues, and in the case of Haswell, a few of them got major boosts(Not many, but a few). For most things, though, you're gonna be fine for now. I'd say wait until after Coffee Lake for whatever the hell that will be(Not referring to the code name, I mean the actual CPUs when tested) unless you have a specific need for it. Like, say, if a game you really want or like has frame time issues. Or, if it'd help an application you use or would use. Otherwise? You're pretty decent for now.
 
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Re: 3770K, when to upgrade?

Mon Apr 17, 2017 2:15 pm

IMO, your 3770K (at stock clocks) is more-or-less equivalent to the recently released AMD Ryzen 7 1700(X) in gaming (which I assume is the subjet of your question)
Can you do better by upgrading? Yes
Will the difference be enough to justify the cost of CPU+mobo+RAM cost? Depends on your usage. Some things will see "large" improvements, others will be negligible.

I think you could bump up your overclock (you're only at 100MHz currently, aka zero) to take up some slack and be happy for at least another year or two.
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homerdog
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Re: 3770K, when to upgrade?

Mon Apr 17, 2017 3:54 pm

I have a tiny little Noctua cooler that is great for the size, but not something I can really OC on. I bought it for another project that never materialized.
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Jeff Kampman
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Re: 3770K, when to upgrade?

Mon Apr 17, 2017 4:16 pm

Whether you'll really notice a difference from a CPU upgrade depends on what resolution and settings you like to play games at. If you run your GTX 970 at 1920x1080 with medium to high settings (prioritizing high refresh rates) you will notice the largest difference from a CPU upgrade. If you play on high to ultra settings (prioritizing visual quality), you may not notice as big of a difference from CPU to CPU unless you have a really powerful graphics card like a GTX 1080 to feed. Similarly, if you play at 2560x1440 or 4K using higher detail settings, you shift more and more load to the graphics card and the CPU will have less of an influence on frame times, so upgrade money would be better spent on a more powerful graphics card.

The Core i7-3770K is still quite a competent CPU for gaming with a powerful graphics card at higher resolutions, but it's really starting to show its age when paired with powerful graphics cards and modern titles at 1920x1080. An overclock will likely buy some extra life from the chip, but it can't close the gap with Intel's latest CPUs entirely. Whether you'll notice a difference from going to a 7700K depends on whether you're upgrading your graphics card at the same time. A GTX 970 at 1920x1080 likely isn't stressing the CPU enough to matter at reasonable settings, while a GTX 1070 or GTX 1080 certainly will.
 
EzioAs
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Re: 3770K, when to upgrade?

Mon Apr 17, 2017 7:15 pm

Jeff said it best at the moment. I'm also planning to wait until Coffee Lake and next Ryzen iteration before upgrading my Ivy Bridge system. I know SB and IB users are feeling the itch to upgrade but it's probably better to plan these things and wait for a while. Unless of course, money is no object to you :)
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Re: 3770K, when to upgrade?

Mon Apr 17, 2017 8:10 pm

Ivy Bridge user here. I'm running a 4930K at 4.5GHz with DDR3-2400 and not noticing any CPU performance issues. I recently upgraded from a GTX970 to a GTX-1080 and received an absolutely massive boost in gaming performance. I use an overclocked Korean DVI display--2560x1440 @ 72Hz. Games are running above 72 fps and just look smooth as silk.

Your processor still has plenty of life in it. Upgrade the video card instead
 
homerdog
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Re: 3770K, when to upgrade?

Mon Apr 17, 2017 8:19 pm

Jeff Kampman wrote:
Whether you'll really notice a difference from a CPU upgrade depends on what resolution and settings you like to play games at. If you run your GTX 970 at 1920x1080 with medium to high settings (prioritizing high refresh rates) you will notice the largest difference from a CPU upgrade. If you play on high to ultra settings (prioritizing visual quality), you may not notice as big of a difference from CPU to CPU unless you have a really powerful graphics card like a GTX 1080 to feed. Similarly, if you play at 2560x1440 or 4K using higher detail settings, you shift more and more load to the graphics card and the CPU will have less of an influence on frame times, so upgrade money would be better spent on a more powerful graphics card.

The Core i7-3770K is still quite a competent CPU for gaming with a powerful graphics card at higher resolutions, but it's really starting to show its age when paired with powerful graphics cards and modern titles at 1920x1080. An overclock will likely buy some extra life from the chip, but it can't close the gap with Intel's latest CPUs entirely. Whether you'll notice a difference from going to a 7700K depends on whether you're upgrading your graphics card at the same time. A GTX 970 at 1920x1080 likely isn't stressing the CPU enough to matter at reasonable settings, while a GTX 1070 or GTX 1080 certainly will.

My current monitor is 1600x900 :oops: since my good one got stolen. But it only goes to 60Hz of course. I think for my next monitor I will prioritize refresh rate over pixel count, and at that point I reckon the 3770K will be holding me back. From what I've read you really need a fast Skylake+ to stay in the 120fps range.

Another question: will I gain much by overclocking my RAM? I have 4x4GB of DDR3-1600MHz and on my old mobo that got fried I could run it at 1866MHz all day long, but not with the replacement board. Would significantly faster DDR3 make my games run much faster? I have read that it makes a huge difference and that it makes no difference at all.
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Re: 3770K, when to upgrade?

Mon Apr 17, 2017 11:31 pm

My OC'ed 3770K paired with a GTX 1080 does not keep up with 7700K builds using the same GPU when it comes to comparing benchmark results. It may be due to a crappy build on my part but I think a large part of the discrepancy is due to the overall improvements made over the pass 5 years in both CPU and motherboards. In addition to that I think improvements to storage and connectivity are another thing to consider.

I have plans for a new Intel build sometime before the end of the new year. I'm waiting to see what Skylake-X and Canonlake bring.
 
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Re: 3770K, when to upgrade?

Mon Apr 17, 2017 11:56 pm

Best answer?

Whenever it breaks.
 
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Re: 3770K, when to upgrade?

Tue Apr 18, 2017 1:43 am

I wouldn't bother with RAM overclocks, imho back then the mantra was that it doesn't matter, which is why I opted for low voltage 1.6GHz RAM instead of some fancy OC'd xmp profile.

If your display can only push 60Hz, like mine, you should have no use for a newer processor unless you do a lot of encoding work.
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Re: 3770K, when to upgrade?

Tue Apr 18, 2017 4:17 am

Leave it be and upgrade when you encounter the first game or program that does not give you satisfactory results and you know from benchmarks and tests on the interwebs that a CPU upgrade will improve the situation.
 
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Re: 3770K, when to upgrade?

Tue Apr 18, 2017 4:22 am

I'm running a 3570K with a GTX 1070 on a 2560x1440 monitor and I have not noticed any issues with the CPU holding my system back. At this point I plan on running it until it dies.
 
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Re: 3770K, when to upgrade?

Fri May 05, 2017 1:00 pm

I have a 3770K in a hackintosh that I'm giving to my daughter. I'm replacing it with a Ryzen 1600. For single threads, I figure it will be about the same, maybe a bit slower, but the extra cores should help with transcoding, which I do a lot of.
 
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Re: 3770K, when to upgrade?

Fri May 05, 2017 1:16 pm

toastie wrote:
I have a 3770K in a hackintosh that I'm giving to my daughter. I'm replacing it with a Ryzen 1600. For single threads, I figure it will be about the same, maybe a bit slower, but the extra cores should help with transcoding, which I do a lot of.


I'd estimate your per-clock will see a nudge upward - between the newer design and abundance of cache it won't be dramatic, but enough for the 1600 (3.2 / 3.6 Turbo) to maintain rough parity with the 3770K (3.5 / 3.9 Turbo). As you say, transcoding will be a different story; I'd be shocked if you don't realize gains of 50+% with a good encoder.
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Re: 3770K, when to upgrade?

Fri May 05, 2017 1:34 pm

Concupiscence wrote:
toastie wrote:
I have a 3770K in a hackintosh that I'm giving to my daughter. I'm replacing it with a Ryzen 1600. For single threads, I figure it will be about the same, maybe a bit slower, but the extra cores should help with transcoding, which I do a lot of.


I'd estimate your per-clock will see a nudge upward - between the newer design and abundance of cache it won't be dramatic, but enough for the 1600 (3.2 / 3.6 Turbo) to maintain rough parity with the 3770K (3.5 / 3.9 Turbo). As you say, transcoding will be a different story; I'd be shocked if you don't realize gains of 50+% with a good encoder.


Ah, thanks for the info. While I never tried it with the 3770K - I know, why get an unlocked processor if you never overclock - I'm willing to try a bit of overclocking with the 1600.
 
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Re: 3770K, when to upgrade?

Fri May 05, 2017 1:39 pm

toastie wrote:
Concupiscence wrote:
toastie wrote:
I have a 3770K in a hackintosh that I'm giving to my daughter. I'm replacing it with a Ryzen 1600. For single threads, I figure it will be about the same, maybe a bit slower, but the extra cores should help with transcoding, which I do a lot of.


I'd estimate your per-clock will see a nudge upward - between the newer design and abundance of cache it won't be dramatic, but enough for the 1600 (3.2 / 3.6 Turbo) to maintain rough parity with the 3770K (3.5 / 3.9 Turbo). As you say, transcoding will be a different story; I'd be shocked if you don't realize gains of 50+% with a good encoder.


Ah, thanks for the info. While I never tried it with the 3770K - I know, why get an unlocked processor if you never overclock - I'm willing to try a bit of overclocking with the 1600.


You're welcome! Ironically the 3770K will almost certainly be the better overclocker of the two, but you never know.
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Re: 3770K, when to upgrade?

Fri May 05, 2017 1:42 pm

toastie wrote:
why get an unlocked processor if you never overclock


Sometimes the K models have the highest frequency, so one could purchase them simply for that without OCing.

toastie wrote:
I'm willing to try a bit of overclocking with the 1600.


Mine's at 3.7 stable with 1.35V core and 1.1V NB.
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Re: 3770K, when to upgrade?

Fri May 05, 2017 1:59 pm

homerdog wrote:
My current monitor is 1600x900 :oops:
That seems like the more important upgrade priority than the 3770K.
 
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Re: 3770K, when to upgrade?

Fri May 05, 2017 3:40 pm

Concupiscence wrote:
Ironically the 3770K will almost certainly be the better overclocker of the two, but you never know.
That's exactly what I was thinking. It's never too late!
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Re: 3770K, when to upgrade?

Fri May 05, 2017 3:57 pm

flip-mode wrote:
homerdog wrote:
My current monitor is 1600x900 :oops:
That seems like the more important upgrade priority than the 3770K.


Seconded. A better monitor will always be a benefit.

If the 3770K is still performing, stick with it. The thing about CPUs is, each generation may not produce a huge upgrade, but they always get at least a little faster. The longer you wait the more bang you'll get when you do upgrade.

In the meantime, a better monitor will make your life immediately and obviously better.
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Re: 3770K, when to upgrade?

Fri May 05, 2017 6:05 pm

For cpu, I wouldn't upgrade until cannonlake comes out. I'm in this situation with my 4930k and have decided I'm going to buy a new monitor. I almost binged and purchased http://www.microcenter.com/product/4727 ... ng_Monitor. While my Ivy-e @ 4.4 might cause some frame issues, I can't justify upgrading to a new platform when all I need is 6-8 cores.
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Airmantharp
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Re: 3770K, when to upgrade?

Sat May 06, 2017 12:23 am

thecoldanddarkone wrote:
For cpu, I wouldn't upgrade until cannonlake comes out. I'm in this situation with my 4930k and have decided I'm going to buy a new monitor. I almost binged and purchased http://www.microcenter.com/product/4727 ... ng_Monitor. While my Ivy-e @ 4.4 might cause some frame issues, I can't justify upgrading to a new platform when all I need is 6-8 cores.


I'd have said don't bother, but now I agree as we need to see if these hex-core 115x CPUs see the light of day, and if they come with competitive clockspeeds and pricing relative to the 7700k.
 
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Re: 3770K, when to upgrade?

Sat May 06, 2017 3:09 am

homerdog wrote:
I have a tiny little Noctua cooler that is great for the size, but not something I can really OC on. I bought it for another project that never materialized.


Not all overclocking creates lots of heat.
Ideally-pick the bottom of the bathtub curve-the most you can OC with none or minimal extra voltage-best guess around 4.4G.
A small voltage increase on your ram should allow extra speed-but gains are small 1 to 2%.
Overclocking your memory on your 970 would give you more-possibly up to 5%................
good luck

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