Is it time to upgrade my CPU?

[carl_arts@yahoo]

I have an old Sandy Bridge i52500 (No K), OC to 4.2GHz. I run a Sapphire R290X TriX and have 16GB of RAM @1600MHz.

 

I play games like The Witcher, Battlefield, Crysis, Far Cry, GTA etc. I like the settings cranked up and playing with a smooth frame rate, (60fps min). 

 

Now is it time to upgrade my CPU or could I go for another R290X before I get my CPU bottlenecking? The CPU is running at around 68% (not all cores) and the GPU is at 100%

 

Any feedback would be appreciated.

 

[Enderman]

If its non k how did you overclock it?

[Hashiyan]

Personally, the CPU still kicks ass, but try to sell it off on Ebay or something buy a used i5 version and OC for more performance. I mean this gen. DC isnt that much better then SB was. Your still going to rock the FPS well!

[TheSLSAMG]

If its non k how did you overclock it?

BCLK/FSB?

[flibberdipper]

If its non k how did you overclock it?

BLCK, more than likely.

 

If you're not pinning the CPU at 100% in most of your games, I wouldn't worry about it.

[marioo1182]

No that CPU is a beast still, should be able to run games fine still without bottlenecking.

[zsanfusa]

HECK NO... WAIT FOR BROADWELL next year.  14nm die shink will be made with the next gen of Intel processors (smaller die = more transitors).

[gasho]

I would not upgrade. The 2500K rocks!

What resolution are you playing on? because I don't see a reason to spend money on a second 290X if you are playing on 1080p.

Or you have some other plans with your machine? heavy OpenCL? mining? something in that direction?

 

PS. Nice configuration you got there.

[rupertsilva10]

If your CPU can still work efficiently, I think  there's no need for you to upgrade. Since you have been using it for heavy gaming (and still works withou any issues), it's definitely a proof that you have a great CPU. Great job at maintaining it, by the way.

[carl_arts@yahoo]

Thanks for all the great feed back, this forum rocks. I OC using BLCK and when gaming I never see the the CPU usage go pass 70%. Im trying to future proof for upcoming games (GTA5, Witcher 3, Far Cry 4). I only play @ 1080P for now, but hope to move to 4K in a years time. Future proofing gets expensive, so finding the right time is key... I was considering mining if I had another card, but not 100% sold on the all the benefits yet, maybe if I had a dedicated mining rig...

[Sky Daddy]

Wait for the next new line of cpus, save money for now.

[doubley_m]

Thanks for all the great feed back, this forum rocks. I OC using BLCK and when gaming I never see the the CPU usage go pass 70%. Im trying to future proof for upcoming games (GTA5, Witcher 3, Far Cry 4). I only play @ 1080P for now, but hope to move to 4K in a years time. Future proofing gets expensive, so finding the right time is key... I was considering mining if I had another card, but not 100% sold on the all the benefits yet, maybe if I had a dedicated mining rig...

 

Woah, what sort of BCLK are you using to bump it up to 4.2?

 

And as others have suggested don't worry about your CPU, you'll be bottlenecking your GPU before that a 290X is still very good but adding a second may help you with any forthcoming 4K funtimes I'd have thought...

[carl_arts@yahoo]

103 & 41 to get my OC to 4.2, it's behaved for over 2.5 years. I wonder if you'll need antialiasing on when playing in 4K mode? Im guessing not on a 27"

 

Working hard now so I can play hard later

[doubley_m]

103 & 41 to get my OC to 4.2, it's behaved for over 2.5 years. I wonder if you'll need antialiasing on when playing in 4K mode? Im guessing not on a 27"

 

Working hard now so I can play hard later

 

From what I've read/heard AA isn't necessary at such a high resolution, so that helps reduce the load on your GPU.

[-iSynthesis]

Id maybe try and get a cheap 26/700k off of ebay or something, but you'll be fine for most games.

[i_build_nanosuits]

Thanks for all the great feed back, this forum rocks. I OC using BLCK and when gaming I never see the the CPU usage go pass 70%. Im trying to future proof for upcoming games (GTA5, Witcher 3, Far Cry 4). I only play @ 1080P for now, but hope to move to 4K in a years time. Future proofing gets expensive, so finding the right time is key... I was considering mining if I had another card, but not 100% sold on the all the benefits yet, maybe if I had a dedicated mining rig...

r9 290X crossfire is not enough for 60fps at 4K in most modern games at full details ...let alone the future games you've mentionned being looking forward to...you should stick to 1080p for a couple more generations of gpu's..Paul made a great video on that you should watch...pretty humbling 

 

as you can see even 2 titan blacks in sli wont really cut it at 4K in current games...

[Kamina]

I would wait for Broadwell to see a much larger difference or Skylake.

[carl_arts@yahoo]

Thanks for the VID, it sounds like I'll be staying away from 4K for quite some time, 1080P still looks great, especially with nice eye candy and high frame rates. I think I'll still look into a second R290X when I see a price drop, then do a CPU/MOBO upgrade much later, (maybe Skylake). And who knows, maybe I'll find a cheap i7 2700K to get me there... (not sure how much of a performance jump I'd get though... but if its cheap) 

[i_build_nanosuits]

Thanks for the VID, it sounds like I'll be staying away from 4K for quite some time, 1080P still looks great, especially with nice eye candy and high frame rates. I think I'll still look into a second R290X when I see a price drop, then do a CPU/MOBO upgrade much later, (maybe Skylake). And who knows, maybe I'll find a cheap i7 2700K to get me there... (not sure how much of a performance jump I'd get though... but if its cheap) 

well, the i7 2700k if you could find at good price would defenetly feed crossfire r9 290x mostly considering you could overclock it a lot cause those 2700k where basicaly the higher binned 2600k so you are pretty much certain to get a good overclocking chip that could do 4.5ghz easily and probably even more...and also hyperthreading that comes in handy in some of the most modern cpu intensive games out there...it all depends on the price to pay to get one wheter it's worth it or not but performance wise it's defenetly a better cpu than the non ''k'' i5 that you have even tho that one is no sloutch either..