Should I upgrade from my old i7 to a new i5?

Skwall · Feb 9, 2015

Hello everyone, thanks for taking a moment to read my post. I'll do my best to keep it short.

Right now I'm running a i7 950 @ 3.8ghz with an H100i cooling it on an EVGA x58 mobo with a 780ti for a GPU.

I feel that my old i7 and x58 chipset is holding me back from really getting the most out of my 780ti so I need your help to decide if I should upgrade.

I'm considering upgrading to the ASRock z97 Extreme 6 with a i5 4690k and I will be sticking with the DDR3 1600 RAM; Which brings me to my second question.

My current system is using patriot viper 2 sector 7 edition ram - 3x 2GB DD3 1600. It has the same latency and timing as the new memory but not the same voltage.

Can I use 2 of my existing RAM sticks with the 2 new RAM sticks?

Old RAM - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220503
New RAM - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231428

Thanks in advance for the help.

ninjacore · Feb 9, 2015

Unless you're running applications which benefit greatly from 8 vs. 4 threads, you will definitely be better off with the Haswell i5.

Should be good to mix that ram. Ddr3 is ddr3

It'll probably all run at the 1.65v spec of the older tho

Skwall · Feb 9, 2015

I mostly game on this computer with a little web surfing. I figured the i5 would be the best bang for the buck on gaming + with the h100i I should be able to get a nice OC.

ninjacore · Feb 9, 2015

You are correct

trents · Feb 9, 2015

I doubt if your current chipset is really having much negative impact on your video card performance.

Skwall · Feb 10, 2015

I guess its more about the cpu being the bottle neck and just how much more performance i would get by moving to the newer chip/technology. I just don't want to throw ~$500 down on a new cpu/mobo/memory and not get a great return in performance.

Theocnoob · Feb 10, 2015

Skwall said:
I guess its more about the cpu being the bottle neck and just how much more performance i would get by moving to the newer chip/technology. I just don't want to throw ~$500 down on a new cpu/mobo/memory and not get a great return in performance.

You're not going to get a great return. You'll get a moderate return. You're not going to see massive framerate increases. The first gen i7 is still viable. Even though it's 7 year old tech. You might want to try squeezing 4.2Ghz out of your chip, which many 950s are capable of with enough coaxing. Of course, a modern i5/i7 is going to have a significantly higher IPC, but is that going to make a tremendous difference to a gamer? Not really. I'm not saying you won't notice an improvement. I'm sure you will. I'm just saying that you shouldn't expect to have your mind blown. If you were coming from a Pentium D or a Core 2 duo to a 4690K, it would definitely blow your mind... but you already have a respectable CPU. Don't expect wonders.

Look at the 4 1/2th gen i5/i7 as more of a platform upgrade than an all out performance upgrade. You get a bump in performance, and you also get:

Vastly superior memory controller and easier memory tweaking
PCIE 3.0
SATA Express
SATA 3 on chipset (and much more of it)
M.2
Significantly improved onboard audio solutions
Graphical UEFI bios
The ability to get great overclocks on cheaper boards due to on-chip VRM
Overclocking so easy my grandmother could do it
and etc.

I think it's worth it just for that. The overclocking especially is such a joy to work with. 4.4Ghz you say? Increase multi, increase voltage. Done. Fantastic.

Skwall · Feb 10, 2015

Thanks everyone for the response. I do realize that the CPU will only improve performance in some situations but that's what I'm looking for. Not to mention what Theocnoob said about the platform updates. My current mobo has Sata3 but only through the Marvell chipset which didn't give me Sata3 performance and was also missing some key features like TRIM. Not to mention the audio, uefi bios, and m.2 ports that I'll have the option of later down the road.

As far as getting 4.2 from my current chip; I don't think I can. The H100i came with SP120 fans that I was never able to control via the Corsair link software due to them not being PWM fans. I ended up swapping to a much quieter/lower rpm noctua NF F-12's, so I lost some performance. At my current OC of 3.8GHZ my temps level off around 90C after 4 hours of Prime95. I went up to 4Ghz but found that the chip hit the 90's after about 20 minutes of Prime95 and I stopped it once I got to 93C because I wasn't comfortable. I did try lowering the voltages but was only met with BSOD's while booting and again when starting Prime95.

Does the fact that my i7 950 is a 130watt chip mean that its going to be automatically hotter than the 85watt i5 I'm going to?

ninjacore · Feb 10, 2015

Skwall said:
Does the fact that my i7 950 is a 130watt chip mean that its going to be automatically hotter than the 85watt i5 I'm going to?

Absolutely. What voltage does your 950 require for its current speed?

For comparison, you shouldn't need more than 1.3V to hit 4.5Ghz with the 4690K and your temps with an H100i should be in the neighborhood of 60-70 during load.

gregers05 · Feb 10, 2015

You should be able to get to 4.2 on the 950. I run my 920 at 4.0 pretty easily.

Theocnoob · Feb 10, 2015

gregers05 said:
You should be able to get to 4.2 on the 950. I run my 920 at 4.0 pretty easily.

He's voltage/cooling limited.

gregers05 · Feb 10, 2015

more fans and a bigger cooler!!!

Theocnoob · Feb 10, 2015

gregers05 said:
more fans and a bigger cooler!!!

He also voiced some noise related concerns.

Also regarding your RAM question, while you won't break anything by trying to run two different sets of RAM, and it'll probably work ok, it is ill advised for a number of reasons, to mix RAM. You really ought to use identical sticks.

Do you want help picking a motherboard for your i5?

trents · Feb 10, 2015

ninjacore said:
Absolutely. What voltage does your 950 require for its current speed?

For comparison, you shouldn't need more than 1.3V to hit 4.5Ghz with the 4690K and your temps with an H100i should be in the neighborhood of 60-70 during load.

Depends on whether you are talking about overall amount of heat produced (watts) or core temperatures. They are not the same. The newer 22nm fab CPUs produce significantly less heat but the core temps tend to be higher on the same core voltage when overclocking because of the greater density of the "power brick". More transistors are packed into a smaller space. That's the main reason they don't overclock as well as they did a couple of CPU generations ago (i.e., Sandbridge chips).

Theocnoob · Feb 10, 2015

trents said:
Depends on whether you are talking about overall amount of heat produced (watts) or core temperatures. They are not the same. The newer 22nm fab CPUs produce significantly less heat but the core temps tend to be higher on the same core voltage when overclocking because of the greater density of the "power brick". More transistors are packed into a smaller space. That's the main reason they don't overclock as well as they did a couple of CPU generations ago (i.e., Sandbridge chips).

I thought it was 50% density and 50% Intel being mean to us and not soldering the IHS on.

Skwall · Feb 10, 2015

ninjacore said:
Absolutely. What voltage does your 950 require for its current speed?

For comparison, you shouldn't need more than 1.3V to hit 4.5Ghz with the 4690K and your temps with an H100i should be in the neighborhood of 60-70 during load.

Currently:
Multiplier - 19x
FSB - 200
VCore - 1.35
VTT - +75mV

I've messed around with the Multiplier and FSB at 20x200 and a few variations of fsb/multiplier at 4.0, 4.1 and 4.2ghz at the current voltage and all the results are BSOD's or hard locks during the boot.

Skwall · Feb 10, 2015

Theocnoob said:
He also voiced some noise related concerns.

Also regarding your RAM question, while you won't break anything by trying to run two different sets of RAM, and it'll probably work ok, it is ill advised for a number of reasons, to mix RAM. You really ought to use identical sticks.

Do you want help picking a motherboard for your i5?

I've done some searching and reading on here and I've settled on this MoBo.

Edit: But just because I've decided on one board doesn't mean I'm not up for some opinions on boards in the $150/$175 range. I'm not in a rush to get this thing built but I'd like to not make a stupid oversight like I have in the past. I.E. not realizing the SATA3 ports are worthless on my EVGA 131-GT-E767-TR which was a $210 board when I bought it.

Skwall · Feb 10, 2015

gregers05 said:
more fans and a bigger cooler!!!

HAH, yeah, the H100i came with a pair of SP120's but they sounded like they wanted to fly around the room just when my CPU got above 60C and Corsair Link wasn't able to control them.

trents · Feb 10, 2015

That's an issue as well. However, most of the Haswells seem to top out before getting into the actual temp danger zone.

Theocnoob · Feb 10, 2015

Skwall said:
I've done some searching and reading on here and I've settled on this MoBo.

That is the most recommended motherboard on this forum.

Should I upgrade from my old i7 to a new i5?

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