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Thread: Am I really missing anything by not upgrading from my i7 920 (4.1Ghz)?

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    Am I really missing anything by not upgrading from my i7 920 (4.1Ghz)?

    I have not upgraded in a LONG time.
    Never had a CPU last me this long but I just do not see any real life benefits upgrading from my OCed 920 unless I am missing something.
    I do a little bit of everything. Photoshop, Video editing and getting back into gaming with a 660ti (sli soon).
    Just wondering what you guys think.
    Regards

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    Re: Am I really missing anything by not upgrading from my i7 920 (4.1Ghz)?

    Apart from reduced power consumption and maybe a few features,not much in regards to performance IMHO.

    I would probably look at getting a compatible SSD if you don't have one.

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    Re: Am I really missing anything by not upgrading from my i7 920 (4.1Ghz)?

    Well I'd give Haswell some serious thought when it finally appears.

    SLI 660 Ti is really a very powerful graphics system, I would expect it's full potential to be held back by the CPU in certain situations and increasingly so with more modern games.

    What resolution will you be running at?

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    Re: Am I really missing anything by not upgrading from my i7 920 (4.1Ghz)?

    I don't think a 920 at 4.1ghz is going to be holding back 660ti in SLI any time soon, certainly not in a noticeable way.

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    Re: Am I really missing anything by not upgrading from my i7 920 (4.1Ghz)?

    The thing is though,it is FPS games which tend to need more powerful graphics cards setups,and all the FPS games which push cards now,use engines which thread very well. Examples include Cry ENGINE 3 and Frostbite 2,and Unreal Engine 4 is going to also do the same. The Core i7 920 has HT and is also running at a 50% overclock too. SB and IB had IPC improvements but they are clocked higher and have much more aggressive Turbo,and most of the performance improvements are down to the latter two.

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    Re: Am I really missing anything by not upgrading from my i7 920 (4.1Ghz)?

    Not at all. 920 will last you a while yet for most tasks performance wise. You'd only be getting a refreshed i7 anyway. Maybe the next gen will have something for you, but right now keep your money in your pocket mate.

    Depending on your full specs, an SSD or more RAM might be worth looking into, particularly if you're editing large files regularly but, in terms of a noticeable, real world performance boost, Sli as you already have planned is about the only thing that will do it.

    Is there something in particular you want more performance with or is it just an upgrade itch?

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    Re: Am I really missing anything by not upgrading from my i7 920 (4.1Ghz)?

    Actually,there might one area the newer Core i7 will have an advantage and that is with AVX support. However,I am not certain how widely supported it is ATM,and OpenCL acceleration is probably going to become more common in the next year or so. HandBrake is getting in the near future and Adobe is also going to add support to Premiere Pro too,and this means your graphics card can assist your CPU.

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    Re: Am I really missing anything by not upgrading from my i7 920 (4.1Ghz)?

    i7 920 was a cracking chip. Never had to overclock mine as it's never caused me any issues at stock!
    Quote Originally Posted by Saracen View Post
    And by trying to force me to like small pants, they've alienated me.

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    Re: Am I really missing anything by not upgrading from my i7 920 (4.1Ghz)?

    Yeah OK hadn't realised quite how hefty that overclock was

    http://www.techspot.com/review/608-h...rks/page6.html

    Even at 2.66ghz it's still pretty competitive.

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    Re: Am I really missing anything by not upgrading from my i7 920 (4.1Ghz)?

    First of all thanks a lot for all the replies.
    A helpful forum...so refreshing to see this! I need to hang around here more.

    So just as I thought, the 920 is still able to last me longer..gosh that was one good investment then.

    I will be running SLI 660 TI at 1080p but this is 3D vision so that I think will still put the bottleneck back to the GPU and not the CPU since it is hard on resources.

    As for my need to upgrade....well you know how it is..you upgrade one part then start getting the bug LOL
    Specially for me, I used to upgrade a lot when on AMD until I got the i7 then didnt do much.
    I do have only 6GB RAM so that could be upgraded but I was afraid of losing my overclocking.

    My SSD could also be improved as it is only 64GB and old.

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    *Video Cards:XFX GTS250 Physx card & Gigabyte 660 TI
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    *Others: Logitech MX518 | Ratzpad GS | Logitech G15 | Evga Xeno Killer Pro Nic

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    Re: Am I really missing anything by not upgrading from my i7 920 (4.1Ghz)?

    Quote Originally Posted by shaolin95 View Post
    First of all thanks a lot for all the replies.
    A helpful forum...so refreshing to see this! I need to hang around here more.

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    Re: Am I really missing anything by not upgrading from my i7 920 (4.1Ghz)?

    3x4GB 1600mhz kits can be had for £60 nowadays which would double your RAM, 6GB is already enough for gaming however. Might be some use for image/video editing, but that all depends on what you're editing. Keep an eye on task manager and judge for yourself if you require it. As it's a straight swap it should have no effect on your overclock, using all 6 slots, (adding another set of matching sticks instead) might affect your overclock, might not, varies board to board.

    Replacing your SSD, while it would probably double synthetic benchmarks(assuming latest gen @ 128/256GB), real world performance however would be almost identical, so unless it's the only drive you're using and getting full, probably not worth it.

    With the 2nd 660 installed it will already be a pretty high end gaming machine, so you're at the point of diminishing returns investment wise.

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    Re: Am I really missing anything by not upgrading from my i7 920 (4.1Ghz)?

    Thanks peterb !

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    Re: Am I really missing anything by not upgrading from my i7 920 (4.1Ghz)?

    Quote Originally Posted by chuckskull View Post
    3x4GB 1600mhz kits can be had for £60 nowadays which would double your RAM, 6GB is already enough for gaming however. Might be some use for image/video editing, but that all depends on what you're editing. Keep an eye on task manager and judge for yourself if you require it. As it's a straight swap it should have no effect on your overclock, using all 6 slots, (adding another set of matching sticks instead) might affect your overclock, might not, varies board to board.

    Replacing your SSD, while it would probably double synthetic benchmarks(assuming latest gen @ 128/256GB), real world performance however would be almost identical, so unless it's the only drive you're using and getting full, probably not worth it.

    With the 2nd 660 installed it will already be a pretty high end gaming machine, so you're at the point of diminishing returns investment wise.
    Yes I am down to 10GB on the drive now unfotunately. I will try looking for what has been installing or adding data to it.
    I will look for RAM as well, I can use it for SONAR and vst instruments too so good point.

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    Re: Am I really missing anything by not upgrading from my i7 920 (4.1Ghz)?

    DDR3 is pretty cheap, so chuck in all you'll use. Quick caveat on RAM, each windows 7 version has it's own limit; Home premium will only accept 16GB. Pro or better is needed to top that, but shouldn't be an issue for you.

    Assuming you don't have some kind of NAS etc then 2-3TB mechanical drives come in under £100 nowadays so, might be worth considering for storage.

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    Re: Am I really missing anything by not upgrading from my i7 920 (4.1Ghz)?

    Though if you're running Windows 7 home premium you could just take advantage of the cheap upgrade to Windows 8 Pro (and immediately install Classic Start Menu or similar)

    Edit: you don't even need W8 pro for a higher RAM limit - normal W8 will go to 128GB:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows...mparison_chart
    Last edited by malfunction; 17-01-2013 at 10:22 PM.

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