Hi all

I have a Gigabyte MB - Intel Socket 1150
I was looking to update my systems CPU, but can't find new stuff so was looking on ebay.

Now I know that there is a definite difference between i3 i5 and i7, but like graphics cards perhaps there is hidden info in the numbers.

So anyway just wondering if any of you techy guys can give some insight into these chips as compared to my current one, as regards performance\cost etc.


Current CPU:
Core i3-4160 3.6GHz 3MB LGA1150 Haswell


Avail here in Australia on ebay:

INTEL QUAD CORE I5-4570 3.20 GHZ 6MB CACHE CPU PROCESSOR SOCKET LGA1150 - AU $140.00

Intel Core i7-4790 Processor 8M Cache, 3.60GHz/4.0GHz Haswell LGA-1150 - AU $270.00

Intel Quad Core i7-4790S SR1QM 3.2GHz 8MB Socket LGA1150 Processor - AU $230.00

Not sure if my MB supports Quad though, can't see quad mentioned in the chart for it

Thanks for any input

Reliquia....

As far as i know all desktop i5's are i7's are quad core or more, only mobile i5 and i7's are less than quad core. I think they're just using different phraseology.

I'm not sure what it's like in AUS, but over here in the UK you're better off buying a bundled mother board and processor, cos they usually work out only a small amount more than just the chip, but you get the value of it being a new board so extended lifetime of your machine, plus a heat sync that matches the processor, as well as some extra memory.

Hopefully this will help

i3 - 2 cores (not designed for gaming, avoid these)
i5 - 4 cores (this is mid range and can be used for gaming, it lacks hyper threading normally)
i7 - 4 cores (this is high range and usually the choice for gamers, it also have hyper threading)
i9 - Can have anything from 6 to 18 cores, these are very high end and pricey

The next numbers after the i3,i5,i7 will be a 3 or 4 digit number such as i7-7700

Knowing exactly what this means isn't important, Just know the first number "7" is the generation, the higher the number the newer the CPU, at time of this post we are on 9th gen. The rest of the number is the SKU in that generation, normally again higher is better and faster.

Now after that number you sometimes get a letter, this is the product line suffix, here are what they mean.

K - Unlocked which means it can be overclocked
G - Includes discrete graphics, this is mobile CPU only
U - Ultra low power, this is mobile CPU only
H - Includes high performance graphics
Q - Indicates a quad core card where normally it wouldn't be
T - Power optimised
M - Mobile version of a desktop CPU

Now it is really important to remember that even if a CPU fits a LGA1150 socket it may not support your motherboards chipset. So there are two things to check when buying a CPU to go in your current motherboard. You need to check the CPU specs to see if your motherboard chipset is on the supported list, and also you should check if a BIOS update is required as well. For example 7th Gen processors fit in the exact same socket as the 8th and 9th gen but they do not work on all the same chipsets. If the chipset is listed your CPU will work.

When choosing a CPU use this website https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php, to compare the speed of models (order by passmark). Sometimes you will find that going to the next generation of your same processor will be faster than getting an i7 in the older gen.

If you need more help let me know

@Belidos - yeah was thinking of doing that but will have to save some more for that.

@The Next - thanks for the detailed info there, I will attempt an assimilation of all that

Reliquia....

If it helps any I have an i5-6500 @3.20GHz combined with an AMD Nano GFX card (it's a mini system btw not full desktop) and have never had any issues with performance, even plays the latest Tomb Raider game @ 2560 x 1440 at around 35 FPS on high-ish settings.

If you are mainly concerned about GG performance then number of cores isn't really going to make any difference so go for the highest frequency and most recent generation you can.

Just noticed you said 1150 socket - I don't think they've made CPU's for that socket for quite some time so you are probably limited to the earlier generations chips.

My other machine (the one my son uses for his 'professional' gaming needs ) is a Thread Ripper combined with a GTX card, that thing absolutely flies! Saving some pennies together to put a RTX 2080ti in it in the new year.

if you still have the gtx 750 i would recommend upgrading that rather than the CPU, you'll get more of a performance upgrade
AMD RX590 or Nvidia 1060 look to be in your price range

GTX 1060s are going real cheap at the moment, in fact I've seen some really good prices on the 1070s as well!

Although they are going to be real thin on the ground pretty soon.

@AmenMoses - Thanks for the info, can I borrow your computer

@smallg - thanks for the input and the link

Yes I would definitely love a better Graphics card. In fact a nice new blistering fast system would be awesome.

I am working on skyboxes - among other things - for Toonland, and they take a very long time to render. This one side of the cube took almost 10 hours to render on my system And would still like to get more clarity into it - hence longer render times.



So the reason for wanting a faster CPU is that my rendering software is CPU intensive, the graphic card matters little, other than visual indication of progress of the output. It can just render everything to disc. So with this software the criteria for performance is CPU and RAM.

Perhaps I need to have a garage sale, while the wife's out

Thanks again for the help and links everyone - much appreciated.

Reliquia....

Ahh, rendering. i7 + 32G DDR4 Ram + NMVE SSD.

Yeah = new system....



Reliquia....

I was going to buy an upgrade two weeks ago but due to the news about zen2 i figured that i better wait a little longer.
If the rumours are to be believed, these cpu's are quite an improvement over the current next-gen, especially the single core performance.

I'm curious Reliuia, the 8gb ram, is that a single module or 2x4gb?

@Earthling45 - 2x4gig Corsair Vengeance - could do with more.

Built this machine a while back now, so surely ready for an new machine. Was thinking just updating the CPU for now to help with renders.

If only money were not an object - lol.

Reliquia...

For gaming it is still good enough i think, the reason for my question is that running single channel memory or only one stick affects performance.

I was planning to buy an RTX 2000 series graka for my new system but due to the large problems with this line, i'll pas and go for a 1070 which is also quite a decent upgrade for my current 960.
I just read that in one occasion a RTX2080 did catch fire, not good.

Hi all
So got an i7 chip.
Looking for ram that will suit my system - bit hard to come by here - but will find something eventually.

Looking also at graphix card update. These cards any good?
- GeForce RTX™ 2070
- Asus Nvidia 8GB GTX 1070 Dual

Reliquia....

@reliquia

The RTX 2070 is a very good card and will likely be my upgrade within the next few months, it is a bit on the expensive side for the amount of performance you get but all the nVidia cards this year are. There are a few reports of issues with RTX cards, but there are always some cases of issues with new lines and I wouldn't worry too much, they are all under warranty and are better performance wise.

As for the GTX 1070 that is also a solid choice and gives much better value for the amount spent and will happily run any games at decent framerates for a few years to come.

If you want true future proofing go with the RTX it is a better card, but if you want a good experience at a more reasonable price point go with the GTX 1070

@The Next
Thanks for the feedback.

I am contemplating getting the RTX.
In a few months time I will be able to get a new MB\i7\DDR4 etc so I guess it will go nicely with the new stuff.

Reliquia....

@The Next and all you other techy guys

GTX 1660 Ti, - Is this card any good, or would the RTX 2070, or GTX 1070, be a better choice?

Reliquia....

It depends on your budget the 1660 is a direct replacement of the 1060 it uses the same chipset as rtx cards not pascal as with the other gtx cards. Performance wise it is on par with a GTX 1070 with a lower price tag. It is basically an RTX with the extra realtime shader chips removed. The RTX is the more powerful card with real time rendering ( As long as the software supports it) I don't know what software you are using but 90% will use you rendering via cuda I don't think any applications make use of RTX yet a couple of games maybe.
If you had the cash I would advise on 2 x 1070 or 2 x 1080 in sli this would give your rendering application a massive boost. Please note the 1660 does not support SLI but is still a worthy choice I think you can pick up for AU$400 £250

To put it simply all the RTX cards are all more powerful than the GTX 1660 Ti, but they all cost more as well, the GTX 1660 Ti is essentially a revised GTX 1060 and is a good card, I would recommend it to anyone looking for the best value high end card right now.

The RTX 2060 is the closest match, at around £100 more expensive on average. It is slightly faster than the GTX 1660 Ti at non-RTX games. However the price increase vs the performance gain in non-RTX work loads isn't quite worth it (close but not quite). That said if you care about having DLSS and ray tracing features it may be worth the extra cost, I got an RTX card because I care about having a card with RTX features and with Unity and unreal both expected to support the features soon the number of games supporting those features is set to grow making it more worth it.

If you can spend a little extra I would choose a RTX 2060 over a GTX 1660 Ti as you get a little faster card and the new features as well. Unless you have a lot to spend I would avoid the RTX 2070, 2080 & 2080 Ti those are all not worth the price to performance at the moment. Although the RTX 2070 is reasonable if you want a bit of extra power and have the cash to spare.

Also I have too disagree with GraPhiX on one point he suggests getting cards in SLI, which I would never do. SLI is plagued with issues in many games and for the price is 100% not worth it, you will get better performance buying one more expensive card than 2 lower cards at half the price. You can see even nVidia doesn't believe in SLI as with each generation they remove it from more cards in the line up. It is a flawed technology. I know a number of people that have constant issues with SLI cards, don't waste your money and buy just one card.

Also be careful when buying nVidia cards lots of manufacturers are creating cut down versions with less memory. For example there is a 3GB version of the GTX 1660 Ti expected to come which will be garbage and should be avoided. Do not buy a new card with less than 6GB of memory. You will struggle with almost all games without 6GB.

I have got a RTX 2060 and I am extremely happy with the price to performance I am getting.

Hope that helps a bit.

Thanks for the feedback guys - much appreciated.

I was actually thinking of getting the 2060. But I got an email about the 1660 from NVidia and thought I would run it past you guys.

I don't play a lot of games, I have a couple Sci-Fi ones I play now and then and they perform fine on my system as it is. Been playing with rendering software as well but since I upped the CPU a bit that seams to be ok for my needs, I only render in low res then when happy with the look and feel send it of to the farm for the final renders.

The main reason for getting another card is for dev work in GameGuru. So sounds like the 2060 would be better value for money\performance.

Reliquia....

My point of view on GTX 1660 Ti vs RTX 2060 is the 2060 has newer technologies for not much more and as such will likely be relevant for longer meaning I don't have to replace too soon, hence it was my choice.

Sorry to labor the point here guys - I really appreciate your input here

As a retired old fossil, money is not something falling into the coffers.

I usually get all my hardware from MSY. Seams 1070's are no longer available, but the 1060 is near on $300.00 and the 2060 is near on $600. Given that my concern is mainly about Game Guru, is that cost\performance worth the price\double increase.

I mean I could afford the 1060 now, but also don't mind saving for a bit longer for a better card.

Also would the 1060 (or even the 2060) be a real noticable difference to my current GTX 750?

Reliquia....

The RTX 2060 cards should be around $350 not $600 looks like you may be looking at a overclocked one which isn’t worth the extra price. Also don’t worry too much about matching the manufacturer for GPUs unless you really care.

Look for a standard card at that sort of price range.

I went from a 780Ti and saw more than double the frame rate so performance should be more than noticeable.

If you can find a RTX 2060 for $350 it is worth the extra over the 1060 if not go for a 1660 Ti

Hes in australia, for some reason computer components are priced extremely high over there, my cousin in perth has the sane problem, i can buy stuff for half the price he pays there most of the time.

Yeah you be right Belidos - tis a bit of a rip-off over here that's for sure.

That said on second look the 2060 card I looked at is an overclocked one, but seams all the others are getting thin on the ground - at least at MSY. I usually like to get Gigabyte stuff but may have to look at other variants I guess.

So thanks for the tips here The Next and everyone else who chimed in, I will work with that info and see what I can find....

Reliquia....

ASUS do very good graphics cards, their Strix range of NVidia cards has always been top quality for me in the past, they're slightly over clocked cards but at a better price than your standard OC'd cards.

But again, being in Australia, not only is it more expensive there, you seem to be quite limited with suppliers too, and heaven forbid if you want to play an MMORPG, always being the furthest from the servers you could possibly be, you guys always seem to get the short end of the stick when it comes to all things PC

Lol yeah have to agree with you there.

I live in Tasmania now and volunteer at the Bass and Flinders Centre - a museum where we have a full scale replica of the Norfolk used By Matthew and George to determine if Tassie was indeed separate from the mainland.

This nations roots come from convict settlement in this here great land down under - seams we still have that mentality since we have to pay such high prices for everything! hehehe only joking

My parents came out here as 10 pound poms (as the saying goes here - no insults intended) when I was five, maybe I should come back to the motherland - although I think paying the higher price for the graphics card would be a tad cheaper - lol

Reliquia....

https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-750-Ti-vs-Nvidia-GTX-1060-6GB/2187vs3639



This is quite important information which deserves to be quoted.

Personally i'm looking to replace my GTX960 with a GTX1060 which is cheaper than a RTX2060 but should be sufficient for 1080p.

Theres also 4-cored i3's, Core i3 8350K for example.For their price they do their job really good.
comparision with Intel Core i7 7700K

Well, after a year of saving, now it was a great time to buy the parts for an upgrade of my pc.

The parts which i've bought are;

Asus prime 470 pro ATX
AMD Ryzen 2600 CPU
Crucial MX500 500 gb x2 ssd
Big shuriken 3 cpu cooler
Corsair 2x8 gb (CMK16GX4M2B3000C15)
MSI GTX-1060 6 gb
WIN10 home edition.

I could have opted for a GTX-1660 but the GTX-1060 was a lot cheaper €245 and for my monitor which has a resolution of 1080p it should be sufficient in my view and nicely balanced with the Ryzen 2600.

I would have opted for an Intel processor personally, in my experience GameGuru runs significantly better on Intel than it does on the equivalent AMD, but the 2600 is still a good choice.

Agreed, the single core performance of Intel is better but certainly compared to my current FX6300 it is a huge improvement with a friendly price tag.

maybr this won't help in nothing and it is out of date , but i made the experience, i bought an old computer in ebay and the GG work in there, but very bad
then i upgrade only the video card and got even better but still very low
now i am using a
intel core i5- 6400 at 2.7GHz
win 10 pro
16 GB ddr4
SSD hard disk
Gigabyte NVidia Geforce GT 1030 low profile D4 2G
and works very fine indeed.
nevertheless if i compare to their engines original games GG gets alway behind , GG still needs a little bit of upgrade in the core, but again it works fine and that is important

i have a super high end gaming OMEN laptop pc,
but i prefer to develop in the desktop because if it runs there will run in every similar or higher machine , i use the OMEN only to compare the velocity with bloom on or off, and bloom make a very diference in a low pc
Generally we work with MAC Pro's in the enterprise but that i can not compare, but i will try one day with virtualbox or parallels
i hope this help a little bit

Isn't the gtx1030 a 2 gb card?

Lol - missed the last two replies here.

Would have thought a ##30 would only just be able to put text on screen, let alone a full-screen image....

Anyhow after throwing the i7-4790 @ 3.2GHz, and a NVidia GeForce GTX 1060 6GB (Asus). I get a constant 74 fps on all my maps lol, maybe it's more if I mess with vsync, but haven't tried yet.

Reliquia....