How would you upgrade my PC?

[Reflected]

Guys,

 

I'm thinking about investing in my PC preferably without buying a complete new one. This is my current config:

 

MSI X-58 PRO motherboard

i7-920 @ 2.66 Ghz

NVidia GTX 470 2GB

6 GB RAM

Win 7 64bit

 

What is the bottleneck here? I'd assume the processor, but perhaps I need to invest in a new Gfx card too. My budget is hard to describe in USD, but let's say 4-500 bucks.

 

What would you recommend me without having to replace the motherboard, reinstalling Windows, etc...

What about these?
 

Intel Core i5-4460 3,2 GHz (6 MB) LGA 1150 CPU Box

and
  Gigabyte nVidia GTX 750 (PCIe 3.0, 2GB GDDR5, 2xDVI+2xHDMI

 

 

Thanks a lot!

 

Greg

Edited February 17, 2015 by Reflected

[xedoc]

This game is CPU bound and it perform better on high CPU frequencies >4Ghz.

 

One of users on the russian forum posted that track to test perfromance: https://cloud.mail.ru/public/3b0a8b1a2037/MP.zip

I tested it  on a laptop: i7 @3.5Ghz, GTX760, 8Gb, SSD and on a desktop: i7 5830K @4.4Ghz, 290X, 16Gb SSD

 

Here is results:

 

 

Laptop 1080p, Balanced. Min: 14, Avg: 31, Max: 57

 

 

Desktop, 1080p, Balanced.

 

And just to prove that it CPU bound, here is 640x480 test.

Desktop, 640x480, Balanced, no AA:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Intel Core i5-4460 3,2 GHz (6 MB) LGA 1150 CPU Box

 

That CPU won't fit into your MB. You have 1366 socket and that i5 is for 1150. 

[Reflected]

So I'll probably need a new motherboard too?

[xedoc]

So I'll probably need a new motherboard too?

Yep. And 1150 won't run your RAM in triple-channel mode (I guess you have 3x2Gb modules). It is optimized to run dual channel setup.

[SYN_Blackrat]

If you have a D0 chip  i7 920 you can get an aftermarket cooler and try overclocking, mine has been running quite happily at 4ghz for six years now, I also have a GTX970 runs BOS acceptably at 2560x1600 when I run it on this machine, to upgrade my i7 to a new CPU would mean new mobo, new RAM and new CPU, the trouble with the first i7 was the 1366 config and triple channel memory. Look at around 600 euros I reckon for an i5 if hyperthreading is not important, mobo and RAM.

 

Personally for the price of a cooler I would try the overclocking route first. if that works then a new GPU.

[Reflected]

If you have a D0 chip  i7 920 you can get an aftermarket cooler and try overclocking, mine has been running quite happily at 4ghz for six years now, I also have a GTX970 runs BOS acceptably at 2560x1600 when I run it on this machine, to upgrade my i7 to a new CPU would mean new mobo, new RAM and new CPU, the trouble with the first i7 was the 1366 config and triple channel memory. Look at around 600 euros I reckon for an i5 if hyperthreading is not important, mobo and RAM.

 

Personally for the price of a cooler I would try the overclocking route first. if that works then a new GPU.

 

Yes, I'll go for this. Would I be able to overclock to 3.0 GHz without a new cooler?

[SYN_Blackrat]

Yes, I'll go for this. Would I be able to overclock to 3.0 GHz without a new cooler?

 

No idea, you need to do some research on your mobo and look at temperatures, mine idles at 45c, they do run hot, with an ambient temp of 22c, grab http://www.hwinfo.com/ its very good for monitoring your temps and you can see what the stepping is on your CPU, if it is D0 then it will clock very well, look out for a second hand Noctua cooler, mine is 6 years old and going great guns still.

[Soarfeat]

Hey Reflected,

Another option to consider to help transition to some new hardware is to sell your old components and then use the money from this towards your upgrade. This is how I felt comforatble upgrading from basically the same setup as you have--my old build was a Gigabyte X58A board with a i7 930 and 6 gb of ram. Also sold my GTX 760 graphics card which I wasn't going to do but decided to and upgraded to the GTX 970. The upgrade cost were well within reason for me. I kept my old Corsair H50 cpu cooler and it has been doing great runniing this new upgrade at 4.2 ghz. 

Good luck with this !!! --sf--

[Zmaj76]

@Reflected - If you have DO or even CO (worse) chip of i7 920 you should be ok on cca 3.6 Ghz on default voltages of your CPU, with your overclock. Im on 3,9 Ghz with my 920 (CO) and that is with just a slight overvoltage of CPU and with mediocre Scythe Katana 3 cpu cooler. If you have questions on how to do it in bios, ask me on pm. Its a huge difference in sims going from 2.6 to 3.6 not to mention higher. If you have some money I would recommend buying used i5 2500k which can go easily to 4.5 Ghz but then ull need to buy new mobo (not expensive), cooler and RAM. but that would be huge improvement. Also in due time I would replace gtx 470 with used GTX 660Ti (670) or 760. Could be found for very considerable price and those card would run BOS just fine up to 1080p.

Edited February 18, 2015 by Zmaj76

[Reflected]

Thanks for all the advice!

 

Yesterday I read all kinds of tutorials how to overclock. I went to bios and changed the setting to 20 x 150 = 3 Ghz instead of 20 x 133 = 2.66 GHz.

I could not adjust the voltages - they were non adjustable, or I didn't know how - but they were set to levels the tutorial recommended for even higher OC. I ran a stress test, and it seems to be stable. While playing BoS & RoF the temperature doesn't go above 70 degrees celsius, so I guess that's good. But it went up to 98 degrees during stress test, so I didn't want to push it further.

I noticed some improvement, like + 5-10%. It's especially noticeable in BoS (+10 FPS when flying over the city of Stalingrad)

 

Is it safe to go for a higher clock with these temps? Or should the stress test temperatures be a warning?

[Dakpilot]

I would be 'careful' the stress test is showing that you have insufficient cooling when running the CPU at those clock rates when at full load.

 

I used to have the same chip, it was a CO stepping model and did not overclock well, I got some improvements but with the i7 1366 9** series the payoff with O/C was not great, even with other 9** series chips, the difference when moving to an i5 3570k was like night and day.

 

Personally I would not O/C with the stock cooler, but that's just me.

 

For many applications an i7 920 is a good platform, but for flightsims is not well suited, and I would consider selling complete and using the money to build on more modern better single core performance CPU based platform

 

Cheers Dakpilot

[SYN_Blackrat]

Depends on what you use for stress testing, intel burn is very heavy and puts unrealistic stress on your system, prime 95 is more realistic loads, small FFTs for the CPU will give a better idea of max temp, but 98 is pretty high, too much for me, even stress testing, over 80 is just about acceptable stressing. I think it thermal throttles over 100c.

 

Agreed Dak, but if you are on a budget squeezing out another year or so on your kits this is better than nothing.

 

A cheap efficient air cooler is a hyper evo 212 never tried it on the i7 but it worked a treat on the i5 until I watercooled, also make sure you have good ventilation in your case, on air you will be pumping lots of hot air into the case which needs to be replaced with cooler air, try leaving the side off and see if that gets the temps down, make sure you clean all that dust out too.

[Zmaj76]

I have my 920 CO on 3,9 Ghz with mediocre Katana 3 cooler. Run one video encoder program and one cpu intense game you play. If the temps are up to max 80C under load (coding and gaming) you are go to go for at least 5 yrs and by then (or probably much sooner) you will be on new CPU. Prime95 and such programs are for hipsters to show-off. You can run blend test on prime95 for 30 mins though, to see If your OC is super stable. And yes, it does a huge diffrence going from 2.66 to 3.9 Ghz. Ofcourse, you can go for new/er CPU but then I would go for i5 2500k since its a good overclocker (up to 4.5Ghz with mediocre OC) and can be found for considerable price. But then you wil need 1155 mobo, probably new RAM and cpu cooler. Most 920s (even CO) should go up to 3.5 or 3.6 Ghz just on default CPU voltage (so which is set to Normal not AUTO! in BIOS) with bumping  the BCLK setting in the BIOS (lets say BCLK 170 and Multi 21; 21x170=3570Ghz). Uncore should be at x16, Qpi multi x36 and memory multi at 8x). And with default CPU voltage thers no or no signifficant temps rise so you will not need a better cooler.

Edited February 18, 2015 by Zmaj76