Should I upgrade my i5-3570K to an i7-3770K?

[Elliot B.]

I have an Asus Maximus V Extreme motherboard, which can overclock CPUs automatically.

It currently overclocks my Intel Core-i5 3570K (stock is 3.40 Ghz) to 4.4 GHz.

I was considering upgrading the CPU but since the motherboard only supports LGA 1155 CPUs, the only real upgrade is a 3770K.

Look at the chart I made below and help me decide if I should upgrade the CPU.

When OC'd, I can imagine it'll hit 10,500.

[BinaryData]

I don't see why not. I mean, is it 100% necessary?

[Elliot B.]

I don't see why not. I mean, is it 100% necessary?

Never hurts to have more performance

I'm a 2560x1440 gamer and, whilst I'm sure the 3570K OC isn't hurting me too much, a 3770K OC must do something nice for gaming.

[BinaryData]

Never hurts to have more performance

I'm a 2560x1440 gamer and, whilst I'm sure the 3570K OC isn't hurting me too much, a 3770K OC must do something nice for gaming.

My "gaming" machine is running an Intel Quad 2 Core Q9400 2.66Ghz OC'd to 2.83Ghz. There isn't too much I can't handle, gaming wise. Haha.

I guess, if you've got the extra cash, and there's nothing else you can improve, why not? I'd go for it!

[+DKAngel Subscriber²]

i really dont think its work it to be honest

[Danielx64]

I would upgrade the motherboard and get an î5 4690 and be done with it. You would get DDR3 and PCIE3 for the graphic card. (move that I have not looked at the spec of your MB).

[Xahid]

Intel Core-i5 3570K is already great CPU, you won't see much difference (not even 5 to 6 FPS), so save your bucks, & invest on GPU/RAM/SSD.

[HellboundIRL]

Never hurts to have more performance

I'm a 2560x1440 gamer and, whilst I'm sure the 3570K OC isn't hurting me too much, a 3770K OC must do something nice for gaming.

I recently went from a 2700k to a 6700k and I haven't noticed a difference while gaming. I don't know if moving from an i5 to an i7 will give you any performance gains in games but I doubt it's worth it.

[+Anarkii Subscriber²]

Processor speed wouldnt do much these days when it comes to gaming. 90% of the computations are all done on the videocard. If you want better performance in games, just upgrade that video card. 

[Danielx64]

It would also depend on what games you are playing, it may make a different in say just cause 3 or fallout for example.

[Elliot B.]

Processor speed wouldnt do much these days when it comes to gaming. 90% of the computations are all done on the videocard. If you want better performance in games, just upgrade that video card. 

I already have 2x 970 OC.

I know it won't do much for my 2560x1440 gaming but it may help my light video editing etc.

[NinjaGinger]

From what I've read, going from an i5 to i7 does not make much of a difference for games. You would only notice a really big difference in video performance as in decoding so I would say don't, its not worth it as far as gaming is concerned.

[Elliot B.]

i5-3570K
4 cores, 4 threads
4 × 256 KB L2 cache
6 MB L3 cache
HD Graphics 4000
77 W TDP
Intel TXT support
Intel VT-d support
vPro support

i7-3770K
4 cores, 8 threads (HyperThreading)
4 × 256 KB L2 cache
8 MB L3 cache
HD Graphics 4000
77 W TDP

[Elliot B.]

Just discovered I can sell my i5-3570K for around £95 and buy the i7-3770K for around £180.

I can't justify £85 for the performance increase.

[tsupersonic]

Just discovered I can sell my i5-3570K for around £95 and buy the i7-3770K for around £180.

I can't justify £85 for the performance increase.

What were you expecting? i7's are more expensive and you wouldn't gain very much out of it considering you already OC'ed your i5. If you want a worthwhile upgrade, wait for the next generation consumer level i5/i7 CPU, with DDR4, with a faster SSD, and a next gen. graphics card. 

[Andre S. Veteran]

If you've seen any CPU benchmarks in the past 4 years you should know hyperthreading makes very little difference on gaming performance. Sometimes even the non-hyperthreaded CPU wins.

Perhaps that'll change when DX12 becomes the norm...

[+Red King Subscriber²]

I would say wait a year or two. i7 5820K no-OC vs. i5 3570k @‌‌‌ 4.5 Ghz vs. i5 3570K @‌ 3.8 Ghz - no difference.

[BinaryData]

If you've seen any CPU benchmarks in the past 4 years you should know hyperthreading makes very little difference on gaming performance. Sometimes even the non-hyperthreaded CPU wins.

Perhaps that'll change when DX12 becomes the norm...

I thought as much. Are there any games out there that can even take advantage of hyper-threading? I mean, truly benefit it. I was also told that games don't take advantage of multi-core processors, they view the CPU as 1, and not "4".

[Andre S. Veteran]

I thought as much. Are there any games out there that can even take advantage of hyper-threading? I mean, truly benefit it. I was also told that games don't take advantage of multi-core processors, they view the CPU as 1, and not "4".

Games view the CPU like any other application, unfortunately Direct3D 11 (and other versions before it) is not designed to be used efficiently from multiple threads. There's high driver overhead and it gets worse the more you try to parallelize. Also the real-time nature of games make it inherently challenging to parallelize anything efficiently since you need a coherent (synchronized) snapshot of the world dozens of times per second. The latter can be worked around to some extent, the former not. Hence maybe we'll finally get games that scale well on Direct3D 12.