Upgrade vs Wasting Money.

[abasers]

Hello,

I was talking with some computing friends and what I got from the conversation was what's the point in upgrading if it's not really an upgrade.
What I mean by this is someone going from an i7 sandy or ivy bridge to an i7 haswell won't really see too much of a performance increase for gaming at least. But going from an i3 to an i7 would be more what I consider to be an upgrade.

What do you guys think, Is there really much point in upgrading if you already bought a system that was high end when you bought it?

Sorry if this seems like a bit of a rant, but thanks for reading.

 

[Remmy]

Of course going from an i3 to an i7 is well worth it, no question about it.

When it's upgrading from i7 to a newer i7 I think it depends on how much the newer ones have improved. Currently I'd see no reason to upgrade to Haswell from Sandy or Ivy for example because the difference won't be very big, and I think I'll be running Sandy for another couple of years yet.

Once there's an actual decent amount of improvement and I had plenty of money to spend, then I'd upgrade.

Having said that, I completely understand people who do the upgrades from high end to high end, because computer building is their hobby and passion, and it's always nice to be getting new things. It's their money, so if they want to devote a lot of it to these minor upgrades, they should.

 

[Mathius]

As Remmy said,

Upgrading from i7 Sandy/Ivy to Haswell i7, for many people (gamers) its not really worth it, especially when you factor in the cost of a new motherboard and windows install as well....people who do go down this route, personally get my 'More money than Sense' Award, a GPU upgrade or SSD etc would be of more benefit

Same sorta thing with i5 to i7, if its a pure gaming machine, then the i7 premium may well not be worth it.....true, games are starting to use the feature that the i7 brings but for most the i5 is fine.

 

[SeekaX]

Hello,

I was talking with some computing friends and what I got from the conversation was what's the point in upgrading if it's not really an upgrade.
What I mean by this is someone going from an i7 sandy or ivy bridge to an i7 haswell won't really see too much of a performance increase for gaming at least. But going from an i3 to an i7 would be more what I consider to be an upgrade.

i think we've never advised anyone to do such an upgrade because from sandybridge through haswell it has really only been tocks. for a while i'd even tell people to get SB instead of IB because the 2500k overclocks better.

What do you guys think, Is there really much point in upgrading if you already bought a system that was high end when you bought it?

now that's quite a different thing, isn't it. if you bought a high end rig in 2007 it will be an upgrade today.

 

[tinytomlogan]

I think a lot of people want the latest kit, but with i7 CPU's performance hasnt really taken a giant leap recently and probably wont for a while either.

hardware wise I think Nvidia is the one company thats taken big step forwards with new stuff. Comparing the 680 or 770 to the 780 Ti for example - HUGE difference

 

[Xenomorphical]

a GPU upgrade or SSD etc would be of more benefit

This.

 

[yassarikhan786]

At this moment in time the most sensible upgrades include going from a traditional HDD to an SSD and from a 2 generation old GPU to a current gen GPU.

 

[JR23]

I've made a lot of upgrades over the past couple of years since I first built myself a gaming rig. Looking at it rationally and purely from a performance angle most of them have been pointless and to an extent a waste of money. But my rig is much nicer, quieter, faster and coherent than it's ever been and I haven't thrown a huge chunk of money into it in one go, every time i've sold my old parts and not done too badly.

i7-2600k > i7-4820k
Sabertooth P67 > MVF > RIVF
Corsair A70 > H100 > H100i
2x4GB Vengeance > 4x4GB Vengeance LP > 4x4GB Dominator Platinum 2133
120GB Force 3 > 240GB Neutron GTX > 2x240GB Neutron GTX's
2xGTX570 Phantom 3's > 2xGTX780 SC's
TX850 > AX860
600T > 550D
Cooler Master Sickleflows > Scythe GT AP15's > Air Series PE > Air Series QE > Air Series PWM

After all of these upgrades I would say that changing from 2600k to 4820k brought the least improvement for the money and I couldn't recommend it, I agree with the OP. However I like the aesthetic of having the memory in two banks and the better spacing between graphics cards, for that reason I don't consider it a total waste. Changing graphics cards was by far the biggest improvement however it did cost a lot more than all of the other upgrades. Once I have finished tidying my build up I will call it a day for upgrades and just keep running it until I can afford to build a new rig. Hopefully that can be perfect from the start and I can take as long as I need to thoroughly plan and build it.

 

[RoboChimp]

I look at it like this; if it runs all your games and programs smoothly, don't upgrade, if not, then upgrade. But upgrading now isn't what as necessary as it was, if you look at performance from 2007 to 2010, there is a massive leap, like when I went from an AMD 5200+ to 1055T (the funny part is that they both worked in the same board). Whereas today, going from my i7 970 to a 4930K isn't really going to give me the same performance improvements, at least at stock. Which is why I chose dual Xeons over a 3930K for my new workstation. Just look at all the people on this forum who still have older parts. To be honest I blame AMD for not giving Intel a run for their money.

 

[barnsley]

To be honest I blame AMD for not giving Intel a run for their money.

That is certainly true in the high end of things. Budget wise (~£500 and less)it can be more in favor of AMD.

 

[RoboChimp]

That is certainly true in the high end of things. Budget wise (~£500 and less)it can be more in favor of AMD.

Are you talking about the APU things? I was thinking more in terms of piledriver.

 

[barnsley]

Are you talking about the APU things? I was thinking more in terms of piledriver.

The 8320 and below are what I was talking about as well. But yes, the APUS are quite good for the money as well. In gaming AMD can do fine, its just everything else the processors can't do as well as intel.

 

[RoboChimp]

The 8320 and below are what I was talking about as well. But yes, the APUS are quite good for the money as well. In gaming AMD can do fine, its just everything else the processors can't do as well as intel.

My 8350 rig renders a fair bit slower than my i7 970 does at stock, I have no idea what's going on there.

 

[barnsley]

My 8350 rig renders a fair bit slower than my i7 970 does at stock, I have no idea what's going on there.

yeah rendering isn't AMD's strong point due to the cores being a bit week/software not really being optimised to those cores correctly and as such I always ask if people will be doing rendering. I do quite a bit of video editing so I'm having to look at a new rig because of it :l.Then again, I get the same frames on most games (excluding ARMA and GTA IV) I play with my lowsy OC as my friend does with his i5 3570k and my processor and cooling cost as much as his processor did on it's own. AMD is good for gaming and streaming but not much else. They can also be a joy to OC as well.