Due for an Upgrade?

[HURRIC4NE]

I had a factory dell system that i pretty much upgraded the hell out off. replaced everything inside and out except for the CPU, which stuck with me for a long time. its a socket 1156 Intel i5-650, (2C4T), i have an h100 on this running at 4.0 all day non-stop.

i play a lot of games on 1080p and do a lot of photo/website editing and developing. i have 8gb of 1600mhz ddr3 ram which i think is adequate but a 16gb upgrade would be good

So should i upgrade to the new 4770K? i have a 7850 so i don't know if upgrading the cpu will boost my graphics that much. i had the opportunity to upgrade to 3770k but i skipped it just for haswell. but i still get the feeling that they really haven't done something amazing with haswell just yet (remember dual cores and quad cores that was introduced during the pentium 4s? that was amazing).

moving onto AMD is also considerable, but i don't really see AMD having anything that is faster than the Intel in the same price range (i'm okay with spending 120 more just for something that runs better).

 

[Ken g6]

4770K isn't even out yet. But AVX2 may make a big difference on photo editing. So might more RAM.

Your 7850 may be limiting your gaming, but that depends on your monitor too.

 

[Sleepingforest]

RAM pretty much always helps with photo/video editing, and a better GPU will pretty much always helps in gaming (unless you are satisfied with the quality you've got). It depends on your priorities.

I'd say even an i7-3770K (from Ivy Bridge) could help with your editing needs (due to extra threads), as could RAM. If you're looking for a general boost to responsiveness, boot times, and load times, an SSD will help (and it'll help editing by providing a faster scratch disk).

 

[HURRIC4NE]

I have a pretty good SSD, my 7850 is good too, but it stumbles and trips when i play something expensive on graphics (like crysis 3) BF3 is okay i can run it at a playable 35+. i was thinking of doing a crossfire but the problem with that is compatibility, since not all games support crossfire. and i'm not sure if crossfire can help improve graphics editing.

i'm really curious to know if waiting 2 months for haswell would be really a good decision. its all about patience i guess... dammnit bill i can't wait!

 

[A5]

Upgrading now when Haswell is only a month away would be silly if you can wait. No reason to not wait and see on the performance numbers.

 

[guskline]

I would wait because whether it's a Ivy Bridge or Haswell you need a new mb to run it.

See how Haswell performs and then decide on whether you go Ivy or Haswell. I'd also up the ram by buying 2 - 4 gig sticks of ddr3-1600.What budget do you have?

 

[Yuriman]

Your i5 is not slow by any means, it's still a decent chip. You would notice the upgrade but it depends on how much your money is burning a hole in your pocket as to whether it's worth it.

 

[Hubb1e]

BF3 is tripping up because you have a dual core. Not because of your 7850

 

[nenforcer]

I had a factory dell system that i pretty much upgraded the hell out off.

Haswell is only a month a way so dont' make any decisions yet. The cheapest and simplest upgrade path would be to keep your existing setup and go for an i5-750 or an i7-860.

 

[HURRIC4NE]

My budget is around 500, enough for a cpu/motherboard/ram upgrade all togather. maybe later on i'll upgrade to the 8970 when it comes out

3 monitors is a lot of stress on a 7850 i think...

 

[2is]

I'd wait... Buying now might give you temporary satisfaction but that will die out when Haswell is released and you say to yourself "I should have waited" plus you get the excitement of playing with new technology and get to participate in all the "post your xxx scores" threads that the CPU forums will be inundated with.