10 replies to this topic

[Akujin]

So about a month ago, I updated my very old Athlon 64 6000+ and GTX 460 to a H61 chipset mobo with a Pentium G2120 and a GTX 660 ti.

Now at the time, I wasn't aware of intel chipsets and how my motherboard would be unable to overclock. Had I known that, I would have made a different decision.

Anyway, without being able to overclock, what would be a cheap (can be used or new) viable upgrade from my pentium. It is bottlenecking my gfx pretty badly.

I have been looking on ebay and have seen some i7 920's for around $100 which sounds good if it would be a decent upgrade for gaming.

So let's say I want to spend up to $150 what would be my best option?

[Akujin]

I should also note that money isn't really an issue. I'll upgrade to a 3570k if the performance gain would be optimal. I'm just trying to circumvent rebuilding my system again in a 2 month period.

[cjloki]

So about a month ago, I updated my very old Athlon 64 6000+ and GTX 460 to a H61 chipset mobo with a Pentium G2120 and a GTX 660 ti.

Now at the time, I wasn't aware of intel chipsets and how my motherboard would be unable to overclock. Had I known that, I would have made a different decision.

Anyway, without being able to overclock, what would be a cheap (can be used or new) viable upgrade from my pentium. It is bottlenecking my gfx pretty badly.

I have been looking on ebay and have seen some i7 920's for around $100 which sounds good if it would be a decent upgrade for gaming.

So let's say I want to spend up to $150 what would be my best option?

quick question: are you using this as a gaming machine primarily, or is it a multi-tasker ? i only ask because of the various performance options available, but if money is not really an issue then the sky's the limit right,, and if you want to overclock it on up then you'll need some pretty good hardware...

[Akujin]

This is a primarily gaming rig.

[Waco]

What motherboard do you have? That will govern our responses.


EDIT: Nevermind, I read closer. An H61 mobo won't let you overclock and I wouldn't go so far back to get an i7 920 (they're older, hotter, and end of lifed) as they won't fit in your current board anyway.


If you had to upgrade the whole shebang what's your price limit for the upgrade (CPU + mobo)? I assume your RAM is DDR3 and will carry over. What power supply are you running as well?


The best bang-for-buck CPU is probably going to be one of the lower-end i3 dual cores with hyperthreading (either the Ivy Bridge or Sandy Bridge versions depending on your mobo BIOS support). I have an i3-2120 in my HTPC and it absolutely screams compared to the Phenom II I was running before it. In most games it's hard to tell the difference between it at stock speeds and my overclocked 2700K.

[d6bmg]

You should look at i3-2100 or i3-2120 as sub $100 upgrade option, or at used i5-2400. As you have H61 board it won't let you overclock the processor.
And going for i7-920 won't be considered as an upgrade as it is old gen, generates more heat, consumes more power than the current gen and above all, you need to change your present motherboard to use that processor.

Edited by d6bmg, 20 November 2012 - 11:59 AM.

[cjloki]

What he said ! how's something like this look mobo and cpu ,...i mean for an inexpensive upgrade this is pretty good stuff, at around $220 give or take a few bucks...and ought to last ya a nice long time...and if ya ever had the urge to go to a bigger faster cpu then there's plenty of forward looking upgrade-ability to work with...

[Waco]

He has a s1155 board already, all he needs is the CPU.

[d6bmg]

Plus a deal on i5 processor during black friday would be icing on the cake.

[Akujin]

My ivy bridge pentium g2120 is on par with the i3s for gaming, that's why I was looking at some higher core alternatives.

I mainly play gw2 which is optimized for 4 cores. I get bad stutter in large encounters with 100% load on my processor.

[d6bmg]

Then look for i5-2400.