Do i need to upgrade my intel I7

[HoiHman]

Hi Guys,

When racing i'm not having any performance issues so far, except in the two upcomming games Rfactor 2 and Project CARS.

Currently i have an Intel I7 core which runs at 3820Mhz. My videocard is an ATI HD6970. Because i have a triple screensetup, i run all the games at 5760x1080.

Sometime (in the near future) i will probably upgrade my HD6970 by adding an other one or by replacing it with an HD7970.

My question is: Will my I7@3820Mhz still be enough to run upcomming games at full detail after i have upgraded my videocard?

 

[RReed43]

Assuming you have plenty of RAM You should have plenty of processing power.

 

[HoiHman]

Thanks RReed43,

I have 6 GB, that should be enough for racing ?

 

[readyfe]

I have 6 GB, that should be enough for racing ?

I run 16Gb as I always believe I should have more than enough..

It also means you can restrict the size of the pagefile.sys (virtual memory) saving room on your HD (especially if you're running an SSD)

If you're investing in an upgraded video card, and unless you're going top of the line then a RAM upgraded shouldn't cost too much.

Hope this helps..

 

[HoiHman]

Thanks readyfe,👍

I know what you mean with the pagefile.sys. It's eating 6GB on my SSD space now

Still if i'm going from 6GB to 16GB and it will only improve my ssd space, i will hold out on expanding the memory for now.

If i were to buy a complete new system, i would go for the 16GB for sure.
Correct if i'm wrong, but i don't think that current games use more than the 6Gb i have now.

I used to upgrade every year untill i bought the I7, which never gave me any performance issue's so far.

That's why i'm completely in the dark about how well an I7@3820Hz performs at the moment compared to the new processors.

Is the I7 procecessor @ 3820 still very fast, at least fast enough or will i not deliver data fast enought to a new videocard like the HD7970 GHZ edition

 

[readyfe]

From what I've read the new Ivy bridge have more power consumption benefits which is suited to mobile more so than an increase in power and performance...

So there's no 'real' benefit to go from sandy to ivy (or is it the other way round - oh well you know what I mean)

Here's an article if it helps: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2405317,00.asp

 

[wajdi1977]

I'm playing rFactor 2 with triple screen and you should know that rF2 is more a GPU dipendent than a CPU dipendent!You'll need a better videocard. rFactor seems to respond well to a lot of memory on the cards so I have invested my money for a good video card and I bought the Radeon 7950 Flex edition/OC,so I advice you to upgrade your GPU with a AMD 7000 series like the 7850 HD!

 

[HoiHman]

Thanks guys, so the I7 will be sufficient for now.

That's great news

Now i have to decide to buy another HD6970 and go crossfire or buy a HD7970 3G Ghz editon.

Decisions, decisions...

It's tough being a gamer

 

[readyfe]

Thanks guys, so the I7 will be sufficient for now.

It's tough being a gamer

Unless you want to get a new motherboard and run DUAL i7 CPU ?????

 

[wajdi1977]

Thanks guys, so the I7 will be sufficient for now.

That's great news

Now i have to decide to buy another HD6970 and go crossfire or buy a HD7970 3G Ghz editon.

Decisions, decisions...

It's tough being a gamer

Go for the HD7950

 

[wajdi1977]

Thanks guys, so the I7 will be sufficient for now.

That's great news

Now i have to decide to buy another HD6970 and go crossfire or buy a HD7970 3G Ghz editon.

Decisions, decisions...

It's tough being a gamer

Go for the HD7950 or the 7950 Flex edition:tup:trust me you will have better performance.Crossfire isn't fully supported with rFactor 2(don't know about Pcars) and with crossfire you would suffer from microstuttering!

 

[HoiHman]

Go for the HD7950 or the 7950 Flex edition:tup:trust me you will have better performance.Crossfire isn't fully supported with rFactor 2(don't know about Pcars) and with crossfire you would suffer from microstuttering!

Thanks, totally forgot about the microstuttering.

Why should i not go for the HD7970 Ghz in stead of the 7950 Flex? Just wondering the HD7970 should give me better performance ?

 

[wajdi1977]

Thanks, totally forgot about the microstuttering.

Why should i not go for the HD7970 Ghz in stead of the 7950 Flex? Just wondering the HD7970 should give me better performance ?

The HD7950 Flex edition and the HD7970 have the almost the same performance with a slightly advance of the HD7970 but with the Flex edition you wouldn't need any type of adapter
The smale advance of performance of the HD7970 over the HD7950 Flex edition doesn't justify the difference of price between the two video card!

 

[HoiHman]

Thanks for your answers Wajdi1977 👍

Tommorow i will be able to test F1 2012 with my current HD6970. If it still runs well, i will hold off on buying a new card for at least another month.

If it does not perform well, i will go for the 7950 Flex

 

[HoiHman]

Just did some benchmarking on F1 2012 and i'm still on a comfortable AVG framerate of 64 FPS @5760x1080 x 8xFSAA. 👍

Guess i will wait on upgrading untill more demanding games are released.

 

[left888]

Thanks, totally forgot about the microstuttering.

Why should i not go for the HD7970 Ghz in stead of the 7950 Flex? Just wondering the HD7970 should give me better performance ?

I run triple 55" HDTV's but I went with the nVidia card(s). I have 2 GTX 570's and I purchased them before the 6xx card came out which will handle triples by it self. The micro stuttering can be taken care of usually by turning down the graphics a little. Instead of maxing out top performance. Also which ever card you go for try and get the 4gb or at least 3gb. I would avoid any card that only has 2gb or less, I am not familiar with any of the ATI cards, switch over to nVidia about 7 or 8 years ago.

Games like pCARS which is still in development are not optimized for triples yet. I will get up to 60 fps with DX9 but DX11 I will only get 10-12 fps which is not enough to play with. For me I won't look at it again until it gets further on in development. Anyway I'm finding it more on the arcade side ATM, we shall see how it develops down the road. I have seen where they won't release it until the end of 2013, so it should look pretty good by then. I race iRacing which is the best sim as of now.

 

[wajdi1977]

I run triple 55" HDTV's but I went with the nVidia card(s). I have 2 GTX 570's and I purchased them before the 6xx card came out which will handle triples by it self. The micro stuttering can be taken care of usually by turning down the graphics a little. Instead of maxing out top performance. Also which ever card you go for try and get the 4gb or at least 3gb. I would avoid any card that only has 2gb or less, I am not familiar with any of the ATI cards, switch over to nVidia about 7 or 8 years ago.

Games like pCARS which is still in development are not optimized for triples yet. I will get up to 60 fps with DX9 but DX11 I will only get 10-12 fps which is not enough to play with. For me I won't look at it again until it gets further on in development. Anyway I'm finding it more on the arcade side ATM, we shall see how it develops down the road. I have seen where they won't release it until the end of 2013, so it should look pretty good by then. I race iRacing which is the best sim as of now.

You should try rFactor 2..just kidding

 

[HoiHman]

I race iRacing which is the best sim as of now.

I too race iRacing and it's not that demanding on the video card.
Perhaps when they go to DX11, but now i can run it max out with very high FPS on my current PC.

 

[lemansfanatic]

That iRacing DX11 upgrade is waaaay overdue imho, especially for the price to run it...

 

[left888]

You should try rFactor 2..just kidding

I have, purchased it a while ago, it's not ready for prime time either but it should be great when it's finished.

I too race iRacing and it's not that demanding on the video card.
Perhaps when they go to DX11, but now i can run it max out with very high FPS on my current PC.

When I ran single screen I too got crazy amount of fps 400-500, with triple screens it's now more like 60-200 depending on the track.

That iRacing DX11 upgrade is waaaay overdue imho, especially for the price to run it...

They are working on DX11 and it shouldn't be too much longer. As far as the price for iRacing I pay $49 per year, how is that expensive?

 

[lemansfanatic]

Is that a rhetorical question? Or are you really asking me if I really think $50 a year (which is not the full retail price) is expensive for a video game? if so, then yes I do think its overpriced, but that is merely one mans opinion and doesnt belong in this thread anyways.