Any meaningful gain upgrading MB to 750i/780i?

[Autochthon]

Ok - this is the situation. My gaming is currently done on an old DFI nf4 939 board using an opteron 170 @ 2750. I been piddling around with the newest generation of FPS's - played COD4, Crysis etc, Far Cry2.

I'm using sli'd 8800 gts 512's at resolutions of 1920 x 1200. I find that play is fine for COD4 but the other games are a bit marginal.

I have an E8400 in an HTPC I'm currently not using.

Question is would an upgrade to a 750i/780i motherboard and switching to the E8400 result in a meaningful increase in framerates or allow for higher graphics setting?

I had hoped to put off a major upgrade (ie x58 and beyond) for a few months.

If it would be noticeable, is say an evga 750i the best option for sli?

thank you

 

[Zero82z]

Right now, you will be quite CPU-limited in many games. However, if you plan on performing a major upgrade in the near future, it would be a bit pointless to spend money on a new platform right now only to switch again shortly after. I suggest you perform your big upgrade sooner and not bother with going to an LGA775 setup right now.

 

[Autochthon]

thanks for the reply.

It has more to do with the fact that moving to lga 775 would mean buying a single sli motherboard while moving to a completely new platform means new cpu and fan , MB and memory.

If the new motherboard will put off purchase for a few months the price of newer hardware generally drops enough to make up the difference.

I just have no way to judge whether moving to an overclocked e8400 will make a big enough difference over my current overclocked opteron 170 to put off the full system upgrade for long enough to matter.

I'm currently just barely holding on with my current games at 1920x1200. Usually I'm forced to play with middle range graphic settings to keep the higher resolution. example: far cry 2 uses very high settings and the benchmark lows average is in the mid to high 20's which is just playable. Crysis is forced to medium setting in more intense graphical situations.

 

[kirbyrj]

You might get a 10% increase at best depending on what games you're playing. I'd probably just hold out for a whole system update with i7 sometime in the spring.