Worth upgrading from i7-930 to 2600k??

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Mr.SoapPowder

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i was thinking on upgrading from my i7 930 to a 2600k.

just wondering if its worthwhile upgrading to it or just hanging on to what i got.

im currently running

I7-930 OC 4.2ghz
ASUS R3E
Gskill Ripjaw 3x4gb 1333 9-9-9-24
GTX 480 at 840/1680/2000
Rosewill 1KW power supply
OCZ Agility 3 60GB SSD
300GB Velociraptor
Creative Soundblaster Titanium
currently liquid cooling with all koolance blocks on CPU GPU and MOBO

now my thought is to sell the mobo ram and processor and upgrading to the maximus 4
and 2600k

Is it worth doing or just wait for the newer ones?
 
If you're selling and parting out, let me know how much you want for the motherboard ;)

Honestly, I would say just hang on to what you've got. In gaming, it makes no difference between a 930 at 4.2 and a 2600k at 4.8, especially with just a single GTX 480. Unless you manage to get a spectacular deal on a 2600k.
 
crustybooger said:
At this point you're just better off waiting for ivy bridge.
Click to expand...

Or Haswell. It's only one more year beyond Ivy :D

I really think we're not going to see a significant increase in overclock headroom with Ivy. It takes more than just a die shrink to make a core operate at faster frequencies - you have to tweak cache latencies and pipelines, and I seriously doubt Intel would waste their time when the shipping speeds are almost the same. And it's already confirmed by official Intel benchmarks that the average per-clock performance increase is around %5-7 versus SB.
 
I would say wait for Haswell before upgrading. That's what I'm doing and I have a Q9450.
 
i7 930? No, a 2600K isn't going to be a noticeable improvement for you. I'd at least wait for Ivy Bridge in about 3 months, and if you can (should be perfectly doable, as a i7 930 is still a very solid chip) skip it (only marginal improvements, it's looking like) and wait for Haswell as some have jokingly suggested. Only, I'm completely serious. No reason to hand over cash and get so little in return.

What makes you select the Maximus IV? I confess I sometimes have crazy thoughts and consider getting one myself (I've never owned an ASUS ROG series board, though my previous board was a P5Q Deluxe which was very near one) but ever time I look at featureset and realize that unless I'm running 3 GPUs it really brings nothing new to the table, I managed to put the credit card down and am happier for it. There are plenty of really solid boards in the $150-200 range, no reason to look at $300-350 boards anymore.
 
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i'm in a similar pickle... all i really want from the upgrade is SATA 3 support... the Intel kind, not cheapo half-ass Marvell that i could have from the reasonably priced current gen x58's floating around.

but i know there will be very little performance increase as far as gaming goes.

guess i'll sit on SATA 2 and wait it out. but missing +~250mbps read benchmark just bugs me
 
I would wait Ivy Bridge or Hasewell, if I had a i7-930 I would not upgraded to a 1155, I was using a 775 CD2 before ;( so I made the jump.
 
I just did something similar, 920->2600k, in terms of heat, it's a huge difference =p. performance feels the same in about everything.
 
well i picked the maximus because it seems the closest to a r3e as far as looks and features are concerned.
and yes it definately is an itch. i keep seeing all these 3dmark vantage scores and im thinkin wow i think im missing something. ive seen people reach like 70k score on the cpu and im at like 30k rounded up.
so thats why i wanted to know if its actually worth while.
but im thinking ill hold on to it for now and wait for the hasewell.

thank you for all your input guys.
P.S. i would love to upgrade my porshe to a ferrarri.
 
Wait just a couple months for IB and then pair it with either an AMD 7xxx or nVidia Kepler.
 
bAMtan2 said:
hey guys should I upgrade my porsche to a ferrarri??????
Click to expand...

Everyone would love to. The question always is, is it worth it? And the answer to that question will always vary, depending on the person.
 
i would upgrade to ivy when it is released, it has been delayed, but why go SB when u can go IVy for just another 2month wait time?
 
Porsche to Ferrari isn't an upgrade. You're going from beautiful, well built, German engineered performance to terribly built, unreliable, tacky, overpriced Italian guesswork. ;)
 
Definitely wait to see how IB performs and you may even want to wait for IB-E or Haswell depending on how IB is. But i7-930 to 2600k is not going to give you much.
 
Well, I'd say go for it. Why? I sold my i7 920 to 2500k. WHat I gained? ABout 30fps more in SW:TOR. Also I was able to sell my 2nd 570, as one card with 2500k@4,3 ghz is more then enough.

What also I gained? WIth the change I gained about 400W less power consumption :) Lost the noise from the fans, that had to work hard to properly cool OCed 920 system.
 
MorgothPl said:
Well, I'd say go for it. Why? I sold my i7 920 to 2500k. WHat I gained? ABout 30fps more in SW:TOR. Also I was able to sell my 2nd 570, as one card with 2500k@4,3 ghz is more then enough.

What also I gained? WIth the change I gained about 400W less power consumption :) Lost the noise from the fans, that had to work hard to properly cool OCed 920 system.
Click to expand...
TBH, most of that change is thanks to getting rid of the second 570, not the cpu ;)
 
I'm in the same boat. I'm waiting to see how demanding games get when IB-E gets released, and if it will provide a significant improvement. Right now, the only real improvement is reduced heat and power consumption, which I don't care about because i use my computer to keep me warm at night (LOL CANADA).

So yeah, wait for IB to come out and see if you can find a true improvement. Haswell will probably be more dramatic though.
 
TehQuick said:
TBH, most of that change is thanks to getting rid of the second 570, not the cpu ;)
Click to expand...

you'd be surprised

overclocked to say 4.0ghz, the 920/930 will use more power OVER a 2600@ 4.8ghz than a GTX570 would use.

From [H] Bulldozer review
4.0 ghz 920 load 505w
4.8ghz 2600k load 275w
4.8ghz 2500k Load 248w

(system power @ the wall)
:) so... 257w more @ load over a 2500k which is clocked 800mhz higher.. That is a considerable amount of power and heat.
 
Digital Viper-X- said:
you'd be surprised

overclocked to say 4.0ghz, the 920/930 will use more power OVER a 2600@ 4.8ghz than a GTX570 would use.

From [H] Bulldozer review
4.0 ghz 920 load 505w
4.8ghz 2600k load 275w
4.8ghz 2500k Load 248w

(system power @ the wall)
:) so... 257w more @ load over a 2500k which is clocked 800mhz higher.. That is a considerable amount of power and heat.
Click to expand...

You're also forgetting the 30 or so watts that the X58 chipset is consuming. :p :D

X58 + i7 900's are power PIGS. Which is why they were king for over 2 years.
 
Digital Viper-X- said:
you'd be surprised

overclocked to say 4.0ghz, the 920/930 will use more power OVER a 2600@ 4.8ghz than a GTX570 would use.

From [H] Bulldozer review
4.0 ghz 920 load 505w
4.8ghz 2600k load 275w
4.8ghz 2500k Load 248w

(system power @ the wall)
:) so... 257w more @ load over a 2500k which is clocked 800mhz higher.. That is a considerable amount of power and heat.
Click to expand...

Got a link to the review or does anyone have any other links to reviews with power usage?
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but most people are artificially limited to 50x multiplier on Sandy Bridge. You can pump in more voltage but you can't go past 50x. Perhaps Ivy Bridge will also have a similar multiplier cap, it's just that you'll have to use less voltage to get there.
 
allen5055 said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but most people are artificially limited to 50x multiplier on Sandy Bridge. You can pump in more voltage but you can't go past 50x. Perhaps Ivy Bridge will also have a similar multiplier cap, it's just that you'll have to use less voltage to get there.
Click to expand...

Sandy has a max multiplier of 57x:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sandy-bridge-overclocking-efficiency,2850-14.html

The reason chips top-out around 5 GHz is not because of any artificial limiting; the dies themselves are just not capable of more.
 
allen5055 said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but most people are artificially limited to 50x multiplier on Sandy Bridge. You can pump in more voltage but you can't go past 50x. Perhaps Ivy Bridge will also have a similar multiplier cap, it's just that you'll have to use less voltage to get there.
Click to expand...

defaultluser said:
Sandy has a max multiplier of 57x:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sandy-bridge-overclocking-efficiency,2850-14.html

The reason chips top-out around 5 GHz is not because of any artificial limiting; the dies themselves are just not capable of more.
Click to expand...

Yup, multiplier + bclk could theoretically put you significantly higher than 5.0ghz - its just the chips on average top out in the 4.8-5.2 range, and getting more than that is very much luck of the draw.
 
Digital Viper-X- said:
you'd be surprised

overclocked to say 4.0ghz, the 920/930 will use more power OVER a 2600@ 4.8ghz than a GTX570 would use.

From [H] Bulldozer review
4.0 ghz 920 load 505w
4.8ghz 2600k load 275w
4.8ghz 2500k Load 248w

(system power @ the wall)
:) so... 257w more @ load over a 2500k which is clocked 800mhz higher.. That is a considerable amount of power and heat.
Click to expand...

I had a 920 and those numbers are way off. There is no way it was pulling 500watts.

Whoever put that system together had all the power features turned off or clearly didn't know how to overclock a 920 or using a very old c0 stepping!
 
I'm in the same boat with you OP and even though I've been itching to upgrade for the past year I just won't until I get a solid 50% performance boost over my overclocked 920. Nehalem was such a jump in performance that its remained relevant in terms of sheer processing power over three years later. Intel has done a great job incrementally improving performance and lowering power intake, but there is nothing from a performance standpoint that you are missing by continuing to play the waiting game.
 
Maybe if you were doing something that needed the new instructions on the 2600k (AES, AVX), but at 4.2GHz your i7 930 is still plenty peppy and pretty comparable otherwise. Your i7 930 also has VT-d, which the 2600k doesn't, if you're ever thinking about running a bunch of VMs.

I went from a Q9550 to a 2500k and it was a big difference for me, but I could only get that to run at 3.6GHz 24/7 and the 2500k is happy at 4.5GHz. =)
 
Makaveli@BETA said:
I had a 920 and those numbers are way off. There is no way it was pulling 500watts.

Whoever put that system together had all the power features turned off or clearly didn't know how to overclock a 920 or using a very old c0 stepping!
Click to expand...

This, no idea how they measured but there's no way that's accurate. Assuming it's prime95, just CPU draw, that would mean that there's almost 300 more watts flowing through the 920. That's more than my system consumes under full CPU load.

2600k is definitely better in terms of heat and power, but not on that magnitude.
 
I'm still more than happy with my overclocked 920. Sure, there are better options out there...but it's scary how easy these things are to overclock and how high you can get them to go on air with a $25 HS/Fan.
It feels almost wrong to have the same CPU for so long, but the performance increases have been small as of late. I'm assuming Haswell will probably be the new getting off point for a lot of us.
 
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