Hi community,

 

I need some advice please on new hardware. Please note that I do not want to overclock, I just need to know if I have any other options outside of my planned ugrade. I have not kept up with hardware development.

 

Currently I am running an Intel i5 3570k Ivy Bridge at 3.4Ghz, with 8Gb RAM, a Geforce 660ti Video card, a 128Gb SSD for the sim, and Windows 7 64-bit.

 

At the moment, frame rates at 1920x1080 on my Samsung 27" monitor are nearly perfect, but I still get some lag with texture loading despite the fact that I have optimised my sim. As I see it, my only true option for an upgrade will be to buy a new motherboard, and an Intel i7 4790k Devils Canyon @ 4.00Ghz.

 

Is this my only option? Or are there any slightly cheaper CPU on the way that will give me a slight frame rate boost? The 4790k is an expensive option for me.

 

I appreciate any and all advice.

 

Many thanks,

AJ.

Get a good cooler and overclock your 3570K, you should be able to push it to around 4.4Ghz quite easily with a decent cooler. You said you didn't want to overclock but it really is very easy.

 

If you really want to upgrade then I'd wait a month or two until Intel release the new Skylake processors, rumours indicate that the i7 6700K will be replacing the 4790K and be roughly 15% faster at the same clocks speeds.

 

It also depends how much you want to spend; if you have lots of cash then go for an X99 platform upgrade with a 5960X cpu. $$$$$

To add to what Gordon has stated if money is tight I don't think that you will be happy with the performance gains upgrading to a 4790K would give you considering the costs involved. Like him I would seriously reconsider overclocking, you could possibly find the extra performance you need with your current CPU with no additional cost if you have a halfway decent replacement cooler and a motherboard that supports overclocking. It's no longer the black art it once was and motherboard designers now accept overclocking as a given, making the relevent BIOS settings easy to work with and restore if necessary. There are loads of "how to" guides and videos on the internet, just google your motherboard make & model with 3570K and you'll see what I mean.

 

Another option worth considering would be looking for a used 3770K CPU which would slot straight into your existing rig and give you the additional 4 logical processors (via hyperthreading) with a 100MHz jump in clock speed to 3.5GHz. But if you managed to find one and applied a marginal overclock you would end up with equivalent performance to a 4790K at stock speeds for significantly less outlay.

Always intel i7 with coded K at the end of the numbers to overclock.

It really will be worth your while to overclock what you have, you won't get any huge gains with a 4790k. Skylake is coming soon, and the 15% performance gains are starting to look more like 8% according to the usual sources. Having 6 or 8 cores is starting to look like the smart move. Not for running the Sim you are using, but to offload your running processes to leave more free room to run the Sim.