I took the plunge..

[Dan3345]

Weeks ago I was asking around about Intel because I was fed up with all the lousy performance I got out of my 1100T and looking at all the benchmarks of a simple i5 2500K kicking its ass in the gaming performance areas.

 

I talked with a few of you here about what would be the best route for upgrades and making the switch. How it could be done, what I could expect, what I should buy etc..etc..

 

Well my birthday came and went and with a bit of extra cash and an urge to blow it all on something I went into my local Fry's Electronics and bought an i5 2500K, and an H80 cooler to go with it.

 

My parents had bought me the motherboard for my birthday. I got this badboy.

 

So first off I want to talk about the motherboard. This thing is so fantastic. Its loaded with so many features, that a lot I thought would be gimmicks but turned out to be awesome. One such gimmick was UEFI, but now that I have it, I can't imagine going back to the standard BIOS software.

 

I don't want to write to much about it, because I think the board speaks for itself. I will say though that my only complaint is that the debug LED code reader, is all the way at the bottom. My phantom has a sidepanel window so I can see in, but the LED is still too low so the only way to see it is to open the case. Not a huge problem considering I haven't actually had a problem, but if I do, I can't simply look in and diagnose it, I have to open the case. But all this just makes me sound really lazy...

 

So onto the CPU and my performance.

 

Mind you this is me coming from an 1100T which was AMD's flagship processor, before FX came out. But FX is total crap so we'll just say it still is the flagship to make AMD look a little better.

 

Anyways in skyrim with 2 6950 2gb's in xfire and the 1100T and the settings put to High, I would average about 40 fps. It would rise and fall all the time, with the primary cause being large amounts of NPC's and shadows. So you can imagine any town no matter how small was an FPS killer, at least for me. And now your probably thinking, "Well 40 fps is very playable." And your right it is, but when it goes from 60-70 all the way down to 27-40 in seconds and it does it very frequently, well..I get headaches. Bad ones.

 

Now here is where it gets interesting. Today after finishing installing everything, and booting up skyrim, I wandered around Riverwood in a new game. Riverwood is used as my own benchmarking zone for skyrim. It has enough NPC's out and about in the daytime to cause a problem for the CPU should one arise, and enough objects to cast shadows to push the processor. With my 1100T if I stand outside Riverwood on the path that leads to the three skill stones, and I face the town, I get 34 FPS. Look away, and it shoots back up to 60.

 

Now on my intel i5, everywhere in Riverwood, is 60. Everywhere. Granted the i5 has already been overclocked to 4.2 ghz, but still. The 1100T couldn't even be overclocked past 3.9. And the OC for the i5 is just an auto OC tune done by the Asus OC Tuner in the bios. So I could probably push it even more, but its the only first day. Honestly I am in complete shock. I knew intel was great and worth the money but I didn't know it would be this good. Most of my problems in skyrim I blamed on the engine, and Bethesda.

 

And while there are still some legitimate complaints to be made about the gamebryo engine, it is apparent to me now that the performance I had with the 1100T, was simply a result of the 1100T.....

 

So yeah, I am almost embarrassed now to even admit I had an AMD processor. Now I understand people still buy them because they don't get headaches like I do with FPS drops, and so they simply don't care or don't have the money to spend. And good for them, to each their own.

 

But me? I am never going back. Ever. This is completely amazing.

 

And to those who may remember chatting with me about waiting for Ivy Bridge. I am building another system soon for my Dad, so he can have his own gaming computer. My mobo is ready for Ivy Bridge ( I specifically spoke with Asus people, and techies at newegg), and I think buying a new line of CPU's is like buying a new model of a car. You should never buy the first year, so my dad will be the test dummy for Ivy Bridge, and I will wait and see how it performs and how its priced.

 

Hope you enjoyed this pseudo review. :)

Edited April 7, 2012 by Dan3345

[Erik005]

Intel makes very good processors indeed with the next generation being 77W they are going to be even better.

 

The only thing is that Intel can't make good chipsets the x79 is a joke, no USB3.0 and just two sata6 ports. they need to improve their chipsets.

[Thor.]

Sounds like you have a bottleneck some where other the the 1100T witch i have and its a great cpu. Maybe you should look into your other hardware before you judge to quickly. I can also tell you with the tuf motherboards like the one i have and i think that one to has the OS bios. Mines the Sabertooth 990fx motherboard.

 

 

If your planning on spending 1000$ vs 200$ be my guessed, best bang for the buck.. Before you start spending more money then you need to.

 

I highly recommend it, the sabertooth 990fx motherboard :thumbsup:

 

http://www.tigerdire...8836&CatId=7246

 

Note its quad sli and quad crossfire

Edited April 7, 2012 by Thor.

[Dan3345]

Thor, I had the Gigabyte version of that very motherboard with my 1100T.

 

I am very familiar with bottlenecks and their causes, and I had that CPU for 8 months. I assure you, I did everything I could.

 

At one point just to test it, I borrowed my friends 520gb SSD and loaded windows 7 onto it, and began using it as my C Drive. Load times on games were shorter as you would expect but the parts of games that were known to be rendered by the CPU still lagged behind everything else.

 

The 1100T is a great multitasking CPU and for some games it actually did very well. Problem is it only did good on a select few that were actually optimized for it. So I am glad your happy with it, but I spent $190 bucks on that processor, and yesterday I spent $225 on i5. Not a big difference IMO.

[Thor.]

Have you tried oc'ing it with the Stock Turbo to 3.8ghz. It does wonders... No Bottleneck at all.

 

I also highly recommend one of these ssd hybrid drives

 

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148837

Save you a tun there, almost the same speed as a ssd, plus twice the storage space.

Edited April 8, 2012 by Thor.

[Dan3345]

Lol Thor I appreciate the help and suggestions but I have already made the switch to Intel and couldn't be happier.

 

 

And why would I OC but leave the turbo at stock? That makes no sense. Unless I don't understand what you mean which is likely :P

 

I have a 1Tb Hitachi HDD.

 

Im now looking for an SSD to be used as a boot device and a cache.

[Thor.]

Turbo boost stock option i meant, the tuf motherboards have predefined settings for your default overclocking needs :teehee: meaning the 1100T is unlocked. Edited April 8, 2012 by Thor.

[pathi]

The only thing is that Intel can't make good chipsets the x79 is a joke, no USB3.0 and just two sata6 ports. they need to improve their chipsets.

[hoofhearted4]

The only thing is that Intel can't make good chipsets the x79 is a joke, no USB3.0 and just two sata6 ports. they need to improve their chipsets.

 

uhhh....im confused? i dont think there is a (new) board out there without USB3.0 on it. and most boards have 4 SATA 6 GB/s ports....unless your talking about a board directly manufactured by intel, that you would get in a $500 rig from Best Buy?

Edited April 10, 2012 by hoofhearted4

[Dan3345]

The only thing is that Intel can't make good chipsets the x79 is a joke, no USB3.0 and just two sata6 ports. they need to improve their chipsets.

 

uhhh....im confused? i dont there there is a (new) board out there without USB3.0 on it. and most boards have 4 SATA 6 GB/s ports....unless your talking about a board directly manufactured by intel, that you would get in a $500 rig from Best Buy?

lol thats exactly what I was going to say..