Upgrading CPU

[Sunja44]

I am thinking of upgrading my board and my CPU. At moment I use an i7 2600K and to get a real upgrade I guess I have to upgrade my board too, because it needs to be either a socket 2011 (Ivy bridge) or a socket 1150 (Haswell). I am leaning towards a socket 2011 Ivy CPU and to be specific, an i7 4930K. 

 

My question is the following:

 

I read several benchmark tests concerning the i7 4930k and it always has over 20% performance gain in compare to my old i7 2600k, but the 4930k is a 6c/12t cpu which might bring in its full potential only for games/applications which actually use 6 cores...otherwise the processor clock is the leading parameter for performance.

 

The performance gain by a 4930k might be useful anyways for some newer games and especially applications like photoshop, lightroom, blender, nifskope, 3dsmax etc. and of course alone 7zip (It's unbelievable how much I use alone 7zip since I mod Skyrim), but anybody here with experience concerning the performance gain for a heavily modded Skyrim (Skyrim uses just 2 cores as far as I know)?

[RitualClarity]

 

I am thinking of upgrading my board and my CPU. At moment I use an i7 2600K and to get a real upgrade I guess I have to upgrade my board too, because it needs to be either a socket 2011 (Ivy bridge) or a socket 1150 (Haswell). I am leaning towards a socket 2011 Ivy CPU and to be specific, an i7 4930K.

The 2011 socket allows for full x16 times 2 support for SLI and Crossfire. If you intend on using duel GPUs this is the solution you need for best possible performance provided the extra cost isn't prohibitive. 1150 socket (1150 processor connectors)  are limited to x8 speed when using SLI or Crossfire. I hear it is about a 4 to 8 % loss in performance.

 

..otherwise the processor clock is the leading parameter for performance.

Yes. In gaming Clock is KING!!!!!!

 

The performance gain by a 4930k might be useful anyways for some newer games and especially applications like photoshop, lightroom, blender, nifskope, 3dsmax etc. and of course alone 7zip (It's unbelievable how much I use alone 7zip since I mod Skyrim), but anybody here with experience concerning the performance gain for a heavily modded Skyrim ?

 If it is for graphics and multimedia and such .. Add as many cores as possible (cost wise) but still try to get the biggest clock (non-overclocked) speed as possible. Non-overclocked because some games ( older generally) don't like processors that have been heavily overclocked and sometimes is the cause of glitches and other problems. If you get a muticore processor ( can't really avoid it nowadays.) you can make changes to the .ini that can limit the cores used and help performance of the game and most importantly stability.

 

(Skyrim uses just 2 cores as far as I know)?

Don't know how many cores Skyrim uses.

[Sunja44]

The 2011 socket allows for full x16 times 2 support for SLI and Crossfire. If you intend on using duel GPUs this is the solution you need for best possible performance provided the extra cost isn't prohibitive. 1150 socket (1150 processor connectors)  are limited to x8 speed when using SLI or Crossfire. I hear it is about a 4 to 8 % loss in performance.

 

You think you might not learn something, because you think you already know the answers (just want to be on the safe side) and then such an info. I never thought about SLI compatibility for CPU sockets.

 

Clockwise there won't be much difference, 3.4 GHz both, but I heard the stable UEFI turbo mode for the i7-4930k makes the thing a bit faster as my i7-2600k.

 

I use a Geforce GTX Titan SLI system and I guess the decision is made. Socket 2011 will be it (maybe even the bigger brother, the i7-4960K...). Thx for the priceless info.

[RitualClarity]

Well glad I could help.

[chevyowner]

Unless you are set on a 6 core CPU the 4820K would be a good quad core choice for the 2011 socket.

Also there is no 4960K, but there is a 4960X for about $1,000.00USD.

[Rayblue]

 

 

Don't know how many cores Skyrim uses.

 

Depends on how you look at Ewi's .ini files, which supposedly allows the game engine to use more cores.