Recommend an upgrade?

03-03-2013, 10:35 AM #1

Hey! I'm new to the forum, but not the program! (I Heart

it)

However, I still have a few questions.
(first) my specs are currently:

Core i-3 2100 @ 3.1GHz
AMD HD Radeon 7750
Lexar 4GB DDR3 RAM
Asus H61 MicroATX
Windowx XP x86 Confused

ALL games I have played except GH3 run at good speeds up to 2.5x @ 1680x1050 (wind waker runs 4xAA Big Grin

)
Brawl lags with 4 players all the time (no matter the graphic enhancements), and efb to RAM causes MAJOR lag in most games.

Question 1: To stop the Brawl lag should I upgrade the CPU?

Question 2: What would you recommend I upgrade; the CPU (to an Ivy Bridge i-5) or the GPU (to a GTX 660)???
Question 3: To speed up efb to RAM, do I upgrade the RAM (and OS Dodgy

)???

Question 4: Is the x64 bit version THAT much faster??

If you can answer one (or all) of my questions, you are AWESOME! (andthankyouveryverymuch!!!)
Thanks in advance,
tdude10

**LordVador** · 03-03-2013, 10:42 AM #2

1: yes
2: CPU
3: CPU
4: slightly faster

**admin89** · 03-03-2013, 11:04 AM #3

You should wait for next generation Haswell CPU in June 2013

Ness · 03-03-2013, 01:11 PM #4

(03-03-2013, 11:04 AM)admin89 Wrote: You should wait for next generation Haswell CPU in June 2013

No. No you shouldn't. Those won't be out until then for one thing, and they won't be worth it at all. Intel themselves have said the performance increase is less then 8%, and it's mostly focusing on integrated graphics (probably to go up against Trinity and Llano) Ivy Bridge itself only improved 15-20% I believe from Sandy Bridge, so get a 3570K or a 3770K.

**NaturalViolence** · 03-03-2013, 01:22 PM #5

Ness Wrote:Intel themselves have said the performance increase is less then 8%

They have never said that. The expected performance increase is at least 10-15%.

Ness Wrote:and it's mostly focusing on integrated graphics (probably to go up against Trinity and Llano)

The IGP is one of many improvements. The new IGP design will not be significantly faster than the current design for most models.

Ness Wrote:Ivy Bridge itself only improved 15-20% I believe from Sandy Bridge, so get a 3570K or a 3770K.

Actually 10%.

Ness · (This post was last modified: 03-03-2013, 01:38 PM by Ness.)

(03-03-2013, 01:22 PM)NaturalViolence Wrote:
Ness Wrote:Intel themselves have said the performance increase is less then 8%

They have never said that. The expected performance increase is at least 10-15%.

Ness Wrote:and it's mostly focusing on integrated graphics (probably to go up against Trinity and Llano)

The IGP is one of many improvements. The new IGP design will not be significantly faster than the current design for most models.

Ness Wrote:Ivy Bridge itself only improved 15-20% I believe from Sandy Bridge, so get a 3570K or a 3770K.

Actually 10%.

Well, it was all from the top of my head. Still, an i5 or i7 Ivy Bridge will be big enough of an upgrade from an i3 Sandy.

Oh, and btw, I'd really suggest upgrading to Windows 7 x64. The difference isn't too big but you can't even use all of your RAM with x86, and Windows 7 generally has much, much better gaming performance (I think it's at least a 15 FPS difference) Whatever you do though, don't get Windows XP x64 - that has horrible gaming performance for whatever reason.

**admin89** · 03-03-2013, 01:39 PM #7

@Ness
You do know Haswell is tock while Ivy Bridge is tick , right ? Tock > Tick

**NaturalViolence** · (This post was last modified: 03-03-2013, 01:45 PM by NaturalViolence.)

Ness Wrote:Well, it was all from the top of my head. Still, an i5 or i7 Ivy Bridge will be big enough of an upgrade from an i3 Sandy.

Depends which model. If you're upgrading to a similar price bracket model then no. If you're upgrading from a low or midrange sandy bridge to a high end ivy bridge then maybe. Like I said each model is a 10% bump in performance over the previous sandy bridge model that it replaces. Which historically is one of the smallest increases in cpu performance from one generation to the next.

Ness Wrote:Oh, and btw, I'd really suggest upgrading to Windows 7 x64. The difference isn't too big

For dolphin and other applications that benefit from a larger register file it is a big difference.

Ness Wrote:Windows 7 generally has much, much better gaming performance (I think it's at least a 15 FPS difference)

If you're comparing x86 win xp against x86 win 7 then the difference is very small if any.

Ness Wrote:Whatever you do though, don't get Windows XP x64 - that has horrible gaming performance for whatever reason.

Yes. It's because win xp x64 drivers are generally terrible.

Ness · 03-03-2013, 01:41 PM #9

(03-03-2013, 01:39 PM)admin89 Wrote: @Ness
You do know Haswell is tock while Ivy Bridge is tick , right ? Tock > Tick

Yeah but, quite frankly I don't understand much of that. Like I said, Ivy Bridge would be good enough of a performance jump for him, and I doubt he wants to wait until June. It's still appalling to me that an i3 Sandy has any problems on Dolphin (specifically Brawl, a fairly easy game to emulate)

**NaturalViolence** · 03-03-2013, 01:47 PM **#10**

Well he is trying to run it in 4 player mode. I really don't think he should spend hundreds of dollars on a cpu upgrade that will only net him a small increase now when if he just waits a couple of months he'll see a much larger jump in performance for the same amount of money.