Considering upgrading to an i7 3930k from an i7 2600k

[GamePlayer]

Lately I've been considering upgrading to an i7 3930k and a new motherboard. I've been experiencing occasional frame rate drops in Batman Arkham City inside the court when battling the bad guys and during the Mr. Freeze battle, and a bit of quick stutters when entering rooms after opening a door. I don't keep my system overclocked for gaming or normal use althout I oc'd the turbo clocks to 4.5 GHz at 1.27v core voltage but the Intel Extreme Tuning CPU stress test failed somewhere within 5 hours of running. Would the additional memory bandwidth and the 2 additional cores of the i7 3930k fix these slow downs I was getting in this game? Should I wait for Ivy Bridge and then upgrade to the next Nvidia high-end single GPU card?

[will_perdikakis]

I run Batman:AC on a vanilla i7 at 3.4GHz, 3150 x 1680 resolution, full details (no DX11) on an 7970.

No stutter, no slow-downs (I have fraps running constantly).

[icemanchilled]

Lately I've been considering upgrading to an i7 3930k and a new motherboard. I've been experiencing occasional frame rate drops in Batman Arkham City inside the court when battling the bad guys and during the Mr. Freeze battle, and a bit of quick stutters when entering rooms after opening a door. I don't keep my system overclocked for gaming or normal use althout I oc'd the turbo clocks to 4.5 GHz at 1.27v core voltage but the Intel Extreme Tuning CPU stress test failed somewhere within 5 hours of running. Would the additional memory bandwidth and the 2 additional cores of the i7 3930k fix these slow downs I was getting in this game? Should I wait for Ivy Bridge and then upgrade to the next Nvidia high-end single GPU card?

It's the PhysX effects on that level slowing you down, so upgrading your CPU would have no effect on performance in that particular level. Your choices are either to turn off PhysX completely in the options, or buy a second GPU and use one as a dedicated PhysX card.


EDIT:

Personally, i wouldn't bother doing either, that 580 is still a beefy, fast card, as is your CPU. Just grit your teeth and put up with it for that one level, it's not worth buying any type of upgrade just for that one single part of one game.

[CorrupT88]

IMO upgrading from a 4.5ghz i7 is monumentally pointless... But if you have loads of money and must do it then why not

[dracom_ma]

Not worth it unless you run CPU intensive applications. And I would never consider a game cpu intensive enough to warrant this kind of upgrade.

When I went to a 3930k, I literally doubled the performance of the software I was using, so it was well worth the upgrade for me.

[dropkickmurphy82]

That upgrade would be for e-peen only, it's up to you.

[Thresher]

When I went to a 3930k, I literally doubled the performance of the software I was using, so it was well worth the upgrade for me.

What did you upgrade from?

[dracom_ma]

What did you upgrade from?

i7 920 (CO) at 4.1GHz -> 3930k at currently 4.6GHz. I plan on raising that once my VRM waterblock comes in.

When I was encoding some of my movies, I went from 20-25fps (max CPU usage) on the 920 to being able to do 45-55fps with the 3930k at essentially the same encoding settings. Higher clocks, more cores, and AVX definitely add up.