Upgrading system... Should I?

[NaRu]

Don't upgrade. Even when Ivy Bridge comes out don't upgrade. Your computer will last for another 3 years. Maybe Ivy Bridge E would be a better choice for you for an upgrade and wait for Nvidia 800 series (700 series would be the same as the 600 chip but smaller)\

I still have my i7 920 and I wasn't impressed with Sandy Bridge E. So far with Ivy Bridge I still won't purchase it. I might get Ivy Bridge E but even that might not happen. The only time I would upgrade now is if something fails in my system (mobo, cpu, etc)

[kitamesume]

Haswell by 2013 would be a beast of an upgrade if you decide to stick with the current rig for a few years, other than that IVB-E would be your best bet.

SNB-E vs SNB-i5 doesn't really have that much of a difference in performance to cover up the whole ridiculous price difference.

Edit: Haswell should have an 8core variety on their line-up, with HT thats 16threads at once.

[HSSDamian]

I'll still be upgrading to an Ivy Bridge processor and a GTX680. I'll upgrade again once the following generation hardware is released, esp. the apparent haswell processor line (.. if I do manage to make time for some serious video editing). I'm really not impressed with my current GTX570, I'm not too happy with the i5 2500k either. Must upgrade ASAP, waiting is unacceptable!

I do wonder where all the hype about the GTX570 came from, it struggles with WoW in Orgrimmar. I feel sorry for the people who are proud of their 550/560Ti...
EDIT: I'll be upgrading to an i7 3770k, perhaps an Asus Sabertooth z77 and a GTX680, perhaps adding more RAM considering I have 20% ram use (of my 16GB) already, with nothing but system processes running.

[vuzedome]

What? Are you kidding me?
I have a GTX460 and it is smoking everything I throw at it at full HD with all the bells and whistles turned on.
What do you consider acceptable performance?
Anything above 30FPS is decent, above 40FPS is smoother than your balls rubbing each other and if you can hit 60FPS you should be satisfied.
All those silly scores on reviews with >80FPS is unrealistic for a consumer, that's enthusiast level.
Those proud owners of 550/560 have every reason to be proud, they pay good price for good performance, you just have a deeper wallet which allows you to buy the nightmarish price to performance ratio of a GTX570.
Why didn't you go all the way with a GTX580 in the first place?

[HSSDamian]

What do you consider acceptable performance?

At least a solid 60FPS. I can really tell the difference when something drops from 60 down to 30-40, and although when I look at it, it's still running at an OK rate, I feel as though I'm watching a slideshow. That's just me.

Those proud owners of 550/560 have every reason to be proud, they pay good price for good performance

We'll see, I ordered another rig with an i7 2600k and a GTX550Ti mainly to test it out. I'm going to be handing that over to my mother, afterwards.

Why didn't you go all the way with a GTX580 in the first place?

Probably because when I purchased my PC, I was originally going to go with two HD6870s in crossfire.
Guy convinced me to go with a single GTX570 and I hadn't done my research on nVidia cards, as I never really was a fan, so I just quickly looked at some benchmark scores and the GTX570 outperformed a single HD6870, and I didn't exactly want Dual GPUs that much either. Thus I decided to take a GTX570. The GTX580 would have cost me more anyway, and I'd still replace it considering it's only slightly better than the GTX570.

Thinking about it further, I might go for 2 GTX 680s, perhaps even 4-Way SLI if I have the money to spare, just for some futureproofing on the GPU.

[vuzedome]

Oh goodness, somebody slap me.
Well at least when nvidia release those new drivers with the adaptive v-sync, 30-40 FPS won't look like a slideshow to you anymore.

[costi]

I'll still be upgrading to an Ivy Bridge processor and a GTX680. I'll upgrade again once the following generation hardware is released, esp. the apparent haswell processor line (.. if I do manage to make time for some serious video editing). I'm really not impressed with my current GTX570, I'm not too happy with the i5 2500k either. Must upgrade ASAP, waiting is unacceptable!

More Ivy Bridge benchmarks - Sandybridge comparison. [Updated]

Summarize - Improvements from Sandy bridge to Ivy Bridge
3DMark 11.
3.4Ghz - 0.75% Improvement

3DMark Vantage
3.4Ghz - 3.47% Improvement

CineBench
3.4Ghz - 4.41% Improvement

SuperPi 32M
3.4Ghz - 3.37% Improvement

Wprime 1.55
3.4Ghz - 5.14% Improvement

Wprime 2.09
3.4Ghz - 4.71% Improvement

Handbrake
3.4Ghz - 7.39% Improvement

And they don't even overclock too well...

[kitamesume]

costi, wait, the guy is a render maniac, so a 4core vs 4core is invalid, try giving him a 6core vs 4core benches, preferably IVB too.

[NaRu]

costi, wait, the guy is a render maniac, so a 4core vs 4core is invalid, try giving him a 6core vs 4core benches, preferably IVB too.

You can't right now because intel is releasing Ivy Bridge mainstream first and next year might come out with Ivy Bridge E series which will have 6+ cores. Only thing you can compare with 6 cores is Sandy Bridge E which won't be a huge increase in performance.

Ivy Bridge mainstream CPUs will be more used in laptops instead of desktop. I would only upgrade to Ivy bridge for GPU performance if you don't want to have a dedicated GPU card. That's the main reason why I feel laptops will be what people will buy instead of changing their desktops.

There is a sample Intel Ivy Bridge 10 core chip being tested. The Ivy Bridge-EP/EX chip will be using the 2011 socket as well.