AW17 Ranger - CPU upgrade worth it?

Hey guys

I've just revamped my AW17 by upgrading the GPU to a 980m and in the process of installing a 2nd SSD by replacing my optical drive with a HDD caddy. Eventually I guess I'll upgrade my puny 80Gb mSata SSD with a bigger drive as well, but that can wait.

I would like people's opinion here on whether it would make sense to upgrade my CPU. I am currently using an i7 4700. From a gaming perspective, I know that typically CPU have little to no impact. But there ARE exceptions. Exceptions that so far are games which I didn't play, like Battlefield 4 which I noticed in some benchmarks showed up to 10fps difference between CPU's like mine and MX for example.
I found some deals on eBay for 4930/40 MX for ~$400. It's not really a small amount but I'd be willing to upgrade if it's really worth it.
Is it possible that my 4700 could be a bottleneck for games in the near future?

Thanks!

 

If you are going to overclock I would say the MX is definitely worth it ... But from what I noticed here is that the 4930MX is "on average" more stable at higher clocks and dissipates less than compared to its more expensive brother the 4940MX. So try to stick to that one

 

Well I am still hesitating. I don't care much about overclocking. Based on additional research I did just now, people tend to recommend to stick to the 4910MQ, the CPU you happen to own (seen in your sig). But then practically everyone tends to recommend to get a 4700MQ and spend more on stuff like SSD or GPU (which I already did...).
So the general opinion is still : CPU doesn't matter at all when it comes to gaming.
I am really struggling to find actual benchmarks that show performance in games on different mobile CPU's. I would really like for someone to give me REAL figures. By negligible, are we talking 1-2fps difference? Or can that difference jump to 10fps in some games?

 

If you could get an additional stable +200 MHz on your CPU without overheating, you probably won't need the 4910

Personally using the 880m I have never had a situation where the CPU had 100% utilization and the GPU was low on utilization ... i.e. I was never bottlenecked by the CPU

Dunno about the 980m though

 

Purely for gaming, I don't know if the $400 would be worth. That's a lot of money for an extra 10fps in a few select titles.

 

Hi, just to add my input. I upgraded my CPU (see sig) as I found a deal I could not refuse. I didn't expect much from it as I had the same info as you - 'not really needed for top gaming'. So my expectations were low and indeed met. I used 3dmark 11 and XTU for benching and a bunch of in-game benchmarks before and after (with a decent OC) and honestly, way not worth the cash but it was burning a hole in my pocket Temp became an issue so @4.3 across the cores it was hitting 90c during the XTU bench and I had used Gelid Extreme, so now it needs liquid metal to go higher. It's not something I want to take on with a gaming rig.

As for which games get CPU bound I think it's often down to the use of physics. Plain flavor physics runs on the CPU while PhysX compliant code will run on the Nvidia dedicated chip. If you look at 3D mark they force CPU physics so impact results negatively for NV kitted machines. They claim it levels the playing field by removing dedicated, propriety hardware from comparisons. Hmm, guess since all I am interested in is gaming then a decent CPU, but not way up there, is fine . I may be wrong but I think that games with the NV sponsored logo use PhysX and AMD sponsored ones will use the CPU?

With the exception of a large SSD I think you have pretty much maxed that machine out for gaming. Laptop gaming is evolving - thankfully not going extinct looking at the latest generation of GPU's (200w desktop in MXM format) so probably better to start a savings plan for around a year's time .

Good luck.

 

Well I guess I have my answer! Thx for the input guys! Will save my money for something else then!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk