alt Hacker NewsBecause number bigger doesn’t translate to higher perceived performance…
The only compelling reason that I want to upgrade my Sandy Lake chip is AVX2.
So it is instruction set not perf, sure there will be improved performance but most of the things that are actually performance issues is already handed off to the GPU.
On that note probably rebar and PCIe4 but those aren’t dramatic differences, if CPU is really a problem (renders/compilation) then it gets offloaded to different hardware.
Replies
Agreed that if you’re not using NVMe (as example), that non-CPU upgrade will translate into the biggest perceived benefit.
Then again, not many Sandy Bridge mobo supported NVMe.
I went from a Sandy Bridge (i5 2500k) to a Ryzen 9 3950x, and the perceived performance improvement was insane. You also have to take into account RAM and PCIe generation bumps, NVMe, etc.
> Because number bigger doesn’t translate to higher perceived performance…
When the numbers are that far apart, there is definitely room to perceive a performance improvement.
2011 era hardware is dramatically slower than what’s available in 2025. I go back and use a machine that is less than 10 years old occasionally and it’s surprising how much less responsive it feels, even with a modern high speed SSD drive installed.
Some people just aren’t sensitive to slow systems. Honestly a great place to be because it’s much cheaper that way. However, there is definitely a speed difference between a 2011 system and a 2025 system.