Considering a cpu upgrade......is it worth it?

[jcwagers]

Howdy folks! I'm currently running an Athlon X2 5400+(slightly overclocked to from 2.8ghz to 3ghz) and a Radeon 4870 512mb. I've been toying with the idea of upgrading a bit and I'd honestly just like some opinions if you all don't mind. The simplest upgrade would be to drop in a Phenom II 965 as my board will take it with a bios update. I'd consider pairing that with a 7870 or maybe a 7950 of some kind. Would it be worth upgrading from the 5400+ to the Phenom II or would it be simpler to just hold off and go a different route in a few months. I don't play a ton of games.....mainly older stuff and some Guild Wars 2 here lately. I haven't completely made up my mind as to whether I'll actually DO any upgrading.......I just wanted some opinions on what some of you thought. Thanks for taking the time to look this over.

-jc

 

[Yuriman]

Guild Wars 2 is quite CPU intensive from my testing, you would definitely benefit from a CPU upgrade. Your Athlon X2 would probably continue to provide framerate improvements in areas with a lot of people or action well past 5ghz.

I opted to get a 2nd HD4870, it was a great value to me at the time, but a either of the cards you mentioned would be fantastic paired with a Phenom II.

 

[Termie]

That would be a gigantic upgrade. If you don't game much, the 7950 is serious overkill, and would potentially be bottlenecked by a stock 965 anyway.

 

[SPBHM]

tomshardware did a GW2 CPU test, the game really needs a fast CPU for good frame rate, the PII X4 would be a great upgrade, but it seems the game goes a lot better on a Core i5.

 

[jcwagers]

My motherboard is an Asus M3A78 Pro. The Asus website claims that it will support Phenom II 965 with just a bios upgrade but I could be wrong about that. The reason I was going to try for a 7950 was for longevity as much as anything. My current card is a visiontek 4870 512mb so it's getting a tad bit old even though it generally works well for my uses. I'd like to be able to turn some details up on GW2 and not have to run it on mostly low settings. That's just my thought process so far. None of this is set in stone......just wanting some opinions. I saw the Tom's test and saw the definite advantage of the i5 over basically all of the AMD offerings. I was just thinking of trying to squeeze a bit more life out of this system without having to shell out another $300-400 for an i5, mb, and ram.

 

[Yuriman]

Food for thought, this was posted yesterday in the Video Cards section.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2270271

BF3 is definitely more requiring than most games out there, but it shows some clear performance tiering. Guild Wars 2 will show similar tiering, though it probably doesn't need need nearly as much CPU as BF3.

 

[ShintaiDK]

GW2 can make my i5 3570K cry at times.

 

[ctsoth]

Food for thought, this was posted yesterday in the Video Cards section.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2270271

BF3 is definitely more requiring than most games out there, but it shows some clear performance tiering. Guild Wars 2 will show similar tiering, though it probably doesn't need need nearly as much CPU as BF3.

Look at resolution. Put that game at a real resolution and performance is flat across x4 processors, including bulldozer. Just drop in the best phenom you can and wait for haswell or vishera.

 

[Yuriman]

Look at resolution. Put that game at a real resolution and performance is flat across x4 processors, including bulldozer. Just drop in the best phenom you can and wait for haswell or vishera.

You think a Phenom II will be able to do better than 33 fps minimum / 45 average if you raise the resolution?

Simply put, no matter how much GPU you throw at a Phenom II, and no matter how much you drop graphical settings, you're not going to get any more FPS.

 

[Spjut]

Worth to note is that that benchmark is with the "old" GTX 580, the difference is going to be even bigger with a more powerful GPU

 

[ctsoth]

You think a Phenom II will be able to do better than 33 fps minimum / 45 average if you raise the resolution?

Simply put, no matter how much GPU you throw at a Phenom II, and no matter how much you drop graphical settings, you're not going to get any more FPS.

Your right, you are not going to get higher FPS. Battlefield 3 is stagnant across cpus with four or more cores, at high settings, as far as frame rate goes. Even an fx-4100 downclocked to 2 ghz sees almost no performance degradation. I'll update with benchmarks when I can find them, I wish everyone who thinks BF3 is the most cpu pwnz game in the world would look at them.

Found: http://www.techspot.com/review/458-battlefield-3-performance/page7.html

OP could really just switch to an A2x4. The reason I recommend such an upgrade, as 2013 is going to be a very good year for cpus, and significant upgrades at this point I view as unwise. If you can wait, do.

 

[Yuriman]

Worth to note is that that benchmark is with the "old" GTX 580, the difference is going to be even bigger with a more powerful GPU

Not really, the idea behind that particular benchmark was to set the graphics low enough that they weren't a factor. 45fps is all a Phenom II can manage with all the GPU power in the world in this game.

 

[Yuriman]

Your right, you are not going to get higher FPS. Battlefield 3 is stagnant across cpus with four or more cores, at high settings, as far as frame rate goes. Even an fx-4100 downclocked to 2 ghz sees almost no performance degradation. I'll update with benchmarks when I can find them, I wish everyone who thinks BF3 is the most cpu pwnz game in the world would look at them.

Are these single player benchmarks or 64 player multiplyer server benches?

 

[ctsoth]

Are these single player benchmarks or 64 player multiplyer server benches?

Ah, appears to be single player, which translates to -> I loose

 

[Spjut]

Not really, the idea behind that particular benchmark was to set the graphics low enough that they weren't a factor. 45fps is all a Phenom II can manage with all the GPU power in the world in this game.

´
Yeah bad phrasing from my part, meant that the "lost performance" will be even greater with a more powerful GPU

 

[Face2Face]

Wait and build an Intel Rig. This is coming from a Phenom II owner. Don't put anymore money into a dead platform. I am trying to wait for Haswell, but the CompUSA 2500K deal has got me tempted.... must resist. The Phenom II has been great for the most part but it's getting long in the tooth, your better off going Intel when you can afford it.

 

[Cozarkian]

Someone posted this in another thread:

It doesn't show the Phenom II, but it does give an idea of CPU performance in GW2.

 

[2is]

I'd say it was worth it many years ago, and even more so now.

 

[LoneNinja]

Someone posted this in another thread:


It doesn't show the Phenom II, but it does give an idea of CPU performance in GW2.

Llano should be close enough to represent Phenom II, at least they're both built on the k10 arch.

Sad that a game that can clearly utilize multiple cores and every AMD processor is still below an Intel Pentium Dual Core. lol

 

[guskline]

Could you tell us an approximate amount of $$ you have for the upgrade? It will assist on recommendations.

 

[jcwagers]

To be honest, I don't have a specific budget in mind. I was just trying to get some opinions on whether or not the upgrade I mentioned would be worthwhile or if I should just wait. I don't know for sure that I'll actually upgrade anything at this time. I was honestly just toying with the idea and wanted to throw it out there for some opinions. My current system will get me through barring any component failures in the distant future. Thanks to all of you for taking the time to give some opinions. I appreciate it very much!

 

[Hatisherrif]

You think a Phenom II will be able to do better than 33 fps minimum / 45 average if you raise the resolution?

Simply put, no matter how much GPU you throw at a Phenom II, and no matter how much you drop graphical settings, you're not going to get any more FPS.

Yeah, if you want to play on 1024x768, a Phenom II is terrible.

 

[Yuriman]

Yeah, if you want to play on 1024x768, a Phenom II is terrible.

Gotcha. Because raising the resolution will improve your framerate. Makes perfect sense.


EDIT: A PII 965 is about as fast per clock in games as a Core2 Quad Q6600.

Core2Quad was released in fall of 2006 and was two Core2Duo's on the same package. I have one in my 2nd rig, I know exactly how limiting it is in games.

 

[FalseChristian]

Will my i5 2500K overclocked to 4.5GHz and 2 GTX 460 1GB overclocked to 870/1740/4000 run this resource-hog game or what?

Should I upgrade to Ivy Bridge and 2 GTX 670s in SLI?

Thank you.

 

[Mallibu]

.

Interesting graph. Ain't that the game that AMD fans swore it run better on FX than i5?