HD 7850 with Phenom II X4, cpu bottleneck?

[quadomatic]

I just upgraded my aging HD 5750 with a HD 7850. I'm running the Bioshock Infinite benchmark with the GPU clocked at different speeds, and it seems like the minimum FPS I get doesn't improve fairly substantially with a 45% core overclock, though the maximum FPS and average improve pretty substantially.

Is the reason the minimum FPS doesn't improve very substantially due to there being a CPU bottleneck? My CPU is roughly the equivalent of a Phenom II X4. I had always assumed that Intel CPUs were largely overkill for gaming nowadays, but is that not actually so?

 

[psolord]

Mins and Maxes are two split second measurements that are too little to have any significance. At least not without a proper graph that shows how much time is spent below 60fps, below 45fps and below 30fps anyway.

So besides the benchmark, how is your gaming man? Do you get a steady 60fps with reasonable settings or what? And what is your average, which is far more important.

 

[Termie]

The Unreal 3 engine used in Bioshock can be cpu limited with many video cards. You should test minimums in game rather than with the benchmark, but yes, it's probably your cpu. Intel chips are definitely no longer overkill.

Your processor is pretty old and will probably affect your gaming going forward.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Your CPU is to blame.

 

[SPBHM]

looking at this

it shows the PII X4 3.2GHz (with DDR3) with a low minimum FPS compared to the i5s,

yours have 200MHz less and DDR2 800 in single channel (?), so yes, I would think you will be CPU limited in some parts of the game,

 

[KingFatty]

One approach is to run a utility that can chart the CPU usage and GPU usage over time.

So you load those utilities and they will start charting the information. Then run your game or benchmark. Watch as one or the other chart, or both, hit 100%.

Ideally you can use dual monitors (or put the game in a window) to keep the charts visible during the test. Anyway, if you see the GPU is always under 100%, then your CPU is holding it back and it makes sense to upgrade.

But in your case, maybe seeing the chart you could tell if there are only very few times where the CPU is limiting you, maybe that's something you can live with. But if you are always holding back the GPU, then that can be mentally troublesome and push you to want to overclock or upgrade the CPU.

I tried this with Starcraft 2 HotS and at times the GPU or the CPU was maxing out depending what was happening at the time. So that's mentally acceptable to me, where my system isn't really lopsided in that game to favor one component or the other.

 

[quadomatic]

Bioshock Infinite benchmarks (because people had asked for fps averages and such):

Ultra settings, stock clocks:

Ultra settings, overclocked:

 

[skipsneeky2]

The Unreal 3 engine used in Bioshock can be cpu limited with many video cards. You should test minimums in game rather than with the benchmark, but yes, it's probably your cpu. Intel chips are definitely no longer overkill.

Your processor is pretty old and will probably affect your gaming going forward.

Termie is right about the Unreal engine and cpu limitations,i found in UT3 for example with the right settings and no aa,my gpu being a 7850 as well would deliver more frames then my i5 2500 non k can deliver at 1920x1200.

 

[quadomatic]

Termie is right about the Unreal engine and cpu limitations,i found in UT3 for example with the right settings and no aa,my gpu being a 7850 as well would deliver more frames then my i5 2500 non k can deliver at 1920x1200.

I wish a CPU upgrade weren't so expensive. I paid so little for my current CPU. It was a binned Phenom II X2 sold as an Athlon X2 5000+ for $68 2 years ago. I didn't have to buy new memory at the time either. Trying to upgrade now would cost a small fortune (these are total guesses, but I'd say at least $250 for the CPU, $80 for the motherboard, $50 for memory, and $50 for a new PSU).

 

[birthdaymonkey]

I wish a CPU upgrade weren't so expensive. I paid so little for my current CPU. It was a binned Phenom II X2 sold as an Athlon X2 5000+ for $68 2 years ago. I didn't have to buy new memory at the time either. Trying to upgrade now would cost a small fortune (these are total guesses, but I'd say at least $250 for the CPU, $80 for the motherboard, $50 for memory, and $50 for a new PSU).

By your description, that CPU doesn't even sound like a Phenom II. Binned Ph II X4 parts were sold as Ph II X2s, not Athlon X2s. I think you've got a previous generation Phenom I. At 3 GHz, it's a pretty anemic chip.

You would be looking at about the prices you indicated, although you probably wouldn't need the PSU unless yours is really old and no longer functioning properly. You could probably get away with spending $200 rather than $250 on the CPU.

 

[SPBHM]

the X2 5000+ (notice the absence of "64") was a strange CPU,
I think the stock clock was 2.2GHz, for 2 cores with 512k l2, and it was AM2+, in reality it was a Phenom II X4 (with no DDR3 support but 45nm, so it's one die that could have been used for a PII X4 920, or 940) with 2 cores and all the l3 disabled... so yes, you could unlock to 4 cores with 6Mb l3 just like a PII x4, but the multi was locked at 11x, and it's a pretty bad CPU for overclocking, I've seen some that couldn't even get pass 2.8GHz.

so yes, it was probably a poor quality but full Deneb.

if you keep your DDR2, the fastest you can go is PII X6... not a huge gain (but it can be pretty good with some OC and softwares that can use 6 cores)... so yes, unfortunately you need a new MB+CPU+MEM for a bigger gain...

 

[escrow4]

Games are now moving increasingly to requiring a modern quad. Wait till Haswell, then do a full rebuild with the 4570(K). Your current CPU is just too old and slow, even for an UE3 game.

 

[quadomatic]

the X2 5000+ (notice the absence of "64") was a strange CPU,
I think the stock clock was 2.2GHz, for 2 cores with 512k l2, and it was AM2+, in reality it was a Phenom II X4 (with no DDR3 support but 45nm, so it's one die that could have been used for a PII X4 920, or 940) with 2 cores and all the l3 disabled... so yes, you could unlock to 4 cores with 6Mb l3 just like a PII x4, but the multi was locked at 11x, and it's a pretty bad CPU for overclocking, I've seen some that couldn't even get pass 2.8GHz.

so yes, it was probably a poor quality but full Deneb.

if you keep your DDR2, the fastest you can go is PII X6... not a huge gain (but it can be pretty good with some OC and softwares that can use 6 cores)... so yes, unfortunately you need a new MB+CPU+MEM for a bigger gain...

Bingo

Initially I think I was only able to get it to 2.6 GHz. I bought some faster DDR2 memory and then I was able to push it a bit farther to 2.93 GHz. I think if I were to buy 4 sticks of 1066 MHz DDR2, then I might be able to raise the FSB a bit more.

 

[Shamrock]

In one word, YES.

I have the Phenom II 955BE and a Sapphire 7850 OC. When I overclock my CPU, my framerate goes up (even the minimums). I OC my 955 to 3.6Ghz (stock is 3.2), I can gain around 8-13 fps in Skyrim.

 

[daveybrat]

Your motherboard should handle this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...irtualParent=1

AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor HDZ965FBGMBOX

Would be a nice cheap upgrade from your older cpu with a lot more cache memory and horsepower and should work in your motherboard. $99.99 upgrade to keep you going a little longer.

 

[quadomatic]

Your motherboard should handle this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...irtualParent=1

AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor HDZ965FBGMBOX

Would be a nice cheap upgrade from your older cpu with a lot more cache memory and horsepower and should work in your motherboard. $99.99 upgrade to keep you going a little longer.

My CPU has the same amount of cache. When I tried overclocking with only my 1066 MHz stick of Corsair Dominator in the board, I was able to get the CPU to 3.3 GHz without much effort. I could buy more DDR2 and push this further rather than dropping $100 on a new CPU, but high speed DDR2 isn't even that cheap.

 

[quadomatic]

Hm, new overclock:

It was stable after close to 6 hours of Prime95, so I guess this is good to go then.

The system won't post if the FSB is set to 310. It posts at 305, but I dropped it down to 300 just to be safe. I'm curious as to whether buying faster memory would actually result in being able to get over that wall.

 

[daveybrat]

It might, but the PII 965 will probably overclock to 3.8-4.0GHz with a simple multiplier adjustment and would only be slightly more expensive than buying fast DDR2 memory which is a waste of money.

Just my .02

 

[SPBHM]

Hm, new overclock:

It was stable after close to 6 hours of Prime95, so I guess this is good to go then.

The system won't post if the FSB is set to 310. It posts at 305, but I dropped it down to 300 just to be safe. I'm curious as to whether buying faster memory would actually result in being able to get over that wall.

I think the memory clock is not directly a result of the "FSB" for the PII, so you can probably run with a lower divider? you can also try a lower multiplier for the NB clock,