HD 7870 Bottleneck

[Strife622]

Hey all,

My Current setup

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5800+
Cooler: Hyper 212 EVO
GPU: HIS 7870 ICEQ ( Arriving Today )
MOBO: XFX MIA78S8209 AM2+/AM2
HDD : Western Digital 160GB 5400RPM
RAM: 4GB Gskill DDR2-800
Power Supply: Ultra LS Series 600W
Case: NZXT Guardian

My goal: To play most games at decent FPS

My intention: To upgrade a few components in my system

Now I've already bought the video card ($75). The next obvious move is to upgrade my CPU. Then maybe a SSD. Possibly a new case in the near future.

My mobo can only handle up to 95W CPU's

And I've narrowed it down to these 5 and am wondering which of these CPU's I can expect to have the least amount of bottleneck with.

1) Phenom II X6 1055T (95W version)
2) Athlon II X4 650
3) Phenom II X4 850
4) Phenom II X4 960T
5) Phenom II X4 925

Lastly I can overclock and am willing to. I was also wondering if I get the max wattage cpu for my board and THEN overclock, would it be a bad thing.

Thanks in advance for any advice

Peace

 

[Deders]

Don't go for anything less than a Phenom II, the original phenom wasn't that much faster than your current CPU, and the athlon would be the same, just without as much cache.

The 965 is a decent chip and overclocks well. The 6 core is less likely to overclock as well and in the current state of play 4 faster cores is better than 6 slower ones for gaming.

 

[Strife622]

Sorry I should have corrected that. They all are Phenom II/Athlon II. And thank you for the recommendation but that processor only comes in 140W and 125W, both of which my board can't run.

But yea the x6 x4 thing makes sense. I't's probably better to have the higher clock than core count. Anyone have any idea which of these CPU's has the highest potential for clock rate?

 

[AtenRa]

960T is a cut down 4-core Thuban version, this should have the highest possible OC. Those could reach 4GHz+ fairly easily with a good mobo.

 

[Strife622]

I was leaning towards the 960T as well AtenRa. I did a bunch of hunting around for prices and such and the 960T was the second cheapest @ 85.00 with free shipping on ebay.

 

[jacktesterson]

I would go 960T

 

[AtenRa]

I would also recommend you sell your current mobo+CPU+ Memory and go for a new setup. If you are going to spend 85 for the 960T alone, then maybe you should consider a new setup with a low end quad core like Athlon II 860K + FM2+ mobo.

 

[Strife622]

True, plus that 860K brand new is $1 cheaper than an older, less powerful, used 960T. So then comes the question maybe it's better to just drop another 150 on a new board and memory. Which would have an upgrade path and be faster. But if I did that, i'd rather do the whole sha bang ( case,power supply, SSD, liquid cooling). Although as it stands today, I'm not interested in overhauling the whole comp. Solely because of lack of money.

How terrible would my FPS be if I left my CPU in with my 7870 and waited until I had the money to upgrade it all?