HELP - MB/CPU Upgrade for BF4 - AMD or Intel - Budget Conscious

[bob4432]

Need a MB/CPU upgrade and have been out of the CPU/MB loop for a while (year+). I can get a i7-3770K used lightly for $250 give or take (maybe a bit less), i5-3570K NIB for ~$200 (again, probably a bit less) but have not looked at used AMD and how they are comparing w/ BF4 from reputable sources. Already have 8GB of DDR3-1600 so that is covered and the 560ti is staying, so a sli board is in order as the 560tis are getting rather cheap and for me, atm, resources are heavily limited. This will be the hardest software on the computer, so if it can do this good, I am g2g w/ the other stuff I do.

Current rig in sig is not up to the task, like watching a slide show @ just 1024x768 w/ med or low settings. At that setting on a 28person map, probably medium in size, CPU is maxed and gpu is 1/2 used :\. Also, for cooling it will be a Zalman CNPS9500A.

The AMD prices are attractive but not if I am going to be watching a slide show again.

Obviously OCing is a yes, just not insane as I am going to stay on air and keep it comfortable and stable.

Will be running Win8.1. Would like to game as close to 1920x1200 as possible, the 569ti/s are 1GB so not sure where the new bottleneck will be after the CPU/MB upgrade.

Thanks for the input,
Bob

PS - Not a fanboy of either, fanboy of my wallet, have used both brands over the past 15+yrs of computing so don't let a brand skew your decision.

Also, why are the i2500K/i2600K both i5 & i7 holding their value so high on the resale - are they that good?

 

[BertolomeoDiaz]

i´d say go for the i7 3770k if you consider it a good deal over a new 4770k for 339$
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116901

if you trust the source, the 3770k will be almost as good
it´s for the older socket 1155 of course, not 1150, so you won´t get anything better in the future for that mobo
but that is questionable for socket 1150 as well, intel might be coming out only with soldered cpus for the next generation
i5 3570 k for gaming alone is also not much slower than i7, so worth considering
but then i´d go for 4670k for 239$, depending on how much you´d really have to pay for the 3570k
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116899

for a board, maybe something like this, socket 1155
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128544

fx 8350 is pretty competitive in bf4, too
but if you want to overclock that thing you need a very solid mainboard with good cooling

i have both a xeon e3 1230 v3 for socket 1150, i can really recommend that http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116906
(it´s pretty much like a i7 4770 without the k, not really overclockable, little lower clocks, cheaper)

and a fx8350 for socket am3+

both cpus are very good for gaming, the xeon is better

if you overclock a ivy bridge/haswell, even sandy bridge, fx8350 won´t be anywhere near the same numbers
but that is only true for lower resolutions or no anti aliasing
when you want much eye candy at 30-40fps both intel i5/i7 and amd 8core will be equal
if you go for min 60fps, reducing detail, you should go for intel
if you want max settings @ 60fps, sli 560ti won´t be good enough
neither will r9 270x

this is compatible with sli, generally, you need z77 chipset (socket 1155) and two slots with 16x or 8x pcie lanes,
seems like you know about sli and minimum specs
560ti sli should be fine

or you go with one r9 270x, that will be about equal at resolutions up to 1080p without much anti aliasing
the higher the resolution the better the r9 270x will perform in comparison
then there is the "mantle" thing by amd, it´s a new api, similar to dx11, which will debut soon for bf4 (first game that is gonna use it), there are no benches out yet
some prophecies go up to as much as 30% performance gain, but i doubt that figure,
but then again half as much would be pretty impressive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814202050

i have exactly this one, it´s pretty good for its price

i´d try it with one gtx560ti, then you´ll know what to expect from sli
if the second gtx 560ti is less than say 125$ it might be worth it
anything more, i´d go with r9 270x

the zalman cooler will fit both 1155 and 1150 boards and should be plenty potent enough for any of the aforementioned cpus
it´s definitely nice to look at

i have a cnps9900 LED

i5 2500k and i7 2600k have dies soldered to heat spreader (all sandy bridge)
ivy bridge (i5 3570k, i7 3770k) and haswell (4670k and 4770k) both have some kind of thermal paste inside of the heat spreader instead of soldering tin (is that the term? native german)
that´s why the sandy bridge cpus are much better for high overclock, due to thermal issues with the newer generations
that may be the answer, to why they are still pricey
a 2500k @ 5GHz can compete with haswell at 4.5GHz and run at the same temps (much or less, don´t know the exact figures)

 

[Ken g6]

It's hard to find a BF4 MP review, but I've been looking over this one and I'm not sure why you're not able to get 30FPS on your current hardware.

Have you installed all the latest BF4 patches? Are you not running Win8.1 on your current system? Are you seeing a lot of disk activity (swapping) when running BF4? Upgrading Windows and/or RAM might help - but the latter especially might not be worth it on your current system.

Also, realize that while one or two 560tis will help your graphics, they won't get to the Ultra level with only 1GB RAM. I think there were 560ti 2GBs, but they were rare.

 

[hackerballs]

Where you are going to find issues about trying to upgrade to 560 SLI is that you only have 1gig VRAM. BF4 recommends 3gigs VRAM. Even with 560SLI, you still only have 1gig VRAM. Just want to warn you that as the games become more VRAM dependent, you cannot get more out of these cards. I have this 1gig VRAM in dual GPU's in one of my rigs and it does show in BF4. No full Ultra

 

[monkeydelmagico]

4670k is around $220.- from newegg. Combined with ASrock z87 extreme for $115.- and you have a very solid basis for gaming rig. The 3570k is a buy if you can get for around $175.- otherwise I'd probably just get the newer version.

The i7 3770k is nice but i haven't seen a compelling reason to buy one just for gaming.

SLI with another 560ti is an option but I wouldn't spend more than around $60.- for one to experiment with. I was using 1gb vram up until a couple months ago and did not notice problems, but I don't play BF4 either.

 

[Thermalzeal]

I believe the newer FX cpu's don't experience the same bottle neck as the previous ones. If you are budget conscious, you'll enjoy the savings that AMD has to offer (as well as on the motherboard) and can throw the money into memory or a larger SSD which definitely have a larger performance impact.

 

[BertolomeoDiaz]

everybody should have an ssd, at least for operating system and the most used programs
the difference in response is astonishing

something like that
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820147247

 

[bob4432]

ATM I am running win7. I haven't upgraded to win8.1 because of the time and figured I would do it when I swapped out the mb/cpu. I am probably hitting the wall w/ 4GB of ram, but do not really want to put more $$ into DDR2, so kind of stuck in a lot of different places .

It's hard to find a BF4 MP review, but I've been looking over this one and I'm not sure why you're not able to get 30FPS on your current hardware.

Have you installed all the latest BF4 patches? Are you not running Win8.1 on your current system? Are you seeing a lot of disk activity (swapping) when running BF4? Upgrading Windows and/or RAM might help - but the latter especially might not be worth it on your current system.

Also, realize that while one or two 560tis will help your graphics, they won't get to the Ultra level with only 1GB RAM. I think there were 560ti 2GBs, but they were rare.

 

[bob4432]

Agree, a 120/180/256GB SSD would sure be nice, but atm it is not going to happen unfortunately

Appreciate the comment though.

everybody should have an ssd, at least for operating system and the most used programs
the difference in response is astonishing

something like that
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820147247

 

[BertolomeoDiaz]

sure, you can still get one later
they have been dropping in prices like double the size for the same buck every year

 

[mfenn]

ATM I am running win7. I haven't upgraded to win8.1 because of the time and figured I would do it when I swapped out the mb/cpu. I am probably hitting the wall w/ 4GB of ram, but do not really want to put more $$ into DDR2, so kind of stuck in a lot of different places .

Have you looked at the benchmarks that Ken posted? You should be getting much more than 30 FPS on low settings. Even a weak AMD dual-core (quad-module) can do a hundred FPS at the settings you've described.

 

[bob4432]

Thanks for reminding me of that benchmark, just re-read it. I don't know, maybe I am gaming strictly from the pagefile? I have a machine I need to move to a different case and when I do that I will take the 2GB of DDR2 in it and put it in the gaming machine (?) and see if that does something.

Also think about win8.1....and pay more attention to how much vram I am using. I will move up the res to 1920x1080 as in the benchmarks and see how bad mine does.

I was going to o/c my cpu but I figured where it is at now, even if I made it to 3.5GHz it probably will not make a difference. I think there is also a nvidia gpu update I need to apply

Thanks

PS - Is there a certain 3dmark free version I should run to see if things are in check w/ what they should be?

Have you looked at the benchmarks that Ken posted? You should be getting much more than 30 FPS on low settings. Even a weak AMD dual-core (quad-module) can do a hundred FPS at the settings you've described.

 

[mfenn]

With 4GB of RAM, you should not be paging unless you have a ton of other stuff running while gaming. Adding more RAM is certainly a worthy experiment though.

As for 3DMark, yes there is a free version. The latest is fine, you can use the ORB to find machines close to yours in spec and see how your score compares.

 

[bob4432]

This is a fresh install so the only thing on it is the game, av, and msi aftetburner, so a pretty lean install.

Just for kicks, last night I upped the res to 1920x1080 w/ low settings and it was very playable. This makes no sense to me because cpu & gpu useage went down a bit.

I was wondering since this is a console port, and most console people would have a 720 or 1080 tv, could the game be optimized for 720 & 1080 resolutions? Or by upping the res the gpu got mor involved?

Any insight?

Are the z68 boards that bad compared to the z77?

 

[mfenn]

Its possible that the game is badly optimized for low resolutions (there are certainly enough other bugs). What's also possible is that your CPU was being heavily utilized at the lower resolution and was throttling. You should run HWMonitor while the game is running and look at the CPU temperatures.

As for Z68 versus Z77, there's really no reason to buy a Z68 board unless you can get one for really cheap. Z77 is better all-around with the built-in USB 3.0 controller.

 

[bob4432]

Thanks for the info re: z68 vs v77

As far as the cpu throttling, I had performance monitor running showing each core and they were all maxed to the line.

Have run HWMonitor and I think the highest core was 70C. I am @ 3.2@1.36V if memory serves, maybe lower than that V as it is the same V I had it @ @ 3.0GHz. not sure how much I trust HWMonitor because on this board it shows my 12V as 9.7V but i have tested the 12V line under load w/ 3 different DMMs and they all show 12V or a bit higher.

GPU is running stock @ 900/4200 stock V.

 

[mfenn]

Throttling won't show as low CPU usage. As far as Windows is concerned, the CPUs are running processes 100% of the time. The CPUs are just running those processes very slowly while throttling. 70C shouldn't be hot enough to cause it, though you can run CPU-Z to double-check.

HWMonitor reports what your motherboard tells it. Sometimes the sensors get out of calibration or were just bad to begin with. If a multimeter says the voltage is OK, then don't worry about it.

 

[Skipholiday]

BoB4432 you need to get right with qtnguyen87.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2373796&highlight=bob4432

 

[bob4432]

BoB4432 you need to get right with qtnguyen87.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2373796&highlight=bob4432

That little clip is very far from the whole story....and this is between qtnguyen87 and me. It will be dealt with.

 

[Skipholiday]

That little clip is very far from the whole story....and this is between qtnguyen87 and me. It will be dealt with.

Put your side out or get the mods to help. This looks bad when you file a paypal dispute and keep someones merchandise and money. Looks like theft!

 

[bob4432]

Put your side out or get the mods to help. This looks bad when you file a paypal dispute and keep someones merchandise and money. Looks like theft!

Trust me, I would not steal from anybody. There is an easy fix. Now mind you, I paid for the items Jan 27 & Jan 28 and was given many 'I will ship it out tomorrow' or 'Did you get it yet' and 'You are my #1 priority' while the whole time sitting on it. I was cool for the first couple of weeks but then was ignored for many more weeks which brought on the PayPal dispute which was found in my favor. Now that I am having some health problems, he starts freaking out. Meanwhile as he is ignoring me, I bought the parts from other people (on Feb 20 and Feb 28, before qtnguyen87 box is even postmarked) since there was no response from qtnguyen87 and then out of the blue qtnguyen87's box showed up, which is still sealed. I asked many times for a tracking number to no avail. I have no use for his parts so he can pay me the postage for shipping the box back to him and since he used one of those Regional Box B boxes, I am zone 8 from you @ 4.4#s, he can look up the rate.

Is that better Skipholiday? Here is another view of how qtnguyen87 handles his business

 

[Skipholiday]

It needs resolved no matter the past. Fix your end the best you can. Maybe he needs removed from trading, I don't know. I do know that type thread is ALWAYS trouble. Best to fix to whatever end asap.

 

[bob4432]

It needs resolved no matter the past. Fix your end the best you can. Maybe he needs removed from trading, I don't know. I do know that type thread is ALWAYS trouble. Best to fix to whatever end asap.

My end is fixed according to me & PP (I copied the PMs into my PP complaint so they know everything). I am not going out of pocket anymore. He pays the shipping of approx $17 since he used that certain box (look it up here - Regional Box B, Zone 8 4.4#s) and gives me a Paypal verified address. He has wasted quite a bit of my time and I let more than one good deal go because of him telling me it was on its way multiple times.

Also, some interesting PayPal info -even if you paid via gift (which I did not), call them up - they are going to give you a talk but you might get a bit more in your favor.

 

[Skipholiday]

I'm not disagreeing with you at all. I'm saying get it resolved. Message Joe (Karaktu) or Ganesh (cganesh75) both are eXcellent mods and pro at resolving buy sale trade issues. most important get your name out of the negative thread that was created. I'm trying to help not hinder.

I am not going out of pocket anymore. He has wasted quite a bit of my time and I let more than one good deal go because of his excuses telling me it was on its way. Also, some PayPal info -even if you paid via gift (which I did not), call them up - they are going to give you a talk but you might get a bit more in your favor.

You may be honestly trying to help, but you're going about it in the worst way possible. You are not the forum police (that's us moderators) and you do not get to call members out in public forums.

mfenn
General Hardware Moderator