suitable upgrade from HD6850? would CPU (Phenom II X4) be a big bottlenecK?

[vexingv]

i haven't made a new system or performed a real upgrade for the longest time in recent memory (about 3 years). honestly, i've been satisfied with what i have since i don't really game that much anymore due to real-life/work obligations (yet i'm still lured by all those Steam sales!!). i'm also moving to a smaller place soon and it's been a budding interest to consolidate to smaller platforms (ie. ITX and NUC-sized computers) from my current mid-tower mATX systems. i took the first step by ordering a Zotac i3 NUC-like device to replace my current mATX-sized HTPC (in my sig below). I was planning to use this Zotac with the new Steam in-home streaming feature to play some games. my main desktop (which honestly is mostly dormant because I primarily use my Macbook day-to-day) houses a Phenom II X3 720 BE (I unlocked the 4th core, so essentially an X4) and a HD6850.

Steam streaming seems a bit sluggish for me right now. looking to see what I can do to optimize the Steam streaming experience, I think my current HD6850 does not support hardware accelerated H.264 ENCODING so there is a lot of CPU processing going on as some of these games perform significantly better locally than streamed.

1. i couldn't seem to find this information, but starting from what generation of GPU's or what GPU's support H.264 hardware encoding that is used by Steam streaming?

2. i usually purchase a mainstream $150-200 part, but if i were to get a GTX 760, how much of a performance bottleneck would my CPU be?

3. what would be a suitable GPU to upgrade from my HD6850 that isn't overkill (ie. i wouldn't lose too much by being hampered with this CPU)?

in the future, i would like to put together an ITX-sized Core i5 or i7 system, but a whole new build just isn't in my budget at the moment and i've been pretty busy lately too. however, i could be open to getting a GPU for use now that i could later migrate to a new system once time and budget allows.

thoughts?
thanks

 

[Stuka87]

I have a Phenom II x4 965BE running at 4GHz with an overclocked HD7950. And for the most part, it runs just about any game out there at 1080P with no issues. BF4 is the only one that I am really CPU bottlenecked by. Mantle actually gives me nearly double the FPS in some cases.

If you play any games that support mantle, you are going to want a GCN card, not a nVidia. It really is a big difference when you have a slow CPU.

You may still be able to find an HD7950, but if not there is always the R9 280 (renamed 7950), or even an R9 280X (renamed 7970). 280's cane be found for around $220-$240.

And when you do upgrade your CPU/Mobo, this card will still work well with that.

 

[vexingv]

hmm. interesting. i had not really researched or read much about AMD and its Mantle API as I have been looking to move towards nvidia since i felt that always had better support (eg. Physx, CUDA, linux drivers, etc). I'm not too sure if the games I play support mantle. So you would suggest an R9? I had been looking at either GTX 750 Ti (initially for HTPC use, but now I've gone to NUC-sized so its moot) or GTX 760, but my first inclination with an AMD part would have been R7 260x or 265 in the $100-150 range....

 

[JimKiler]

hmm. interesting. i had not really researched or read much about AMD and its Mantle API as I have been looking to move towards nvidia since i felt that always had better support (eg. Physx, CUDA, linux drivers, etc). I'm not too sure if the games I play support mantle. So you would suggest an R9? I had been looking at either GTX 750 Ti (initially for HTPC use, but now I've gone to NUC-sized so its moot) or GTX 760, but my first inclination with an AMD part would have been R7 260x or 265 in the $100-150 range....

If you go AMD get an R9 270. I did and with my Phenom II X4 i am amazed at how many FPS i am getting considering my CPU should be a bottleneck.

 

[SPBHM]

6850 is very, very slow for some newer games and high detail, so I wouldn't be to worried with the CPU bottleneck with cards like the 760 and lower overall,

but it will be a clear problem for some games, like Watch Dogs and Crysis 3 with "high" settings and a 760.

 

[vexingv]

6850 is very, very slow for some newer games and high detail, so I wouldn't be to worried with the CPU bottleneck with cards like the 760 and lower overall,

but it will be a clear problem for some games, like Watch Dogs and Crysis 3 with "high" settings and a 760.

thanks, that's reassuring to hear. my current platform is dead in the water, but i'm thinking i may get something new to hold me over and then migrate it to a new system. i just need to wait for some funds and a decent deal to come around.

btw i love the forums badge/avatar! i was just thinking about all the upgrades i've done in the past and the GeForce 2MX (Creative 64MB DDR2) was my first graphics card purchase! i bought it off of a friend at high school for ~$40 after he upgraded to a GTX model. how times and technology have changed....

 

[monkeydelmagico]

Newegg has an MSI R9 280 for $200.- AR with some free games. Decent deal. Should keep you in the game until you decide to upgrade the rest of your system.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

see if you can find some hardware encoding tests, this might help the steam streaming a lot. 750 Ti is supposed to have great encoding, however it'll not be a very large performance upgrade.

 

[vexingv]

I went ahead and ordered and installed a R9 270. Performance is great and an improvement with everything turned up. But I was rather disappointed with the Steam streaming performance as I did not really see any significant improvements. After digging around on the Steam forums, now I know why...

Currently, Steam streaming supports hardware-accelerated H264 encoding on Intel CPU's with QuickSync and Nvidia GPU's with NVENC; there is NO support for AMD VCE, which is AMD's engine/instruction set. So essentially, I had no gains other than what was provided to me by my GPU unloading some of the actual graphics processing from CPU, but the CPU essentially doing all the encoding via software.

This is really unfortunate as Steam streaming is what really prompted this upgrade as I wanted to improve Steam streaming performance from my desktop host to my HTPC client. Now, I'm considering return the R9 270 for an Nvidia product...

 

[Stuka87]

You could, but I think it would be better to look into upgrading your CPU/Mobo. You can get combo deals for a decent price. Get a supported Intel with quicksync, should perform well. Plus, you will have a WAY faster CPU.

 

[vexingv]

You could, but I think it would be better to look into upgrading your CPU/Mobo. You can get combo deals for a decent price. Get a supported Intel with quicksync, should perform well. Plus, you will have a WAY faster CPU.

yeah, i think that's going to be the avenue that i ultimately choose. i was hoping to drag out the upgrade with a new GPU but i think i'll do a platform upgrade (Haswell i7, H97 ITX) later this year. however, this R9 is still going back as it's not helping much now and then i'll see later what is the best GPU option at that time.