What to do with this CPU, BF 4 edition

[dmoney1980]

Long story short, I built a mid-tier gaming rig for a friend of mine about a year and a half ago (same time the Radeon 7850's came out). He has this connected to his 72" lcd TV. I haven't seen him in about a year since I moved out of the city, but I'll be hanging out with him this weekend and plan on doing a fresh install, along with making some tweaks on the CPU side as he plans on picking up BF4.

His Rig:
Phenom x4 960T
CPU HSF - Zalman CNPS5X performa 92mm (this was on sale for $14 at the time, not ideal but better than stock) - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835118128
Asus M5 A97 - http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/M5A97/
8GB RAM
Radeon 7850 2GB
500GB HDD
500W PSU
Win 7 x64

My questions:
-For his CPU, would it be better to try unlocking this to a 6 core, or just to overclock it a bit? I'm afraid that his HSF will badly limit his OC. Which do you think would be better for BF4?

-What type of framerate should he expect with his setup? I'm thinking he could get away with high settings, medium FXAA, no blur. Not sure if HBAO makes a big difference IQ wise?

 

[Maximilian]

Cant it be unlocked and overclocked a bit as well? Unlocking will help as BF4 uses 6 threads.

No idea of the FPS he will get though.

 

[NTMBK]

Try unlocking and OC'ing. If his HSF can't handle it, then get a new HSF. A 212 Evo isn't that expensive.

 

[guskline]

Perhaps this link on the various cpus and their performance on BF4 will assist you:
http://www.techspot.com/review/734-battlefield-4-benchmarks/page6.html

From this chart it appears the real difference comes from the gpu not the cpu so long as the cpu is a quad core.

Of course the tests were all run with a R9 290x so perhaps that powerhouse of a gpu masked the performance of the various cpus.

If you can unlock the cores, do that first. OCing the cpu doesn't appear to be as much of an impact on the gain in fps.

 

[tweakboy]

Unlock and Overclock!


Or else, upgrade time....

 

[dmoney1980]

Perhaps this link on the various cpus and their performance on BF4 will assist you:
http://www.techspot.com/review/734-battlefield-4-benchmarks/page6.html

From this chart it appears the real difference comes from the gpu not the cpu so long as the cpu is a quad core.

Of course the tests were all run with a R9 290x so perhaps that powerhouse of a gpu masked the performance of the various cpus.

If you can unlock the cores, do that first. OCing the cpu doesn't appear to be as much of an impact on the gain in fps.

Thanks for the link! It's funny that I checked that site last night for that info, but it looks like they just posted that article today!

So it looks like his 960T should be fine. I'm thinking that I will try to unlock the chip and leave the speed at stock clocks / voltage, run prime for an hour and go from there.

I did OC his 7850 so he should be fine at 1080p with high settings and low AA.

 

[ChronoReverse]

Of course the tests were all run with a R9 290x so perhaps that powerhouse of a gpu masked the performance of the various cpus.

I don't think they tested in a full 64-player match either. Lower player numbers or single-player doesn't require that much CPU power so performance is dominated by the video card.

When you play a tight map with 64 players, then it'll start using those threads and CPU power.

 

[sm625]

The extra cores will help smooth things out. Especially when windows decides to do something stupid in the background in the middle of a game, which it will. Or if he decides he wants to record a game.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Those techspot results look very weird. No other test shows that kind of gpu limitation. There is another thread here that shows results from game.gpu and multiplayer results from PC Perspective, which look very different.

My advice would be to just try the game and see how it plays under the conditions he will be playing under. If the gameplay is not as good as he wants, then try to decide if he is cpu or gpu limited. He could well be gpu limited with only a HD7850.

 

[dmoney1980]

Those techspot results look very weird. No other test shows that kind of gpu limitation. There is another thread here that shows results from game.gpu and multiplayer results from PC Perspective, which look very different.

My advice would be to just try the game and see how it plays under the conditions he will be playing under. If the gameplay is not as good as he wants, then try to decide if he is cpu or gpu limited. He could well be gpu limited with only a HD7850.

It looks like techspot only used single player for benchmarks, which in the grand scheme of things doesn't paint the full picture. i'm still torn on which is better for his scenarios with BF4 - six slower clocked cores (or even stock at 3ghz) or 4 cores OC'd to 3.5-3.8ghz.

He already know that he needs to upgrade his 7850, and in this case I would look at a 280x minimum, or pick up a used 4gb 680 / 770.

 

[AtenRa]

If he only going to play in single mode then no need to do anything about the CPU. But if he wants to play Multiplayer then i would recommend to sell the Phenom and install an FX8320 + OC to 4.4GHz or 4.6GHz (I believe the Zalman CNPS5X can cope).

 

[AtenRa]

It looks like techspot only used single player for benchmarks, which in the grand scheme of things doesn't paint the full picture. i'm still torn on which is better for his scenarios with BF4 - six slower clocked cores (or even stock at 3ghz) or 4 cores OC'd to 3.5-3.8ghz.

He already know that he needs to upgrade his 7850, and in this case I would look at a 280x minimum, or pick up a used 4gb 680 / 770.

For Multiplayer, better upgrade to 8-core FX8320 + OC. No need to run every graphics setting at high or ultra. Better have consistency at 60fps than better graphics.

 

[dmoney1980]

If he only going to play in single mode then no need to do anything about the CPU. But if he wants to play Multiplayer then i would recommend to sell the Phenom and install an FX8320 + OC to 4.4GHz or 4.6GHz (I believe the Zalman CNPS5X can cope).

While a CPU upgrade would be ideal, it is not in the budget at the moment. I'm also not too confident in that zalman cooler coping with a 125w chip. He's picking up a 212 evo this weekend so I can try to unlock his chip to a 6 core and hopefully OC it a bit as well.

 

[AtenRa]

While a CPU upgrade would be ideal, it is not in the budget at the moment. I'm also not too confident in that zalman cooler coping with a 125w chip. He's picking up a 212 evo this weekend so I can try to unlock his chip to a 6 core and hopefully OC it a bit as well.

I wouldnt spend money for the 212 evo. The Zalman cooler will be fine for at least up to 125W TDP. That means you can OC the FX8320 at least to 4.0GHz making it an FX8350. Now, im sure that the Cooler will be able to cope easily up to 4.4GHz (turbo off).

I would sell the phenom 960T and spend the money for the FX8320. With the Zalman cooler at 4-4.4GHz it will be night and day even from a 6-core Phenom in BF MP.