Which do you think would be a better upgrade?

[zootedd]

I currently have an a6-3500 (2.1/2.4turbo) That I built out of desperation when my wife's pre-built died. I also sold my old gaming machine. I am now at the point where I am going to upgrade. I am limited on budget ($350ish including monitor.)

I want some opinions, i have narrowed it down to either 3870k and a 7770 or 7850. I know that the slow cpu is going to bottleneck it (oc on llano is a nightmare btw.) I plan on running at 1080p I figure if I go the 7850 route I can turn up the eye candy to alleviate the cpu bottleneck.

Your thoughts?

 

[Piroko]

If you don't plan to use the integrated graphics, you could take the 3670k instead and oc it a bit further. Also I don't think that it will bottleneck a 7850 by much.

 

[Vectronic]

Thought #1: Save up for longer or sell something.
Thought #2: Use that $350-ish for motherboard/processor ... monitor/GPU as money comes.
Thought #3: Skip the CPU, get 7870 + monitor... start saving for mobo/cpu... use 7870 in it.

You aren't going to gain much of anything over your existing CPU unless you can overclock it absurdly like 4.5GHz... and it will still be a bottleneck, and you'll need/want to upgrade shortly after again.

 

[SiliconWars]

Have you tried overclocking with K10stat or fusion tweaker? It should easily hit 3GHz.

3 cores is actually the sweet spot for gaming so if you can squeeze 3GHz out of it then a 7850 shouldn't be too badly bottlenecked. A 7770 is probably the most sensible option however.

 

[moonbogg]

Thats a tough one. I would check ebay for used hardware to make that money stretch.

 

[zootedd]

Have you tried overclocking with K10stat or fusion tweaker? It should easily hit 3GHz.

3 cores is actually the sweet spot for gaming so if you can squeeze 3GHz out of it then a 7850 shouldn't be too badly bottlenecked. A 7770 is probably the most sensible option however.

I am trying this, I have used amd overdrive as well. It lets me adjust the multiplier and even registers @ 3gz on cpu-z. Guess I need to run some benchmarks to see if it really did increase the frequency or not.

Thanks everyone for the input.

 

[zootedd]

I decided just to go ahead and get a fm1 quad and 7850, then when I get some more cash go ahead and do a platform overhaul, at least the 3870k should push out playable frame rates in modern games in the mean time. Thanks again eve one.