Phenom II x4 965 BE upgrade to FX-8350

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RPynn

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Jun 27, 2013
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Hey Guys, is it worth it to do that CPU upgrade, or should I stick with extra cooling and OC the Phenom? I'm running a GTX 660 TI 2gb OC'd, and I'm wondering if the Phenom is bottlenecking... Would the change of processors be worth it?
 
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I have the same CPU, but not even the Black edition. I was able to overclock it to 4.0Ghz with the cheapest MSI uATX board I could buy. It's run stable for 6 months, no problems. You may be able to get more with the Black, like 4.2-4.4. I also picked up an AIO water cooler on special, and overall temps never get into the 60's.

You will notice an uptick in performance by OC'ing the chip. I'd second the opinion that probably not much of a gaming performance upgrade by upgrading the CPU.
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RPynn

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Jun 27, 2013
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I'm using a Phenom X4 965 BE, and I'm thinking about upgrading to the FX-8350, I play kind of everything, BF3, Crysis 3, Borderlands, Far Cry 3, and I'm planning to play high res games like WatchDogs in the future. Running at 1920x1080p if you needed to know.

 
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JD88

JD88

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Feb 25, 2013
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It would be an upgrade but not that big of one, especially in gaming. I would stick with the Phenom and wait it out. Steamroller is just over the horizon and should offer a lot more performance.
 
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vertexx

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Apr 2, 2013
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I have the same CPU, but not even the Black edition. I was able to overclock it to 4.0Ghz with the cheapest MSI uATX board I could buy. It's run stable for 6 months, no problems. You may be able to get more with the Black, like 4.2-4.4. I also picked up an AIO water cooler on special, and overall temps never get into the 60's.

You will notice an uptick in performance by OC'ing the chip. I'd second the opinion that probably not much of a gaming performance upgrade by upgrading the CPU.
 
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RPynn

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Jun 27, 2013
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Alright, I'll try the OC then, AMD also says that its not safe to run over 60C, is that true, or can you run it higher?
 
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vertexx

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Apr 2, 2013
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I have a ZALMAN LQ-310 (I think any of the Asetek OEM builds will do - just whatever happens to be on Newegg promo at the time). Sorry, I was trying to remember temps off the top of my head. I normally worry about GPU temps more than the CPU.

Anyway, I just fired it up. Idle and normal processing hovers between 35-40C. Gaming on Skyrim runs it up to about 45C. And I just ran a Cinibench CPU test in continuous loop for 15 mins. Temps maxed at 49C and were stable. Ambient temps are 78F.

This was my first time over-clocking. So I just set the multiplier to 20 for an even 4.0 Ghz. I didn't mess with voltages at all. I tried going above that, but it wasn't stable. I was happy with the 4Ghz, and so I've just left it there.

I also modified my setup to make it run quieter. I'm using a single Noctua NF-P12 fan sucking air through the radiator and ejecting out the back of my Line M case (also another Noctua NS-F12a for intake at the front of the case). If I had problems with Temps, I would put the Fan in front or even add a 2nd fan in push/pull. But in this arrangement, temps are great, and the system is very quiet. Another reason why I eject the CPU radiator air out of the case is to keep my air cooled overclocked 7850 cool. So, again, I could keep the CPU cooler by using fresh case intake air, but in that setup, my 7850 ran a lot hotter. Overall, this was the best balance of CPU & GPU temps and running the case as quietly as possible.

Hope that helps!
 
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theonerm2

theonerm2

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Dec 28, 2009
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If the rumored $900 price tag of the 5GHz CPU is to be believed then I say forget steamroller and just get an 8350 or 8320. They are good processors and you would see an increase in performance. You would especially see good performance in games that can take advantage of more than 4 cores... Think multiplatform games coming from consoles with 8 core processors in the future. It will be a good time for FX 8xxx owners.
 
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