Upgrade PII X4 955BE or graphics card?

andy3050 · Jul 30, 2013

Hi guys,

I've recently been looking to upgrade my gaming rig and don't know which would be causing me more hassle at the moment.

I've recently been playing Metro last light at very high settings with SSAO off as i'm playing at 1080p with no jaggies (unknown frame rate). its all fine until i get out of the metro and onto the surface and the game really slows down.

question is though, is it the GPU or CPU thats causing the slow down. am i right in saying that modern games rely more on the GPU now as compared to the CPU as i was a little surprised i could get the settings as high as i have.

I'm either looking for an i5 4670 with mATX (so i can get a smaller corsair case) or an nVidia GTX770. budget can go as high as £400

Swordkd · Jul 30, 2013

The Phenom II 955 isn't a bad Cpu for gaming, so I'd immediately suspect that you'll want to upgrade your video card first. What are you running for a graphics card right now?

You can upgrade your Cpu and you'll notice a difference, but you'll notice a bigger difference if you upgrade your GPU first, depending on what graphics card you are using now.

andy3050 · Jul 30, 2013

Swordkd :

I'm running an nvidia gtx560ti at the moment! It's not a bad card but not too sure if it can keep up anymore. I'm going to try get crysis 3 to see how I really stand with it

exroofer · Jul 30, 2013

Definitely video card first. 770 will make a huge difference.
Upclock the northbridge on the 955 to 2600 or so if you haven't already, little cpu upclock if you want, but the NB will make more of a difference.

andy3050 · Jul 30, 2013

Thanks dude! I've never over locked before so do you know of any good guides?

I'm guessing I can hold off on a CPU upgrade until next year maybe hopefully ddr4 will be out by then too

exroofer · Jul 31, 2013

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=596023
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/274820-29-black-edition-overclock-raising-multiplier-guide
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/261868-29-overclocking-club

My suggestion is to buy and install your video card FIRST. Play your games. If you are happy with what you see, and want to help your cpu stretch it's legs a little, read the above guides and links carefully, several times. Do NOT just start raising the clock speed until you understand what you are going to do.

For me, my cpu is the current limiting factor in my system. I run a 24/7 overclock of 4.1 Ghz and northbridge at 2600. With a good cpu cooler and several case fans I get the same or lower temps as I got at stock speeds with less cooling, and Intelburn cpu benchmark increases from high 30s gigaflops of raw processing to 54 gigaflops. Or about 35-40% gain in cpu capability.
Your 955 will not clock this high, but raising just the northbridge alone will gain you 20% ish. With very little heat penalty.

Ask in the AMD overclocking forum before you start with any questions you may have.

I was going to go to an 8350 right away, but I am waiting to see if the next gen AMD cpu is still socket AM3. If so I will buy one of those.
Can't complain about current set up. 55-60 fps in Mechwarrior Online at max graphics settings, and that is a cpu intensive multi threaded game.

logainofhades · Jul 31, 2013

What is your current motherboard? I suspect you will have some bottlenecking issues. You might be better off getting a GTX 760 with an FX 8320 then bumping the multiplier to match the 8350 clock speed. Actually, you could go GTX 760, FX 8320, and a M-Atx motherboard for less than your budget. It would make for a more balanced system with less chance of any bottleneck, and would be a nice gaming setup.

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/1mI4E

petermic · Jul 31, 2013

I'd upgrade the GPU.

andy3050 · Jul 31, 2013

logainofhades :

I'm currently running a Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H motherboard! But to be fair I'm wanting to get away from amd after this phenom II. I've been slowly loosing confidence with amd's cpu's for a while now and prefer the mobo choices that accommodate the intel chips!

And also don't want to get a mid range graphics card, I was hoping to get more life out of my 560ti but it's showing its age 1.5 years down the line! Compared to the 4.5 years I got out of my older 8800gts. I'd like to have something a bit more long term considering its one of the more expensive parts in my system

exroofer · Jul 31, 2013

That would be why I suggested getting your vid card first, and a little free performance for a mild OC, until you decide what way you want to go. So the only money you spend right now is for vid card, which will give you the most improvement right away. Then take your time and decide on upgrade path.

andy3050 · Jul 31, 2013

exroofer :

Yeah it seems like the best thing to do, just was saying I don't really want to upgrade from a mid range card to another mid range card and have to upgrade again in another year or so! Plus I've been told to avoid pile driver and bulldozer like the plague

Swordkd · Jul 31, 2013

Well, you wouldn't be buying Piledriver or Bulldozer based Cpu's from Amd anyways. The latest release is Vishera, which isn't a bad chip at all. Not as good in gaming as an i5 however, but it's still not a bad chip. We'll see what Amd's next chipset release is like, and go from there. More than likely though, the next gen. ports from console to Pc will play better on Amd hardware. Both the Xbox One and PS4 are running 8 core cpu's from Amd, so stands to reason that the 8320 and 8350 Vishera Cpu's from Amd will do rather well running those games.

cmi86 · Jul 31, 2013

andy3050 :

Metro last light is a horridly coded game. These issues are common on basically every system due to this. There is a fix though so don't worry. Nvidia users have found large playability and FPS increases by running the game in DX9 (officially only DX11 title but can be made to run in DX9) by following this guide.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOrbmPnJAx4

AMD users do not seem to benefit from the DX9 mod and suffer more so just from a massive lack of optimization for AMD hardware in this game. I can personally attest to this as I run a Tahiti card and I was seeing as low as 25 FPS with SSAO off. However 4A games was nice enough to realize this colossal blunder and actually do something about it by coming out with an update for the game that makes it play perfectly on AMD GPU's. I now never drop below 55 if for a split second even in the craziest moments. That fix can be found here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QL-3vi4JYzU

Also make sure to disable "advanced PhysX" in game options.

All the same as far as an upgrade even though the 560Ti is still a good card you would probably benefit most from a GPU upgrade.

logainofhades · Aug 1, 2013

andy3050 :

The GTX 760 is more of an upper midrange card that trades blows with a 7950. It is far faster than your current card. A GTX 770 is a nice card, but your PhII is going to bottleneck it. Hence, my recommendation for a more balanced approach. Also, bulldozer is what you should avoid. Vishera is much improved and are much nicer chips. BTW, Vishera is the desktop variant of Piledriver.

FX 83xx chips trade blows with similarly price i5's.

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