Any room for gaming performance increases on this computer?

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Twysty

Twysty

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Hello everyone, I'm pretty new to the Tom's Hardware community so forgive me if this question gets asked a lot. I'm looking to see if I can boost the gaming potential of my current rig, I'm aware some of the hardware could be a bit better, but for now it''s what I have to work with, upgrades are planned for the future though. My current setup consists of the following:

Windows 7 ultimate 64-bit
Seasonic 620w 80+ Bronze PSU
M4A79XTD Mobo
AMD Phenom II x4 965 Black Edition
320GB WD SATA HDD 7200 rpm
8GB G.skill RAM @ 1600 (I think)
MSI GTX 660 Twin Frozer III (non-ti)

I believe that is most of the important guts of the rig, it''s worth mentioning I have neglected to overclock anything as of yet due to stock coolers being used and my lack of water cooling knowledge/funds to buy currently. I'''m not sure if the current CPU is possibly bottle necking my video card as I have not been able to keep a close eye on it while gaming, but what I'm mostly looking for is increased fps on some games, for example playing DayZero, while granted is a mod and therefor sometimes not effectively optimized, still drops me into the high teens of fps while running around cities. I do all of my gaming at 1920x1080 (1080p) if I can help it and I'm currently using a 60hz monitor. Sorry for the likely abundance of trivial information, but again, I'm pretty new here. Thank you to everyone who takes the time to read my post and also to whomever might be able to offer any insight, I''m still learning computers.
 
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Swordkd
He won't notice enough of a difference in gaming performance by spending 120 dollars on a cpu that can actually perform worse in some games than the 965.

First off, buy a cpu cooler. You don't have to go the water cooling route. The Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo would do just fine, and allow you at least a 3.8ghz overclock. A stock 965 isn't going to bottleneck a 660. vid. card. If you upgrade to a fx6300, at most you'll see 3 FPS gain...not worth the cost.

After that, I'd save up some money for a new motherboard and Cpu. Think AMD 970/990fx chipset motherboard and fx8320/fx8350 CPU, or Intel h87/z87 chipset motherboard and Haswell I5 cpu. The 660 video card isn't bad, and at that point you can decide to SLI, or just buy a...
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DarkDubzs

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I think you should definitely run an SLI configuration with two GTX 660's since your mobo has two PCI-E slots. Your cpu is pretty meager, go with an AMD FX-6300 Vishera. A couple of PWM case fans also wouldnt be a bad investment
 
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Swordkd

Swordkd

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He won't notice enough of a difference in gaming performance by spending 120 dollars on a cpu that can actually perform worse in some games than the 965.

First off, buy a cpu cooler. You don't have to go the water cooling route. The Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo would do just fine, and allow you at least a 3.8ghz overclock. A stock 965 isn't going to bottleneck a 660. vid. card. If you upgrade to a fx6300, at most you'll see 3 FPS gain...not worth the cost.

After that, I'd save up some money for a new motherboard and Cpu. Think AMD 970/990fx chipset motherboard and fx8320/fx8350 CPU, or Intel h87/z87 chipset motherboard and Haswell I5 cpu. The 660 video card isn't bad, and at that point you can decide to SLI, or just buy a completely new card.
 
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DarkSable

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The 965 is still dang capable. Don't bother upgrading it, but I would overclock it - Swordkd nailed it in that you should avoid all-in-one water coolers like the plague and will be fine with a $30 cooler.

That being said, I wouldn't go with a 660 in SLI - it's going to produce a lot of heat and you'll be reliant on driver support. I'd much rather save up and upgrade to, say, the 760 - you can sell your 660 for $125 and throw in that much out of pocket and get a great card.
 
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Twysty

Twysty

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This sounds like a pretty good option, I have been looking at switching over to an intel board and CPU, maybe going a bit bigger with either a 3930 or 3770k, but I wasn't sure how they matched up to the Haswell CPUs in terms of gaming performance. Any thoughts between the Haswell I5's and the Ivy I7's? Also worth noting that I was looking at the bigger CPUs because I wanted to run streaming software at the same time, so I thought the I7's would have been a better pick.
 
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Twysty

Twysty

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I like this suggestion with the $30 cooler, it's within my current budget off of a paycheck for me right now and it could be a slight (or modest) increase quickly. (I'm still extremely new to overclocking) I have a mid tower currently so I'm wondering if the cooler you mentioned would fit in one, but that being said, I'm also looking for a bigger card in the future and was kinda browsing through the 760's and 780's. The only thing that makes me on the edge of dual card gaming is that I'm not doing 3d gaming, nor am I gaming on multiple monitors and even some games that are more optimized for single card setups. Some of the upgrades I'm looking forward to is a full tower, possibly intel mobo/cpu, and a bigger HDD with an SSD to be added later since the one I have is only 320gb and pretty cramped with spacing, also its about 5-6 years old and I'm sure it's not running as quickly as it could be.
 
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DarkDubzs

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i have to admit, their options are better. I like their idea of getting the $30 cooler, you really dont need water cooling. Just to put in my $0.02, if youre not comfortable with overclocking, just upgrade you cpu to a new model with a speed you like and are sure will be enough for you for a while. I agree, the 660 can get hot, i have a superclocked version right now, and i can feel my case is pretty hot after playing some Far Cry 3 on ultra (45+ fps) so two of those would easily overheat without a couple of case fans, with everything on full load with just one stock case fan, it gets quite noisy. The 760 looks like a better choice and it's not too pricy, and it can very well handle any 3D games you throw at it if you ever want to, so its a good future proof card for you.
 
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Twysty

Twysty

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Sword, do you have a specific Haswell I5 in mind that would be good to pair with a potential GTX 680/780 when I get around to it? I'm going to order that 212 cooler tomorrow and I'm looking at a haf 932 for everything once I get the money for it. Back when I was KINDA in the loop on cpu's, the 2500k was a strong I5, but I believe that was 2 generations ago? Also, the 965 BE I'm currently running seems to be at 3.8 Ghz already, would this mean the 212 cooler will give me more overclocking potential? I think I'm going to look at some overclocking guides since I'm not that great at it, any tips you might have would be greatly appreciated.
 
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Swordkd

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If you are looking at I5's, you'll definitely want to go with the 4670k. Unlocked multiplier so you can overclock it, and great performance in games. If you have the budget though, and you wanted to stream games while playing, the 4770k isn't a bad idea. More money, but it will perform better while gaming and streaming. Pair it with a nice z87 motherboard(toms just did a review on several boards under 160 dollars) and you'll do great. Make sure the board you choose supports SLI though, since you've already got one 660, and plan on getting a new nVidia card.

Yes, with a better cooler you should be able to increase your maximum overclock by a little. Sounds like you might be almost at its top end though at 3.8ghz, but it's still a very worthwhile investment.
 
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Twysty

Twysty

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Noted Simon, also my 965 BE right now is running 3.8 with the stock cooler on with no apparent issues that I'm aware of, however I could be mistaken. I've always preferred sticking with a single strong GPU rather than going for a pair of slightly lower GPUs (like going for a 670/680 over SLI 660's) if I can fit it into my budget.
 
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Twysty

Twysty

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Now I don't claim to be the most proficient with overclocking and such by any means, but if by "not overheating" you mean being a reliable, non-hanging, non-freezing, and non-BSoDing computer....yes, it''s done that very well. I ended up having a 10% overclock on it through the BIOS on my mobo, which I'm not sure is better or worse than doing it any other way (if possible.)
 
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simon12

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Auto overclcoking by software or the bios is not a good idea as it usually uses excess voltage to guarantee stability which can damage the cpu and should create more heat. With any overclock you should stress test it with prime 95, Intel Burn test or similar while checking the max temps reached. The max you should be running at is 1.5V (1.55V with extreme cooling) on the CPU voltage and 62C max temp (mid 50s prefered).
 
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Twysty

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I'm not sure what it was running idle before, when I had restarted the computer and noticed the overclock it had been running for a while and I was playing games on it before that point so it said 61C. What methods would your recommend for a novice overclocker? I'm using CPUID to monitor the heat of my modules and CPU-Z to check the clock speeds of it, but it doesn't seem to read a temp for the CPU. I'm guessing the CPU Vcore is what I'm looking at to not exceed 1.5, but correct me if I''m wrong.
 
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simon12

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62C is the maximum for the CPU so if it hits 61C gaming it could easily exceed this. Do you mean you use HWMonotor for checking temps (made by CPUID like CPUZ is) its the same program I usually use whats temps it displays and hoe depends on your motherboard, it usually will have a temp called CPUTIN which is the sensor on the board and it should also give the core temps. Yes its the CPU Vcore that should be under 1.5V but at 3.8GHz it should be under 1.4V as it shouldn't need more, when overclocking you should set this manually in the bios.
 
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Twysty

Twysty

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I see TMPIN0 and TMPIN1 on the motherboard readings for HWMonitor, with 0 reading 50C which sounds about right to me for not over clocking the CPU. There is a heading for the CPU itself, but it just lists of the core numbers and reads 0C all the time so I'm thinking I need to read the temp from the mobo. I've ordered the 212 cooler and it should be here by the end of this coming week, I'll update the thread as to how it performs. I will also need to look up some over clocking guides for when I do get it as I don't want to damage the CPU while pushing it a little harder.
 
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Twysty

Twysty

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Ahh, that's why that does that. thanks!
 
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Twysty

Twysty

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Hey everyone, just wanted to update. I got the cooler today and it works wonderfully, dropped my idle temps from low 50's C to 35C, now I just need to look up some guides on proper overclocking. Thanks again for everyone for the help, I'm sure I'll be asking again in the future :)
 
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