Will My Cpu BottleNeck With My System

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Zanderhoff

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Dec 16, 2013
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Hello all, Over christmas I hope to upgrade my computer by upgrading the gpu. I'm thinking of grabbing two Radeon R9 280x's in Crossfire however I'm wondering if my 8 Core AMD Fx-8120 will slow my system down considering I'm a heavy gamer and I also record all my game footage.


My Second Question is what PSU would be able to handle this?

(I have good ventilation and a lot of fans)
 
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rvilkman

rvilkman

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Well you would certainly get better performance from a 8320 than the 8120.
The architecture change helped 10-20% easily at the same clocks, plus as clocks go up the scaling is better on the 8320.

850W psu would be appropriate to run two 280X's and an 8 core FX chip.
Antec,Corsair,Seasonic or XFX.
 
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bryonhowley

bryonhowley

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While the FX-8320 would give better performance the 8120 is still not a bad CPU at all. I have a FX-8120 based rig with a Crossfire HD 7950 setup and have no problems at all playing any of my games 60fps Vysnc'd. So while there "may" be some bottleneck it will not be bad at all.

There is no need at all to spend even more money switching platforms completely to a i5-4670K and Z87 motherboard when you have a good setup already. That is just a waist of money.
 
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photonboy

photonboy

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CPU and Bottleneck:
It will VARY a lot between games but in some games there will be a very large difference between your CPU and an i5-4670K.

Crossfire:
I still am not comfortable recommending Crossfire as I think SLI is superior. In most cases I still recommend the best SINGLE CARD you can afford as well.

Custom Coolers and pricing:
We're still waiting for more cards to be released with great custom coolers. As well the pricing is no longer competitive on the new AMD cards last time I checked.

Power Supply:
I agree with a quality 850Watt. I've seen recommendations of 750W as a minimum for Crossfire of 2xR9-280X but I don't agree with that. Checklist:
- 850W or greater
- Quality brand (with the exact model getting good reviews)
- sufficient 6-pin and 6/8-pin connectors for two cards

RECORDING:
You will massively slow down your session by using a SOFTWARE recording approach. You may wish to consider an NVIDIA solution instead and use SHADOWPLAY which can record at 1080p @ 60FPS with no noticeable impact (I tested it and my frame rate didn't change. VSYNC OFF and at 78FPS while toggling Shadowplay on and off.)

Recommended card:
My advice is something like a single GTX780Ti (EVGA ACX cooler). It should give plenty of performance, avoids the entire Crossfire/SLI issues, enables Shadowplay recording etc.
 
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rvilkman

rvilkman

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That is generally just a rough estimate of how much power is needed. The powerdraw while gaming will be much less, generally in the 600-700W range. The 900W might be reached when running a furmark taxing the both GPU's 100%. But for normal usage 850W is quite enough.

But certainly if you want to make sure you have plenty and some left over you can get a 1000W PSU.
 
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geofelt

geofelt

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Oct 9, 2006
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photonboy makes some very good points.

Since the OP is looking at two r9-280x cards, it suggests that any graphics upgrade is on the table.

Two r9 280X cards are northward of $800.
A single GTX780ti superclock is around $720.
It will run on a 620w psu.
If the gaming is done on a single monitor there is rapidly diminishing returns from going stronger.

The value of custom coolers is that graphics cooling is better, allowing a better graphics oc.
Graphics vendors have already selected the best chips and factory oc'ed them... at a price premium.
One downside is that the cards with fan type coolers dump the heat into the case where case cooling becomes a problem.
I like the EVGA titan type blower coolers that avoid that problem.

Some games are very cpu dependent. BF3 multiplayer and FSX are two. Others are more single core speed dependent.
The OP needs to find out in which camp his games are.
Regardless, a big graphics jump will help gaming and increase the detail settings.
A cpu change can then be more properly evaluated.

On the psu side, I like to overprovision a bit, say 20%. It allows the psu to run closer to the middle third of it's range where it is more efficient and runs quieter.
A psu will only consume what is demanded of it, regardless of it's max capability.
And... there is no substitute for a quality psu. buy nothing cheap.
 
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Zanderhoff

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Dec 16, 2013
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Well, the reason I wanted to go AMD r9 280x crossfire is due to the mantle technology coming soon.. If you all don't think that it will change much I may go with nvidia and go for what some recommended, the gtx 780ti and utilize shadow play.

Will mantle make a persuasion on my choice or won't I notice it anyway with a 780ti

Thirdly if I go down the 780ti option will a change in cpu be necessary?
 
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photonboy

photonboy

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Be advised it's not just changing the CPU, you're also changing the motherboard, and you may require a new copy of Windows (the Windows issue is confusing as technically W7 is a no but W8 is a yes though some people claim to transfer W7 to a new motherboard).

I suggest only changing the graphics card for now then see where you stand on performance. If you can't achieve a solid 60FPS in a game with some minor tweaks, then Google that particular game and "cpu scaling" to determine if a better CPU would even matter.

In the future, that 8-core CPU will actually perform better. If we look at Skyrim we see the i5-4670K does about 40% better than the FX-8350, however in BF4 it's very similar. That's down to properly multi-threading the game. The new consoles will encourage better multi-threading (six usable cores).

The 780 is a good choice. Hands down the one I recommend is the EVGA 967MHz (base) model with ACX cooler.

Also look into NVidia G-Sync monitor support in the future. It's not a gimmick.
 
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