Update from AMD FX 6300 to 8530 or SLI

fet_thunderdome · Apr 21, 2014

Hi everyone,

I was thinking of increasing performances of my system. I have this setup:

CPU: AMD FX 6300 (overclocked @ 4500 MHz)
MB: Asus M5A99FX 2.0 PRO
RAM: 2 x 4GB Corsair Vengeance 1600 MHz CAS 9
Video: GeForce GTX 760 (MSI Twin Frozr OC edition)

i was thinking of increasing the already good performances of my system and i'm here asking:

- is it better to increase cpu with an FX 8350
- is it better to SLI with another 760 (i don't think that at 4500 MHz CPU would bottleneck)
- other solutions?

Thanks Everyone

Edric Midnightmonster · Apr 21, 2014

Well, were you looking for better gaming performance or cpu performance like rendering and editing purposes?

Ahmadjon · Apr 21, 2014

Better to get FX-8320 CPU and later add second GPU, single 760 is more than enough for today games (IMO)
And that FX-6300 would bottleneck two 760's

unknownofprob · Apr 21, 2014

Upgrade the CPU, but if you would like a huge increase in (gaming?) performance then;

keep the FX 6300, it's a good CPU but get two GTX 760's for sure, that'll max out any game at 1080p=/+ for games that support SLI, which has a greater price tag but greater performance over just upgrading the CPU.

If you hate loading screens and boot times then an SSD would be of great help. I have a Samsung 256GB 840 PRO series SSD, and i get boots in around 10 seconds, loading screens are barely a few seconds, a great choice if you consider.

I would OC your ram to 1866Mhz due to these reasons;

1600Mhz has a Cas Latency (CL) of 9.

1333Mhz has a CL of 8/9

1600Mhz has a CL of 9

1866Mhz has a CL of 9

2133Mhz has a CL of 10

2400MHz has a CL of 11/12

The higher the MHz the faster the ram, the lower the CL the faster the ram, therefore 1866Mhz comes out as the best option for speed/CL offering the best performance.

For record, though you can buy 1866Mhz memory modules, there just 1600Mhz modules overclocked, so best to get 1600Mhz and OC it yourself! Great you have 1600Mhz. You OC your memory through BIOS.

Hope this helps

rwinches · Apr 21, 2014

http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/304/AMD_FX-Series_FX-6300_vs_AMD_FX-Series_FX-8350.html

Two more cores giving you a bigger cache, but read this.

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/geforce_gtx_760_sli_review,14.html

fet_thunderdome · Apr 21, 2014

I was looking forward to new games (the division, batman arkham knight..). I was wondering wich of these implementations bring up the more performance gain according to my current set up. for example: a cpu upgrade would bring a + 50%. a sli would bring a + 60% RAM +30% and so on.. These are fictional numbers, but just to figure out what i'm looking for.

unknownofprob · Apr 21, 2014

hard to predict that, but for gaming performance there is a rule GPU>CPU>Ram, therefore making a GPU upgrade give the best performance. The FX 6300 will not bottleneck GTX 760's in SLI.

photonboy · Apr 21, 2014

Wow... a few points:

1) Overclocking your RAM is completely pointless for gaming. This has been extensively tested: http://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/1349-ram-how-dual-channel-works-vs-single-channel

You can either trust me on this, or find the appropriate part of that article but there's essentially ZERO advantage, in fact they only had HALF the bandwidth (800MHz instead of 1600MHz) and saw little difference.

2) FX-6300 and bottlenecking:
This CPU is already a bottleneck in SOME Games. It varies between games. In some modern games like BF4 the bottleneck isn't as significant and may be almost zero at times.

The FX-8350 would help in SOME games, and you can find benchmarks but I don't think it's worth the money.

3) 2xGTX760?
This brings us back to Point#2. As I said, in some games the FX-6300 is the bottleneck but in others it's not so in those games you'd see some benefit. How much would again VARY and depend on what point the CPU becomes a bottleneck again.

4) What to do?
Since the FX-6300 and GTX760 are arguably "balanced" on average (a better CPU makes a graphics bottleneck, and a better Graphics Card creates a CPU bottleneck) my advice is to do the following:

a) Wait until you can afford to replace the guts of your PC with an INTEL setup such as an i5-4670K, Z87 motherboard, and likely a new copy of Windows.

Unfortunately that's a lot of money so you may wish to hold off for quite a while. Again though, I don't recommend spending about $180 for an FX-8350 which might not give you that much added value.

Sorry for the non-answer so I'll be more specific:

"Wait until you can justify building a new system, then build around a good 4-core Intel CPU."

(BTW, all current evidence is suggesting AMD has given up making gaming CPU's and that nothing new is coming only sub-$150 CPU's and APU's.)

fet_thunderdome · Apr 21, 2014

unknownofprob :

reading some comments from other threads, many think that fx 6300 would bottleneck 760 2 way sli, many don't. It's hard to determine who's right.

unknownofprob · Apr 21, 2014

photonboy :

Wow... a few points:

1) Overclocking your RAM is completely pointless for gaming. This has been extensively tested: http://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/1349-ram-how-dual-channel-works-vs-single-channel

You can either trust me on this, or find the appropriate part of that article but there's essentially ZERO advantage, in fact they only had HALF the bandwidth (800MHz instead of 1600MHz) and saw little difference.

2) FX-6300 and bottlenecking:
This CPU is already a bottleneck in SOME Games. It varies between games. In some modern games like BF4 the bottleneck isn't as significant and may be almost zero at times.

The FX-8350 would help in SOME games, and you can find benchmarks but I don't think it's worth the money.

3) 2xGTX760?
This brings us back to Point#2. As I said, in some games the FX-6300 is the bottleneck but in others it's not so in those games you'd see some benefit. How much would again VARY and depend on what point the CPU becomes a bottleneck again.

4) What to do?
Since the FX-6300 and GTX760 are arguably "balanced" on average (a better CPU makes a graphics bottleneck, and a better Graphics Card creates a CPU bottleneck) my advice is to do the following:

a) Wait until you can afford to replace the guts of your PC with an INTEL setup such as an i5-4670K, Z87 motherboard, and likely a new copy of Windows.

Unfortunately that's a lot of money so you may wish to hold off for quite a while. Again though, I don't recommend spending about $180 for an FX-8350 which might not give you that much added value.

Good points, changing speed to 1866Mhz only gives marginal benefits, not hugely.

Ahmadjon · Apr 21, 2014

fet_thunderdome :

It 100% will bottleneck 2x 760's that's for sure.

photonboy · Apr 21, 2014

fet_thunderdome :

They are both right, but it depends on the game.

On AVERAGE the FX-6300 would be the bottleneck. Definitely in Skyrim, less so in BF4.

Also, since most games run the core code on one thread the weaker CPU cores in the AMD CPU's tend to cause frame rates to drop LOWER than compared to Intel which results in periodic major stutter.

So you might get the same AVERAGE frame rate with the FX-6300 (6-core) as a 2-core Intel CPU (let's say 50FPS) but the FX-6300 might drop to 20FPS when the Intel setup drops to only 30FPS.

unknownofprob · Apr 21, 2014

oops, I meant 8350. FX 6300 is not good for SLI or crossfire of decent cards, One way to prevent that is to do some serious overclocking of the FX 6300, but there will still be a bottleneck in some games.

fet_thunderdome · Apr 21, 2014

photonboy :

fet_thunderdome :

They are both right, but it depends on the game.

On AVERAGE the FX-6300 would be the bottleneck. Definitely in Skyrim, less so in BF4.

Also, since most games run the core code on one thread the weaker CPU cores in the AMD CPU's tend to cause frame rates to drop LOWER than compared to Intel which results in periodic major stutter.

So you might get the same AVERAGE frame rate with the FX-6300 (6-core) as a 2-core Intel CPU (let's say 50FPS) but the FX-6300 might drop to 20FPS when the Intel setup drops to only 30FPS.

so, if I got this right, let's say i'd go for fx 8350, i would expect better performance for cpu dependent games, and little to none improvements on gpu ones? or will be there a margin?

unknownofprob · Apr 21, 2014

there would be better performance with the FX 8350 in every game and there would be an increase with dual GTX 760's on a FX 6300 when there isn't a bottleneck. Overall, you don't want a bottleneck so I would just get a FX 8350 and maybe even a fast SSD to go with it, then get dual cards or a single more powerful GPU later on.

fet_thunderdome · Apr 21, 2014

thanks everyone. i'll go for an fx 8350.

photonboy · Apr 21, 2014

FX-8350:
Again, I think it's a waste of money. Look at several benchmarks and it appears you get perhaps 8% average improvement (depends on the game sample). Look at all FIVE games in this review at 1080p: http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/57615-amd-vishera-fx-6300-fx-4300-review-12.html

They use a GTX670 which is very similar to a GTX760 so it's completely relevant.

It also won't matter much if you already get over 60FPS but cap to 60FPS (VSYNC ON) like in Dirt 3 where you can get 100FPS. I think $200 is a lot for such a small average improvement (i.e. going from 50 to 54FPS). One very small game TWEAK could accomplish roughly the same thing too and look nearly identical.

Here's some more benchmarks: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6396/the-vishera-review-amd-fx8350-fx8320-fx6300-and-fx4300-tested/5
(the LOWER the resolution the more likely the CPU is to be the bottleneck but again we see roughly 8% or so average improvement.)

SSD:
An SSD will have absolutely ZERO impact on gaming frame rate, and very rarely any impact on stutter from in-game texture loading (less than 1% of the games).

An SSD will only help with load times so mainly benefits games like SKYRIM with frequent loading of new areas or buildings when jumping around the map.

paitjsu sadff · Apr 21, 2014

1st i would recommand an FX-8320 instead of the 8350 it's the same exact chip only clocked slower but it's unlocked so just change the multiplier to 20 and boom you have an FX-8350 ''for free''...

2nd going with the 760 SLI if you have a PSU capable of suporting this will give you much better performance in games and the FX-6300 will no bottleneck those cards unless you are playing old single-threaded games or games built on old game engines like elder scroll or planetside 2 for example...but for BF4, crysis3 and so many other games that use 4 core or more from this CPU you would have no significant bottleneck.

So i would recommand if possible get the FX-8320 and a second GTX 760, if not, get only the GTX 760 to go SLI provided you have a stong PSU (700w minimum of a good brand (good quality PSU))

fet_thunderdome · Apr 22, 2014

photonboy :

FX-8350:
Again, I think it's a waste of money. Look at several benchmarks and it appears you get perhaps 8% average improvement (depends on the game sample). Look at all FIVE games in this review at 1080p: http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/57615-amd-vishera-fx-6300-fx-4300-review-12.html

They use a GTX670 which is very similar to a GTX760 so it's completely relevant.

It also won't matter much if you already get over 60FPS but cap to 60FPS (VSYNC ON) like in Dirt 3 where you can get 100FPS. I think $200 is a lot for such a small average improvement (i.e. going from 50 to 54FPS). One very small game TWEAK could accomplish roughly the same thing too and look nearly identical.

Here's some more benchmarks: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6396/the-vishera-review-amd-fx8350-fx8320-fx6300-and-fx4300-tested/5
(the LOWER the resolution the more likely the CPU is to be the bottleneck but again we see roughly 8% or so average improvement.)

SSD:
An SSD will have absolutely ZERO impact on gaming frame rate, and very rarely any impact on stutter from in-game texture loading (less than 1% of the games).

An SSD will only help with load times so mainly benefits games like SKYRIM with frequent loading of new areas or buildings when jumping around the map.

I've seen firestrike benchmark results. With fx 6300 and a single gtx 760 the best is around 3000. With a 8350 is around 3200. With a fx 6300 and 2 gtx 760 is above 4200. (Filtering by validated results).

Update from AMD FX 6300 to 8530 or SLI

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