Upgrade path: AMD FX 8320

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Ravi_Singh1900

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Hi,

I have got AMD FX 8320 recently. I had taken a break from PC gaming for 7-8 years and didnt had an idea about what went in the PC hardware within that time. I thought getting the AMD and overclocking it will give me core i5 performance on a budget, that was the trend back when I left. But later on I came to know the haswell i5 's at stock are much faster and the skylakes i5's even better.

I have overclocked the CPU till 4.2 ghz@1.37V and I am using the gtx 960. I dont know for sure if the cpu is a bottleneck but I think its not.

The CPU can go upto 4.5 Ghz @1.45V, it runs at 65 Deg C on Prime 95 then and I start getting texture popups and missing texture in game but no BSOD. At 4.2 Ghz the cpu is superstable, so I keep the CPU to that setting.

I am using a cooler master hyper 212 evo as cooler, board is MSI 970 gaming and PSU is CX600, RAM is 1333 mhz cl9: 2X 4GB (I know its prehistoric!!). I am looking to upgrade the RIG the purpose would be gaming, What would be best option that would give a improvement, if I keep budget in consideration:

1. Keep everything intact as it is and get a GTX 970 ( get rid of the GTX 960)
2. Upgrade CPU cooler + Get GTX 970 (for cpu oc to 4.6 ghz)
3. Upgrade CPU Cooler + PSU + Get the GTX 970 (since psu will not support 4.6 ghz oc)
4. Jump to a skylake core i5 + Z170 combo, since it will shrink budget the upgrade GPU later.
 
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Benjiwenji
For the purposes of gaming, your overclocked 8320 is just fine. Yes, Intel is better but most of that "betterness" shines in the productivity area. Gaming is one of those areas when you don't need the BEST cpu to perform well. For example, I have a Athlon x4 760k OC to 4.6 ghz paired with a r9 280. I run Battlefield4 on all ultra with 4x MSAA avg around 55-60 fps, with drops to 45fps min and 75fps max.

Your 8320 overclocked should be able to handle the 970, which is about the same as the 290x in performance.

If you pay premium for Intel, you'll get more in rendering than you'll in FPS. You can see it in this video, Intel i7 4930K & GTX 780ti vs AMD 9590 (Same as a high overclocked 8320) & 290x (similar performance to 970)...
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sahas83

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I have the same set-up as you except an 8350. I run everything at max but have severe FPS drops in MMORPGS. The best option for you is to dump AMD and go Intel.

I would suggest not to go for Skylake as it needs DDR4RAM slots. An Intel i5 4690k or i7 4790 will perform at par with the Skylakes and will last many years to come.
 
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sahas83

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Exactly. Intel is your upgrade path. No matter what FX CPU you get and how much you OC it, it will still be sub par to an Intel for gaming.

However, also keep in mind, new age games utilize more cores and the difference you find in multi core games are minimal. With this being said, I would strongly advise you ditch AMD and go Intel i5.
 
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Ravi_Singh1900

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Hi,

After this upgrade I will upgrade after a year or so.

I am 100% sure that skylake and haswell are powerful. BUt, for gaming I was thinking of going with option "1" and get the GTX 970 which will deliver better frames, I think fx 8320 will bottleneck the gtx 970 but not by much.

On the other hand if I go with intel I will get the core i5 6600k (within my budget and awesome performer & overclocker, I won't go haswell) but I think the GTX 960 will bottleneck the CPU's capability hugely.

Anyways 3 votes for option "4".
 
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Faktion

Faktion

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I agree. I would go straight to skylake. The $40 increase in price is worth the 5-10% increase in performance if I was buying a new chip.

The price of ddr4 has already dropped so that shouldn't be a problem either. The motherboards have come down in price as well.

Keep the 960 for now and just start saving up for a new gpu after the cpu upgrade.
 
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Benjiwenji

Benjiwenji

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For the purposes of gaming, your overclocked 8320 is just fine. Yes, Intel is better but most of that "betterness" shines in the productivity area. Gaming is one of those areas when you don't need the BEST cpu to perform well. For example, I have a Athlon x4 760k OC to 4.6 ghz paired with a r9 280. I run Battlefield4 on all ultra with 4x MSAA avg around 55-60 fps, with drops to 45fps min and 75fps max.

Your 8320 overclocked should be able to handle the 970, which is about the same as the 290x in performance.

If you pay premium for Intel, you'll get more in rendering than you'll in FPS. You can see it in this video, Intel i7 4930K & GTX 780ti vs AMD 9590 (Same as a high overclocked 8320) & 290x (similar performance to 970).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgrAP2_GfOo
 
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Faktion

Faktion

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The AMD FX 8xxx only really shines in games that can make use of more than 4 cores which are few and far between atm. Even in those games the recent i5s are king for price\performance.

If the gap between the 8350 and the 4690 in price was as big as it used to be I would agree with you on the price\performance debate. Since the 4690 dropped in price it is a no brainer these days.

Although he does make a good point. You do not HAVE to upgrade yet. You are still going to be able to run pretty much any game in the immediate future with your CPU.
 
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Benjiwenji

Benjiwenji

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I think your argument is reasonable.

 
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Ravi_Singh1900

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I think intel does deliver much better fps in games if you have top of the line GPU's. For now, I'll keep the 8320 to 4.2 ghz, It'll still manage to get 40-60 fps in most games with gtx 970 for a year or two. Good enough for my 60 hz monitor. So I'll upgrade the GPU to GTX 970 for now and later on go for a CPU upgrade.
 
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Ravi_Singh1900

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Logically what you are saying is correct, but I just want to upgrade now. Also, I think skylake is more than 5-10% , its 512 bit fpu per core is a huge improvement. Haswell had 256 bit fpu and ivy/sandy bridge 128 bit fpu.

 
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DrSandwich

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