Will my Phenom ii x4 b60 bottleneck a gtx 960??

gamergeneral99

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Jan 10, 2012
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Hi guys I am currently using an unlocked phenom ii x4 at 3.5 ghz. I think I can do upto 3.8 ish GHz with my cooling. I want get a gtx 960 for some 1080p gaming. So will it bottleneck bad?? If it does, how much fps will I lose if it runs on 60 fps on a non bottleneck PC??
 
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I always stuck with a 60C max, i don't care what they say the max is for cpus and gpus. You need some extra cooling because the cooler will half clog with dust when it's time to clean it.

My Llano apu is newer and made on at 32nm not 45nm so they run cooler. Also your running 2 cores that were disabled because they use too much power. Try a bit lower voltage and 3.3ghz or 3.4ghz. 66C is a bit too hot.

If your running the stock cooler, replace the cooler.

At 3.3ghz and all 4 cores enabled the 960 will be fine.

need4speeds

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It should work fine, it's still a quad core cpu. (That's the whole point in unlocking it so it's not a dual core anymore)

I am running two HD-7850's with a A6-3650@3.56ghz and it works fine. Yes in certain games it's a bit limited. Mostly Skyrim. Games like Metro Last light redux and 2033 run at 45fps average. 1080p mostly high details. Racing games like Dirt2, Gas guzzlers Extreme run well. I even record at 720p using MSI afterburner. (My Llano and your cpu have the same cpu cores in them, so they should be close in speed)

Do test with prime-95 first, make sure your overclock is stable and doesn't have core that fail. I found this out when testing that AMD made the cpu and apu turn off any bad cores but the other ones keep on working so there is no BSOD or lockup. This is so in a server it wont stop working, or any other task. So just because it boots windows and works ok, doesn't mean the overclock is ok.
I was so happy to see 4.1ghz, then a short test showed it's running as a single core.

A fast benchmark i used is Fritz Chess Benchmark. I got 18.34(1ghz Pentium3's) or 8802 points. Do a test at stock speed. Then Overclocked speed. Of course the numbers should keep going up as the clock speed goes up. If suddenly it fails to go up or drops, you know there is something wrong.

Turn off any coolnquiet, and in windows turn off any power management for the cpu. Force the cpu to run at full speed all the time.
(It's in AMD's catalyst too)


 

gamergeneral99

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Jan 10, 2012
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@neesforspeeds I have already stress tested it in Prime 95 and it is stable at 66°C for more than an hour. So do you think I will be fine at 3.5 GHz or should I bump it up??
 

jeffredo

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If you're hitting 66C during Prime95 don't OC further until you get better cooling. Aim for less than 60C. As far as bottlenecking the GPU the GTX 960 is about the top you should go. You will experience some bottlenecking but that would be the case with anything from about a GTX 950 or GTX 760 on up.
 

need4speeds

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I always stuck with a 60C max, i don't care what they say the max is for cpus and gpus. You need some extra cooling because the cooler will half clog with dust when it's time to clean it.

My Llano apu is newer and made on at 32nm not 45nm so they run cooler. Also your running 2 cores that were disabled because they use too much power. Try a bit lower voltage and 3.3ghz or 3.4ghz. 66C is a bit too hot.

If your running the stock cooler, replace the cooler.

At 3.3ghz and all 4 cores enabled the 960 will be fine.
 
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