Will AMD Phenom II X2 550 Bottleneck with R9 380x?

Shinrey · Apr 29, 2016

hello I'm Just asking i want to upgrade my PC that lastly build from 2009

AMD Phenom II X2 550
Sapphire Radeon HD 5770 -> R9 380x
Corsair CX 600W

the question is
1. Will it bottleneck? (The CPU and GPU)
2. Are The PSU is okay with R9 380x?

thanks before

Ryan_78 · Apr 29, 2016

get a high quality psu and get rid of that bad one: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2547993/psu-tier-list.html
yes that cpu will bottleneck, when it actually means bottleneck. it means when the CPU is overwhelmed by the GPU. you would need a good CPU to not be limited by the CPU.

bgunner · Apr 29, 2016

I agree with Ryan_78's assessment of the situation. The CPU you currently have will be bottle necked by many games when you try to turn up the graphics to use the capability's of the 380x.

Corsairs CX series PSU's are known for dying quickly because they are made from some very poor quality parts. If you really want to stay with corsair you can purchase almost all other PSU's they produce with out worry otherwise try to stick with the tier 1 and tier 2 PSU's listed on the link given.

Will the CX 600 power a 380x Yes it will but due to poor build quality it is recommended to replace them.

Shinrey · Apr 29, 2016

Thank You very much for all of your answers,

anyway do you have some preference for build budget pc gaming base with R9 380x GPU, and still stay with my Corsair CX 600, basically do you have some recommended Proc and mobo for this R9 380x Build?? i'm not good at Computer anyway, as long as it doesnt bottleneck the R9 380x is okay

bgunner · Apr 29, 2016

FX 6300 or better with a AMD 970 board will do fine as long as you do not plan on a crossfire set up.

EDIT: look into the XFX PSU's as they are cheap, money wise at least, and made by one of the best company's for PSU's. Seasonic.

Shinrey · Apr 29, 2016

Thank you very much, that's so nice budget build, the question is, is AMD FX6300 good for OC'ed? can it perform to the stage like i5 -6500 or i5-4460? and is the AMD 970 board is okay too? if i plan to OC'ed the CPU and GPU?

bgunner · Apr 29, 2016

Yes All FX chips are able to be overclocked. As for the board if you are serious about OCing get a 990FX board for a heavy overclock other wise look for a 970 board with good heat sinks on the VRM and look for a board with at least 8 phase voltage regulation. The 970's can hold a decent OC but because they are usually made for limited OCing they don't usually OC as well. It is the trade off for the money you pay.

Cant the 6300 OCed equal a newer I5? No way it can. not even the 8350 and there OCed variants can. Intel charges a premium because there CPU perform so much better. As budget machines AMD has the market cornered because of there cost.

Shinrey · Apr 29, 2016

Ahh I See, but the Fx6300 can bring the r90 380x max potential right? still the CX 600 is okay if i'm OC the CPU and GPU?

Ecky · Apr 29, 2016

For what it's worth, nVidia drivers use less CPU, making their cards more appropriate to pair with a lower-end CPU. It's funny, but AMD's GPUs are not a good match for their CPUs.

You might instead consider a GTX 960 or 970, depending on your budget.

Ecky · Apr 29, 2016

Also, I'd like to clarify something about CPU bottlenecks:

"it means when the CPU is overwhelmed by the GPU." is not correct. Games have certain needs of CPUs, things like driver overhead, physics calculations, and artificial intelligence/pathfinding. Putting a faster video card in your system does not increase the CPU needs. However, if your CPU can only deliver 30fps in a particular scene, but you get a new video card that's capable of 60fps at max settings in that same scene, you'll only get 30fps because that's all your CPU is good for.

However, if your CPU can deliver 30fps in a scene and you're happy with 30fps, you can buy a fast video card and keep increasing graphical settings until you start nearing the GPU's limits, too. In this way, you can get the best visuals out of your GPU, without actually losing any performance.

A good way to spot a CPU bottleneck is to note when lowering graphical settings doesn't increase your framerate.

Shinrey · Apr 29, 2016

@Ecky
thank you very much for verifying the bottleneck, but from what i hear some games limited the Frame Rate for it's client, for example is BDO (Black Desert Online) where the client is really weird, even the GTX 980ti fps sometimes drop, and i never see ppl go upper 60fps in this game, it means i cant test the bottleneck with lowering graphical setting,
GTX 970 is very good even my mate recommend it for me, but the budget is off, so i search for something in between that i got R9380x, in my country all of the Computer stuff is 140% of the real price...

bgunner · Apr 30, 2016

Ecky :

this part of the statement is flawed as when you increase the graphics settings it puts even more strain on your CPU because it need to do more calculations for the added physics and increased demand from the GPU driver.

I agree with the rest of the post though.

Do not overclock with the CX 600 PSU. they have a very bad tendency to die. The PSU is teh heart of the PC and it's blood is electricity. if it dies it can also take other parts with it. This is one reason it is recommended to change it. skimping on the PSU is like using a half clogged artery when having a bypass done.

The FX6300 or over will allow the R9 380x reach it's full potential. Now obviously a better CPU will usually allow for higher frame rates in CPU bound games but in GPU bound games the 380x will be able to be fully loaded without the CPU holding it back.

Ecky · Apr 30, 2016

In-practice, the increase in CPU usage with higher graphical settings is next to zero in most cases, and is exactly zero with resolution increases.

Shinrey · Apr 30, 2016

lol what happen with this? http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-3046254/8320e-bottlenecks-sapphire-380x-nitro-8320e-bottleneck-380x.html

how can they said FX 8320e which is > than FX 6600 bottleneck the R9 380x?? is it true? hmm i'm cofuse jusdt right now, should i go with intel proc?

a

bgunner · Apr 30, 2016

the 8320e is an energy efficient version of the 8320. That post in inaccurate. while Intel CPU's are more powerful, the 6300 will be able to handle that GPU. The 8320's, both versions, will be better due to the fact they have four cores that deal with FPU's , floating point units, versus three cores on the 6300 chips.

EDIT: by the way the 380x is less powerful than my gaming rig which has a HD 7970/R9 280X. This is due to the GPU is actually different and are not linear unlike AMD's numbering system. The 380x does have more recent tech integrated into it though.

Shinrey · Apr 30, 2016

@bgunner
thanks for the answer, recently i read about ppl post that many games, most of them only use 2 - 4 core in the Proc, so that's mean have Octacore or Hexacore in AMD Proc is useless? some people said better to have 2 - 4 strong core than 6 - 8 weak core, dont know what's that mean?

bgunner · Apr 30, 2016

most games are unable to make use of more than 4 cores but this is changing. Crysis 3 is one of the few that can make use of more. In the hex or octa-core CPU's there are 3-4 actual cores and those cores can handle 2 threads each. Because of the way AMD designed there chips using only 3-4 cores those cores are the only ones that can work on FPU's. Gaming relies heavily on FPU's so chips that do better at these calculations will be better in games (this is where the strong core's statement comes in).

Hex and Octa-core CPU's are not useless by any means. even if the game uses only 4 cores the rest of the cores can be used for background processes and other running programs that require CPU time freeing up processing power for gaming.

There are other programs other than gaming that can make use of the extra cores also speeding up there operations. So the extra core do not got to waste even in other environments.

MushBrain · Apr 30, 2016

I run the same CPU in question in the OP, but mine is unlocked see sig.. OC champion too for a Phenom II... golden.

My 580 is OC'd balls to the wall and is pretty damn fast, around equal to a GTX 960, it does not get held back in 98% of games, GTA V makes use of 85-99% of my GPU which considering it is GTA V... is quite impressive, i muster a good 45-75FPS in that game at 75hz refresh 1080P on very high settings and normal textures.

If you can unlock that chip keep it.

Shinrey · May 1, 2016

@MUShBrain
yeah i know very well that Unlocked AMD Phenom X2 550 is Dope, but the thing my mobo cant unlock it even i have advance calibration overlocked, idk why it's just wont load up, lol so i can only OC'ed it to 3,1 GHZ with still 2 cores not 4

@bgunner
thank you very much for the answer

MushBrain · May 1, 2016

Shinrey :

Oh wow that's a real shame, well IMO just grab a new platform and CPU.

I don't know what your budget is.

But i suggest going with a Skylake i5 6600k and a nice Z170 chipset motherboard, that is if money is not a problem?

Will AMD Phenom II X2 550 Bottleneck with R9 380x?

Commendable

Honorable

Judicious

Commendable

Judicious

Commendable

Judicious

Commendable

Illustrious

Illustrious

Commendable

Judicious

Illustrious

Commendable

Judicious

Commendable

Judicious

Reputable

Commendable

Reputable

Share this page