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Phenom II 940 BE bottlenecking 7850?

Last response: in Overclocking
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I am not exactly sure on the proper sub forum for this but I believe my finale answer will involve overclocking...


Newegg is having a promotion where if you buy certain graphics cards you receive a free copy of hitman absolution and Far Cry 3. So I decided it was a good time to buy a new graphics card. I settled on the AMD 7850 because it is a decent amount faster than my previous 4870 and it came with the 2 games.

My concern is that my processor , AMD Phenom II x4 940 black edition, will bottleneck the performance of my machine. I have searched around and read both that it will not, that it wont to much, and that it will considerably bottleneck the performance. I have also read that overclocking could solve this problem.

I began looking into overclocking my processor and read that you should try to keep the heat at 100% load under 62 C for reliability reasons. with out any over clocking I ran prime95 for an hour and my cpu temp went up to 72C...

Originally when I built my PC I was trying to make it extremely quiet but also powerful enough for games. When I initially put it together the CPU fan would always run at high speeds causing a lot of noise. While trying to trouble shoot this problem I found that the north bridge idled around 70C and this was heating up the cpu causing the cpu fan to run. So I bought a huge heat sink to keep the cpu cool with out to much noise. I also contacted gigabyte about the northbridge and they said it was normal and wouldn't help me out.


So my question is do you think my processor will cause a bottle neck in performance with the 7850?

If so how much of an overclock would I need on the my processor?

Would it be safe to overclock the processor given my temps?


System specs are

GIGABYTE GA-MA770-UD3
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

ADATA 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

CORSAIR TX Series CMPSU-750TX 750W
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

AMD Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

XIGMATEK HDT-S1283 120mm Rifle CPU Cooler
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Radeon HD 7850
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Antec P180
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

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I have the exact same CPU and a 6950 2GB, and finished FC3 a couple days ago (single player). Ultra settings minus MSAA around 30 fps. Make sure HDAO is selected for AMD, and you may need to play with the prerender frames if Crossfire (default of 1 was fine for me). 7850 performs about the same as the 6950, though I would expect with the 12.11 drivers you'll pull ahead.

P.S. Hitman Absolution will be crushing on your comp, but don't worry about the benchmark numbers, the game rarely needs a high fps (if played as intended).

P.P.S. To answer your question, a little, but still very playable in my opinion.

In a year or so I plan to upgrade my motherboard/cpu/ram but for now the card will be the only upgrade. My only question is should I overclock my cpu or not and is it safe or not given the temps.

72 is getting up there, even for AMD. You could get away with a small overclock, but as you said your cooling isnt meant for much. I'm solid at 3.5 but always been watercooled so I'm always in the 40's
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