Phenom 2 945 bottleneck

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wildcard749

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Im lookin to upgrade to a directx 11 gpu to replace my old gtx295, i play world of warcraft and to be honest i didnt get the framerates i was hopin for on high to max settings, i just want to know what high end video cards i can use before my cpu becomes the bottleneck, i will look at prices once i see what my options are. System specs are:

Processor: phenom 2 x4 945
Cpu heatsink : scythe ninja mini
Motherboard: asus m4a79t deluxe
Ram : 2x2gb corsair ddr3 1600
2x2gb corsair ddr3 1333
Case: coolermaster haf 932
Hard drive : WD caiar 640gb sata 2 @ 7200 rpm
Power supply : corsair hx1000w
Operating system: windows xp64bit pro
Monitor : 23" samsung syncmaster led w/2ms response time
 
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mdd1963

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wildcard749

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No my phenom i yhink was the first gen of their 45nm chips but i didnt get a black edition :| but from the toms hardware review on WOW cataclysm, wow is only recognizing one of the gpu's from the 295 instead of both which sounds about right to me considering the performance im seeing. so thats why i was thinking of getting a new gpu.
 
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wildcard749

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Yes ive considered that but the processor is still a couple years old and most likely cant keep up with the high end cards right now, i just wan to figure out how much of an upgrade i can do for now and be able to play WOW on higher settings comfortably :|
 
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Wisecracker

Wisecracker

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Running 2 different kits could be a problem.

If your CPU is a C3 stepping it should over-clock quite well. I've used a C2 945 on that motherboard at 3.5GHz/2500MHz IMC/NB with vcore 1.38v.

Your video card options depend upon your budget. Your CPU will not hold you back.
 
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wildcard749

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My 945 was from their first gen of the processor ( ive had this sytem for awhile now) but thank you for pointing out the ram i had been thinking about that recently as well. Basically i dont really have a budget but am sirt or capped on spending anyways since WOW doesnt utilize crossfire or sli and im basically stuck with single gpu's, i just didnt want to say... Go out and buy a gtx 580 only to find that my processor is bottlenecking my system. The native resolution on my monitor is 1920 x 1080 and i had read those resolutions are cpu bottlenecked
 
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synthaside

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i actually play wow on a very similar machine wild ... an old M2nsli with a 945 on a C2 stepping ( lower wattage for my am2+ board)

I have a 5870 ... in raids with enough visual candy turned up i get >50 fps when all the aoe is flying . You want to run everything on ultra ... "ok" but im really really going to reccomend you turn the anti aliasing down to max 4x ... ive experimented with it a lot and it its almost 90% unnoticeable because of wow's style of graphics between 4x and 8x

and it will boost your frames by about 30 or so ... i really recommend you try a basic overclock , that cpu will easily go to 3.3 ghz ( and higher too) on the amd stock cooler with very little extra heat provided you have a well vented case , i say this because im sat with wow open now at 40c under load with that exact over clock.

Fiddle with your wow settings , and fraps the results so you can see the difference between 8x 4x and 2x ..

Oh extra note the direct x 11 settings in wow didnt seem to do a lot tbh , maybe a few frames ... your gpu is pretty solid i'd hang on if i were you and try to O/c
 
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Wisecracker

Wisecracker

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Listen to synth. Otherwise ...

A Phenom quad is 'good enough' for gaming and will not hold you back -- even better with increasing the clock speed (and the IMC/NB). You have a lot going on so pardon me if I ramble :lol:

With you RAMs defaulting to DDR3 1333 your sweet spot will be 250MHz, so 15x250MHz would be a really nice bump (and raise the IMC/NB to 2500MHz). C2s will take some volts (up to 1.425v IIRC) but I wouldn't shoot for the moon. 14x250MHz is dandy and should keep your temps and volts down nicely.

BUT ... I'm not sure how your 'mixed kits' will play with all of this. That could hold back a stable OC.

{Personal Rant} DX11 is a frame-sucking Hawg with little current benefit. {/Rant} With XP-64 you can't go there, anyway. WoW has DX11 (I think) but the bottom line is the game is not coded very well. You could throw tons of money at your rig for a precious few FPS and MIGHT actually back up with DX11 below your current frames.

If you decide to go Win7-64 for DX11 a new motherboard should be considered (and this brings forth even more opportunities/challenges). The 990FX will both Crossfire/SLI, and run your current CPU & RAMs --- setting you up for a move to the future Bulldozer Zambezi....

Hopefully, it would give you a few more FPS in WoW :D
 
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wildcard749

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Yes i could upgrade to a new motherboard but then ill want a new processor and so forth and to be honest ive been considering building a new rig possibly next year with an intel platform so iono how i feel about upgrading too many things. changing out the ram would be relatively cheap since ddr3 modules at that speed are way cheaper than they used to be i could pick up 2x 4gb sticks for prolly about 100 bucks. I dont have the stock amd heatsink im using a scythe ninja mini i beleive my temps have been around 50c under load and the haf932 has decent airflow. Ok well when im able to ill pick up some ram and try overclocking my phenom see what happens. As for the directx 11 i have a gtx 460m in my laptop and it was accidentally set to directx9 api so i set it to directx 11 and man it made a HUGE difference in performance.
 
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synthaside

synthaside

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stands for internal memory clock ( its the thing that controls your ram from inside your cpu)

basically you can overclock 3 differnt things on your pc and they will all give you a performance boost your motheboard has lots of lovely easy overclock features to make it easy to do .. and if you get stuck ... ask us lot or grab an easy overclocking guide you wont have a lot of trouble .. im sure

Processor is the easy bit set your timings to 14( multiplier ) X 250 (frequence) and your cpu will go to 3.5ghz If you are really worried about the temperature 13 x250 will still give you a boost to 3.25 .. its a free performance upgrade , once you have done this .. stress test it ... many people use prime 95 or some other torture test ... i like to use 2 copies of wow and a whole bunch of chrome windows for 2 hours while its more a real world test for me anyway.

What heat monitor are you using .. i like core temp , because i can set it to warn me if its getting above my peak 65c and will shut my pc off if i dont deal with the pop up and it goes higher ( in the case where mrs synth has sent me to tesco while stress testing )

But i would strip the case off buy a can of compressed air and really clean the crap out of the pc dust is the enemy of well vented cases , especially inside the heatsink , and you mentioned you have had it for a while .

RAM ... yip sort that pick n mix ram issue it your pc only likes one flavour at a time so your not doing yourself any favours , chuck the other sticks on ebay and make half the price back ... always a decent saving .

Graphics ... been a while since i used an Nvidia card but from what i remember about NVtools you could overclock very easily ...

remember ... to write your settings down ( what you changed them from) so you can change them back if you need to .

And remember .... go slowly if something gives you errors switch it back or down
worst case scenario and your machine wont post (pretty damn rare)
you can grab the battery out of the bios ... or i think your mb has a reset button iirc

theres really no reason to give it a try ... you might like it ;-)
 
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Wisecracker

Wisecracker

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IMC = *Integrated Memory Controller*

The memory controller is on the CPU die and has a 'direct connection' to your RAMs. The stock speed of this connection is 2000MHz. For each 10% you increase the speed of the connection, memory bandwidth is increased 3-4% and latency is reduced 3-4%. On the latest C3s 'enthusiasts' are blowing past 3000MHz --- running 2400-2500MHz with a slight bump in NB volts (1.1875 to 1.2v should be fine) is as close to a 'slam dunk' as you can get. The increase in performance from boosting the IMC/NB speed generally equals and parallels that of increasing your CPU clock --- you get a 'two-fer' or double-bump in performance.

A better explanation on your RAMs:

When you run mixed speeds your memory defaults to the lowest speed -- in your case 1333MHz. It is quite possible that the mixed kits create no issues for you ... or NOT :lol:

It's possible that the mixed kits are essentially the same RAMs with the ddr3 1600 kit simply binned higher ... or NOT :)

Early PhIIs could be a little testy with RAMs from time-to-time when over-clocking with all 4 DIMM slots occupied ... especially in a 64-bit OS. So, all these flags being raised could be revealing issues ... or not.

Your system speeds are adjusted by multipliers/dividers and are all tied to the system clock. At stock your CPU is 15x200MHz, IMC/NB is 10x200MHz, HT Link is 10x200MHz and RAMs (at 1333) 6.67x200MHz. When you raise the system clock (commonly referred to as the FSB or CPU Freq) you have to compensate in a few places.

It is best that you keep your HT Link around 2000MHz, so when raising the system clock you should drop the HT Link multiplier --- in your case, the 8x (or '1600') setting.

To keep your RAMs in spec you must drop the memory setting. At 250MHz system clock it just so happens that dropping the ratio to 533/1066MHz works just perfect --- 5.33x250MHz.

With the IMC/NB, leaving the multiplier/setting at 10x(2000MHz) equals 10x250MHz.

With your cooler (and enough volts) you may well reach 15x250MHz but don't get too greedy -- work your way up to it and checks for stability and temps along the way. Your CPU multiplier is locked going *UP* not down. 13x250MHz is a nice place to start.

It is also advisable to manually set your Vcore and NB volts -- *Auto* tends to over-volt and drive your temps unnecessarily higher than they need to be.

If you have problems my first suggestion is to remove one of those RAM kits. If you wish to keep the DDR3 1600 kit in your rig the 'sweet spot' for the system clock is 240MHz (by dropping the ratio from 800/1600 to 667/1333 your RAMs will 'magically' return to spec -- 6.67x240MHz)


There yah go.



 
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