Upgrading CPU for BF3

sabre181

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Hello everyone!

So, like every other awesome person in the world, I'm addicted to BF3. I've been thinking of upgrading my CPU for some time and after seeing how it performs with BF3, I think I finally have the final push. Here is my specs:

Phenom II x3 720BE @ 3.4
GTX 560 (not ti and slightly overclocked)
8GB Gskill DDR3-1333
Vertex 2 90GB
770 chipset Mobo

Now I am able to run BF3 at high settings and get between 30-60fps (low in Caspian, high in Seine Crossing) and my GPU usage is usually around 60%. My proc however is a different story. All three cores are usually at 85-90% usage at all times when playing.

I'm thinking about a Phenom x4 955 and oc'ing it to at least 3.7 but i'm wondering if it would be worth the price? Would I see a diminish in CPU usage? Is my current loadout causing my GTX 560 to bottleneck? I would LOVE to upgrade to a core i3 or i5 Sandy Bridge but right now money is a little tight... Any and all suggestions are appreciated! Thanks-
 
Solution
A Phenom x4 955 would definitely give your GPU more room to stretch, since you say it's sitting at 60%. I'm guessing this is in multiplayer? In SP CPU doesn't scale well with cores and your GPU will likely run at a higher % in SP, but in multiplayer it is a huge factor. My i7 920 runs ~80% on all four cores during MP, with my gtx 580 at 99% most of the time.

sabre181

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I did try, but I don't think I was fortunate enough to get a stable 4th core... :(
 

sabre181

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The game is playable but I was just wondering if the constant usage of the CPU was hindering the performance of my GPU? I get ~30fps on the larger maps and I would love to get more consistent numbers if I could and if a faster quad core would do it I would be interested!
 

sabre181

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I have the CPU overclocked to 3.4 from 2.8 and the voltage is pretty high right now so I dont think I could want to go much further with that. As for the RAM, I've tried to get it to 1600mhz but never got it stable.
 

sabre181

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I also just looked at some reviews of BF3 and yeah, like you said Finneous it doesn't look like it will scale that well CPU wise so I might not see the results I would like..,
 

sabre181

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He totally did. But thanks-
 

gmcizzle

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A Phenom x4 955 would definitely give your GPU more room to stretch, since you say it's sitting at 60%. I'm guessing this is in multiplayer? In SP CPU doesn't scale well with cores and your GPU will likely run at a higher % in SP, but in multiplayer it is a huge factor. My i7 920 runs ~80% on all four cores during MP, with my gtx 580 at 99% most of the time.
 
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sabre181

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Yeah, in MP its at 85-90% CPU usage and ~60% GPU usage. I haven't played the SP much or at least enough to where I can get a pretty good idea. So I guess in your opinion, would getting the 955 be worth the price for the performance gain? I understand that the degree of increased performance isn't a guarantee but I would like to look for at least a 8-10fps increase from the GPU?
 

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