Is the phenom x4 945 worth it to upgrade?

[schecterplayer]

hey all i currently have the phenom x4 9950 cpu at stock clocks. bf3 and skyrim and gta4 choke this thing. i know my board ( biostar ta 790gx 128m) can only support this cpu. due to some power plane or something. but this is the best it can hold. how much better is the 945 than the 9950? tigerdirect has it for 100 dollars. is it worth it?

 

[marshal11]

well if you get that CPU and overclock it a bit and it would get rid of most of the bottleneck. but to make sure if it is worth it, download MSI afterburner, run it while playing a game and see the usage of the GPU. if it isn't around 90-100%, then you are being bottlenecked but not by very much. anything below 80% is worth it. that would be 20% more FPS. but the amount between your GPU's usage and 100% is how much bottleneck there is caused by the CPU. if it is being bottlenecked, overclock your CPU first before buying a new one. it isn't that hard at all.

 

[schecterplayer]

well if you get that CPU and overclock it a bit and it would get rid of most of the bottleneck. but to make sure if it is worth it, download MSI afterburner, run it while playing a game and see the usage of the GPU. if it isn't around 90-100%, then you are being bottlenecked but not by very much. anything below 80% is worth it. that would be 20% more FPS. but the amount between your GPU's usage and 100% is how much bottleneck there is caused by the CPU. if it is being bottlenecked, overclock your CPU first before buying a new one. it isn't that hard at all.

ok heres the thing... with bf3 i can usually run high settings 30-40 fps. but the performance graph shows the gpu and the cpu both strugling to pull that. now it gets confusing. i lower the resolution and the gpu stays at that 60 fps mark pretty much all the time. the cpu is waaaaayyyyy above it and the frame rate is locked to 30. but only for short bit. then the gpu and cpu level out and get around 40 fps... i up the resolution to 1080p and they both get dragged down. but my usage only shows the gpu at 90% what is my problem here???

 

[axe1592]

Yes it would be worth it and it would be a pretty big upgrade for you too especially if you overclock and especially if you overclock the CPU/NB. It is well worth $100 to upgrade to the X4 and will help your gaming performance as well as everyday performance.

 

[schecterplayer]

Yes it would be worth it and it would be a pretty big upgrade for you too especially if you overclock and especially if you overclock the CPU/NB. It is well worth $100 to upgrade to the X4 and will help your gaming performance as well as everyday performance.

u think so? now i have the x4 9950 atm. how much better is the 945?

 

[schecterplayer]

well if you get that CPU and overclock it a bit and it would get rid of most of the bottleneck. but to make sure if it is worth it, download MSI afterburner, run it while playing a game and see the usage of the GPU. if it isn't around 90-100%, then you are being bottlenecked but not by very much. anything below 80% is worth it. that would be 20% more FPS. but the amount between your GPU's usage and 100% is how much bottleneck there is caused by the CPU. if it is being bottlenecked, overclock your CPU first before buying a new one. it isn't that hard at all.

and i cant for the life of me overclock my cpu. its the black edition but i cant up the voltages. i have the biostar ta790 gx 128m mobo. i try to use amd overdrive and the mobo voltage increase and it just wont accept a higher voltage

 

[axe1592]

u think so? now i have the x4 9950 atm. how much better is the 945?

Here's a comparison between a 9950 and a 955 which will be about the same as a 945. The 955 wins every single benchmark and by a wide margin. Not to mention, the Phenom II will overclock significantly better so itll be even faster.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/21?vs=88

 

[schecterplayer]

945 is way better than any Phenom I 955BE C3 even better.
even when the Phenom I came out AMD knew it was/is a fail but released it anyways.
my parents ran a 9850BE for a few years until I moved home and threw it away.
upper tier Phemon II 955BE - 980BE for quads and 1090T - 1100T for 6-cores.

the difference is massive and then add overclocking.
tyhen upgrade surrounding hardware like add SSD if you do not have already.
equals a nice unit.

not as good as an Intel build but capable of doing whatever.

ok well thats good to know. thank u. now since im doing an upgrade would it be better to get a newest gen cpu? i honestly dont care about benchmarks or fanboy ***. i want a cpu that can handle the games i play ( BF3, Skyrim) is the 945 going to extremely help those?

 

[schecterplayer]

what 's the budget.?[/quotem
extremely EXTREMELY tight

 

[schecterplayer]

OK.
I still need a dollar amount to work with..

Like hundred bucks

 

[schecterplayer]

just for the processor.?

For the whole system at the moment.

 

[schecterplayer]

:lol: sure..

Waaaaatt?