Best Card for Athlon II X3 450?

[sammyboy2]

What would be the best card for this CPU without bottlenecking? I want to get the Radeon 7870 but I think my CPU may bottleneck, either way I want a card that i can run vision with since I have AMD. Originally I wanted to get the 5870 but they are a bit old now and I want a card that I can have for a while without having to upgrade.

My budget is around £250 or maybe a few more for the 7870
I would be getting it in April 28th around abouts
I have an ASUS M5A78LM/USB3
I have no GPU currently so anything is better

Thanks, Sam

 

[alphaalphaalpha]

Hard to say for sure because CPUs that slow aren't tested often enough, but your CPU is even slower than a $100 FX-4100 and I'm not sure what it's limits are, but I wouldn't go above a Radeon 6770 or 7750 on it an Athlon II.

 

[exeedorbit]

I personally wouldn't go much higher than a 6770 with that. I wouldn't even bother ranging into the 77xx series, the likelihood of it bottlenecking is quite prominent.

 

[sammyboy2]

I have OC'd it to 3.4 ghz and could i not get a good gpu and then upgrade the cpu later? Id rather upgrade the CPU later than get a cheaper card, buy a new cpu then get a new gpu.

 

[alphaalphaalpha]

@exeedorbit

The 7750 is about equal to the 6770 in performance, but with a much lower power usage. It is also very similar in price too, the only Radeon 7000 card with a decent price for it's stock performance.

 

[sammyboy2]

So, am I affected by CPU Bottleneck?

Everyone is affected by CPU bottleneck.

The question is "how badly am I affected by CPU bottleneck?" and "does it noticeably impact on my gameplay experience?"

I previously said that CPU bottleneck is like a roof. If your CPU is powerful enough, then the roof is high enough for a good and smooth gameplay experience.

So, is CPU bottlenecking the reason of my low framerates? How do I find out?

If your CPU is based on the LGA 1155 (2nd gen. Intel Core i3/5/7), LGA 1156 (1st gen. Intel Core i3/5/7), LGA 1366 (1st gen. Intel Core i7) or on the AMD AM3 sockets (Athlon II x3/x4 and Phenom II x2/x3/x4/x6), then CPU bottleneck is unlikely to be the cause of your low framerates.

If your CPU is older or weaker than the above mentioned CPUs, then test the game at an extremely low resolution. If your framerates improve, then CPU bottleneck is not your issue. If framerates stay the same, then CPU bottleneck could be your issue.

Note that it takes an incredibly old and/or weak CPU to provide a game crippling bottleneck, and there are plenty of driver or game related issues that could be the cause of your problem. This is particularly true if you are using one of the newer processors I listed above.



Just read that on a website.

 

[viktorbkk]

Buy the best GPU you can afford. Just make sure that your PSU / Case solution can support it. You can always upgrade your CPU later.

 

[rush21hit]

One once said, if by noticeable you mean conceivable by mere mortals, then no.

Rana's IPC is somewhat on a decent level. Good enough for medium gaming with -$300 cards, but not enough to unleash the true potential of graphical madness for $300+ cards.

 

[alphaalphaalpha]

LOL yeah do NOT use ANY AMD CPU with a $300 video card unless you give it a big overclock, 4+GHZ for Phenom II and 4.3+GHz for FX. Athlons are even worse than FX, but also don't clock as high, so no... Don't use any Athlon with even $200 cards. Like I said, it is probably a bad idea to go beyond a Radeon 6770 or 7750 with an Athlon II.

If you want a faster card, then you need to upgrade your CPU or your CPU will bottleneck it. Of course, getting a faster card will pretty much always help, but how much it helps shows rapid diminishing returns because of the CPU not being alble to keep up.

Tom's showed us how badly some CPUs bottleneck video cards and only the A4s did worse than the Athlon IIs, all of which were very far from even Intel's sub $100 Pentiums and I bet if the $52 Intel Celerons would beat most of AMD's lineup. Athlons are just fine for Radeon 6770s and similar cards, but they show weakness after you go further. Sure, just going to a 6790 or 6850 won't show a major bottleneck, maybe not even a noticeable one if you don't see the difference between 30 and 40 FPS or so, but going to the 6870 and above will not work well on an Athlon II.

However, I'm just some guy on the Internet and maybe I'm wrong. Try the test proposed above, it shouldn't hurt to try it.

 

[alphaalphaalpha]

You need to get a clue. The Athlons will bottleneck video cards much faster than a 6770. Nvidia cards are a little better at dealing with slower CPUs than Radeons so if you want something faster, then the GTX 560 might be a better option.
Granted, the Athlons don't provide a huge bottleneck until you go to Radeon 6870/6900 and can probably not be too bad with a GTX 560 TI, but they DO bottleneck those cards somewhat. Going past them will result in a much larger bottleneck.

AMD Phenom II flagship chips can do very well even up to cards like a GTX 580, but this is an Athlon, NOT a Phenom or even an FX. Athlons are NOT these fast chips you seem to think they are.

 

[jdwii]

You need to get a clue. The Athlons will bottleneck video cards much faster than a 6770. Nvidia cards are a little better at dealing with slower CPUs than Radeons so if you want something faster, then the GTX 560 might be a better option.
Granted, the Athlons don't provide a huge bottleneck until you go to Radeon 6870/6900 and can probably not be too bad with a GTX 560 TI, but they DO bottleneck those cards somewhat. Going past them will result in a much larger bottleneck.

AMD Phenom II flagship chips can do very well even up to cards like a GTX 580, but this is an Athlon, NOT a Phenom or even an FX. Athlons are NOT these fast chips you seem to think they are.

This is all complete crap read here

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/athlon-ii-x3-440-gaming-performance,2619.html

The x3(this one has a lower clock) Works fine with a 5870, And when ivy comes out just upgrade later! Most games don't use more then 3 cores and just buy a 212+ and overclock the crap out of the tri core.

 

[jdwii]

"AMD Phenom II flagship chips can do very well even up to cards like a GTX 580, but this is an Athlon, NOT a Phenom or even an FX. Athlons are NOT these fast chips you seem to think they are."


Also BS

All the phenom's are a athlon with it unlocked and also with L3 cache!

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/athlon-l3-cache,2416.html

 

[jdwii]

This this this this this.

My CPU is better than yours but still not AMAZING and yet I see no bottleneck except in a couple games on my 7970. Now, I wouldn't necessarily recommend pairing a 7970 with a stock clocked Athlon II x3, but on a £250 or so budget, feel free to spend whatever you want.

You probably won't see a true hardware bottleneck (where the CPU is simply incapable of feeding the GPU to 100% load), but you'll rather see various software bottlenecks where your CPU can't handle what particular games throw at it and thus your performance isn't as great. It's not gonna be anything major enough that it should affect a purchasing decision at that price point, though.

Everyone saying things like "DONT GO HIGHER THAN A 6770" needs to get a clue... the Athlon II x3 is perfectly capable of playing all modern games just fine, so you don't need to skimp on a GPU.

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