HD 7870 OC with Phenom 965 BE bottleneck issues?

If you overclock the cpu you won't have a bottleneck with the 7870, probably wouldn't at stock either. You could get the FX 6300 it is $130 exactly and is a bit better than the 965. http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/102?vs=699

Make sure when you buy your motherboard bios is updated to support FX series CPU's.

My gaming/htpc is a mix of older and newer parts.

The A6-3650 is clocked to 3.5ghz, 135mhz blck, 1799mhz memory.
A pair of hd-4870's, vapor-x toxic editions, 800mhz gpu/1000mhz mem.

It seems to play games well at 1080p.
A few games like dirt2 are a bit cpu limited but after fiddling with the game settings it runs ok.
It will depend on the game, some games favor the i5 of course. Some are more gpu heavy.
I have yet to run into a game that won't run well on it, except for games like Just Cause 2 that require windows 7 and dx11. But 99.9% of games still support windows xp and dx9.0c.

The FX6100 is not much faster than the 965, not enough to justify a cpu upgrade.
In some games the 965 is faster.

The 965 is a bit faster and overclocks higher than my A6 so i think its ok with a hd-7870. A few games that favor the i5 will be a bit cpu limited.
Of course there is no way around the favoring of the i5, even the new FX-8350 wont help that.

I would go with the i5-3570K instead. Look for a cpu+mb bundle on sale to save some cash.

To save some cash for now use the boxed intel cpu cooler. This shaves $40 off.

To overclock the 965 to 3.8ghz or so you will need a decent cooler like the coolermaster 212 evo. The 965 runs pretty hot and wont overclock with the stock cooler anyway.

This $40 savings brings the i5-3570K closer in price to the 965.

At stock speeds the i5-3570K is faster than a 965 overclocked to 4.0ghz.

To sum of what he said if you have another $100+ yes get the i5 3570k

My system runs just fine with that setup, there is not a single game in my library I have any complaints about, they all play smooth @ 1080p. You can get a Phenom II 965 to 3.6-3.7GHZ with the stock cooler, but I wouldn't push it any higher than that. The 965 is identical to the highest model x4 (the 980), the difference is the multiplier settings. They both ship with the same stock cooler. So logic says, if a 980 is safe at 3.7 with the stock cooler, so is a 965 model with the multiplier set at 18.5X=3.7GHZ. But if you have the budget for it, go ahead and grab the i5.

Well, I'd say that the main difference between the 965 BE (My cpu, btw) and the 980 is the 980's higher binning. They make a batch of Phenom II x4's, test them, and bin them based on performance. They decide what chip gets what setting based on a mix of binning and market demand.

However, with an aftermarket cooler like a CM h212+, you should be able to reach 3.8GHz no sweat.

But yeah, I love my 965BE <3

Are you sure it runs hot i have my 965 BE at 3.9Ghz and it never breaks 50C under Stress testing and never breaks 45 during gaming

Save up a bit. get a i5 3570k if you wanna overclock. if not get a non K model.

Intel is faster and consumes less power and also supports pcie 3.0. Cant go wrong.

It doesn't run hot no. Even so, on the stock cooler, I would not recommend setting it higher than 3.7GHZ, the stock fans really are not very good. If you want to overclock a 3570K however, it still is recommended to get an aftermarket CPU cooler, stock Intel HSFs are just as trashy as AMD's, actually moreso (at least the AMD ones use metal clamps, not flimsy plastic push pins that break). 3570Ks run hotter, but on the other hand, they also have a higher tolerance for temperature. Phenom IIs are rated for no higher than 62c.

Oh i know the intels run bit hotter i was just saying it isn't a hot chip unles your case has bad airflow and you have the stock cooler. If you have good airflow and a Aftermarket hsf you temps are great