Upgrade Athlon II x4 640 to Phenom II x4 965 BE ??

[KayRizz]

Hey folks!

First of all I'm new in the forums so please excuse me if I'm doing something wrong

So here's my problem: I got a Gigabyte HD 7950 OC @ 1000MHz for Christmas. The problem is, that in games like Far Cry 3 or Battlefield 3 Mutiplayer (Ultra Settings, 1080p) i only get an average of ~30FPS. I experience huge FPS drops if I look into the distant. In Battlefield 3 MP it happens most of the time if a lot of people are playing on the server or as I said, if i look into the distance. In both games I tried to reduce graphic settings but I didn't even gain a single FPS more which is really frustrating.
Unlike the MP of BF3 the Singleplayer works flawless with smooth FPS around the VSync Line of 60.

So finally I came to the conclusion that my CPU is limiting (or bottlenecking, whatever) my GPU.
The best CPU I can get for my Mainboard (MSI 880GM-E41) is the Phenom II x4 965 BE. I am also willing to overclock it as far as I can without increasing the voltage (because it's locked in my BIOS -.-). So the question is will I experience a performance boost and if yes, how many FPS would I gain?

If I can play around min. 50 FPS constantly with the Phenom I will buy one, if not I'll wait untill summer next year to get me a new intel setup (MoBo+CPU). I think that if I wait, I will practically lose some money because I can't use the full power of my HD 7950 until then... I am really confused

P.S.: I am cooling my CPU with a Thermaright HR-02 Macho Rev. B, so I have some space to overclock

Here's my setup:

MSI 880GM-E41
AMD Athlon x4 640 @ 3.3GHz
Gigabyte HD 7950 @ 1000/1250MHz
Samsung Spinpoint 7200 RPM 1000GB
8GB Corsair Value RAM
CL Power 600 Watt PSU

I hope you are calming down from the christmas days and I wish you a happy new year 2013!

(Please excuse my mistakes, I'm from Germany :lol: )

 

[monu_08]

german are madd about there machine from = bosch
ok here comes too point i would suggest if can get an any ivy bridge cpu u wont regret that it give 40 to 60 fps easily now since amd suffer from pins in road of victory
so i suggest an i 3 ivy bridge cpu is a great for gaming or u can upgrade too i5 or i7
for more fps in games

 

[KayRizz]

my machine is actually self built
However, the problem is that I don't have enough money at the moment for an intel CPU + Mainboard. The only thing I could afford atm would be the Phenom II x4 965.
For an intel CPU I would need to wait at least until summer 2013

 

[monu_08]

then go for it a great cpu for money u can get 60 fps too easily here battlefield 3 multiplayer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0GzySUN_mg

 

[utroz]

Your motherboard also supports the Phenom X6 1045T, 1055T, and 1065T. Just make sure they are the 95watt version. They are much faster than the Phenom x4 965BE which by the way your motherboard does not support because it is a 125watt cpu...

 

[usbgtx550]

Why not try overclocking the athlon and see if you can hold out for a better upgrade.

 

[utroz]

About the most you can hope to overclock that 640 to from 3.3ghz stock is to 3.7- 3.85ghz absolute max. You gotta remember that it uses a different die from Phenom and they just don't scale as well even with good cooling. Plus they are locked as well which doesn't help matters at all.

 

[usbgtx550]

Good point. The phenom x6 would probably be the best bet then since games are progressively getting better at utilizing more cores. As others have said watch out for which model you get.