Will an AMD Phenom 2 X4 965 bottle neck a 7950?

[codyw9524]

I have an AMD Phenom 2 X4 965 in an MSI 790FX-GD70

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130223

Will that set up bottle neck this 7950?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102991

Thanks!

 

[xtreme5]

If your cpu is running at stock speed then yes.
Or if you overclock your cpu as high as possible then NO.

 

[alphaalphaalpha]

A Phenom II x4 965 will be a bottle-neck for the Radeon 7950 in several games, depending on the situation. You might want to overclock it to get the most out of it if you play any CPU-bound games. Around 4GHz could alleviate it enough in such games. For example, BF3 MP with 32-64 players could be too much for stock to handle very well, but an overclock might help enough to resolve that. However, unlike what xtreme5 said, there is absolutely no guarantee. I wouldn't go past the Radeon 7950 with that CPU, just as a warning. An LGA 1155 i5 would be a better choice for a higher end gaming computer.

 

[panwala95]

overclock your cpu as xtreme 5 said and also try to get the highest and coolest card you can lay your paws on!

 

[codyw9524]

Thanks for all the replies! I have her on stock clocks right now, but I do have a custom cooler. So, I'll see how close to 4.0Ghz i can get her. (I've heard 4 is rare for these chips)

Any thoughts on the performance impact of my PCI Express 2.0 slots with a PCI Express 3.0 card?

 

[mousseng]

Thanks for all the replies! I have her on stock clocks right now, but I do have a custom cooler. So, I'll see how close to 4.0Ghz i can get her. (I've heard 4 is rare for these chips)

Any thoughts on the performance impact of my PCI Express 2.0 slots with a PCI Express 3.0 card?

On the CPU, if it's a C3 stepping 965, 4GHz shouldn't be much of an issue. On PCIe, there'll be no impact at all.

 

[Viking2121]

To be honest, if half these people that replied to you post never looked at much benchmarks with the 965 and the 7950/7970. Only way it would bottleneck if its a game like skyrim where core for core matters like and Intel of course comes ahead in that department. Now get a game like BF3 where it uses the GPU more then the CPU (I know it uses a good amount of CPU) the CPU wont bottleneck.

As been said over and over, It really depends on the game. On a crappy good for nothing port like skyrim like said, it might bottleneck where Intel would come ahead. OC the CPU-NB to 2600 - 2800mhz+ and you'll be surprised what the phenom II can dish out as these benchmarks never OC the CPU-NB on these phenom's.

If AMD would of made the Bulldozer's with a slightly lower clock and 3000mhz CPU-NB, the CPU would more then likely suppress the speed of the Phenom's.

 

[xtreme5]

There is definitely NO difference between PCI-e 2.0 vs 3.0 google it you'll get many reviews in which they are about identical.

 

[esrever]

The bottleneck will be completely game dependent but generally no bottleneck. An OC will be good too.

 

[Kamen_BG]

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-7970-cpu-scaling-performance-review/
Depending on the resolution you may see a bottleneck even if you overclock.But since most people play on 1080p monitors these days that shouldnt be a problem.

 

[xtreme5]

keeping the higher resolution the more lesser bottleneck you'll acheive.

 

[verbalizer]

Ran a 7970 with a Phenom II x6 at 4.0 GHz for a couple months... no bottleneck in most games, but from my game library, I had bottlenecks in:
Starcraft 2 and all other RTS games
Skyrim
The Witcher 2
Crysis and Crysis Warhead

All those titles saw sizeable performance increases when I went to my current CPU. Some older games like Portal 2 and Dragon Age also saw performance increases, but they already run so well on a Phenom 2 that it's hard to call it a bottleneck.

this reply right here slightly less in actual CPU and GPU strength (though ratio wise might equal out in the comparison)..

I have a GTX 580 SuperClocked and felt the same issues.
965BE @ 4.0GHz and 975BE @ 4.2GHz - including SSD.
and I still went 2500K..