A Good card to go with my CPU?

[Leem123]

Hello, I've been thinking of getting a new Graphics card to go with my CPU (AMD PHENOM II X4 965BE)

I have about £250 to spend on a new card. My card now is a GTX 560 (Stock).

Is it worth an upgrade or not?

 

[maxh22]

Hello, I've been thinking of getting a new Graphics card to go with my CPU (AMD PHENOM II X4 965BE)

I have about £250 to spend on a new card. My card now is a GTX 560 (Stock).

Is it worth an upgrade or not?

Gtx 660ti $300

 

[Leem123]

Gtx 660ti $300

Will it work fine with my CPU? :/

 

[auntarie]

Gtx 660ti $300

With a x4 965? No. I'd say keep your current GPU.

 

[fastreaction]

I second the GTX 660 TI.

- Fastreaction

 

[Leem123]

I second the GTX 660 TI.

- Fastreaction

Would this card work with my CPU?

http://www.amazon.com/Sapphire-Radeon-GDDR5-Graphics-11199-03-20G/dp/B007JCNOY6

 

[fastreaction]

Actually, I recommend you to stick to your current GPU for now. That CPU is just going to bottleneck the higher end cards.

- Fastreaction

 

[Leem123]

Actually, I recommend you to stick to your current GPU for now. That CPU is just going to bottleneck the higher end cards.

- Fastreaction

Would it not work with a sapphire 7870?

 

[fastreaction]

Would it not work with a sapphire 7870?

It is not that it does not work or something. It is that you won't get full performance (which makes it a waste of money). The CPU will bottleneck that card. You better save up some money and get a better CPU.

- Fastreaction

 

[Leem123]

It is not that it does not work or something. It is that you won't get full performance (which makes it a waste of money). The CPU will bottleneck that card. You better save up some money and get a better CPU.

- Fastreaction

What CPU would you recommend?

 

[Supernova1138]

I'd say get either a 7870 or 660Ti, and overclock your Phenom II if you need to, after getting a better CPU cooler of course if you are running stock cooling. The Phenom IIs are still serviceable gaming CPUs, and it shouldn't hold back either of those cards that much. Unless you are playing a very CPU heavy game, you'll still see better performance with a newer card over the 560. These new cards aren't so powerful that you must have a Sandy Bridge CPU to run them. The 660Ti and 7870 are about as powerful as the GTX 580 was, and it wasn't horribly hamstrung by a quad core Phenom II.

You can check for a CPU bottleneck by running task manager in the background. If your CPU is maxing out its cores with the new card, bump up your CPU clockspeed a bit to alleviate the bottleneck. You have a Black Edition CPU, so overclocking is as simple as changing the multiplier, and slightly bumping up the voltage if you run into instability.

 

[Leem123]

I'd say get either a 7870 or 660Ti, and overclock your Phenom II if you need to, after getting a better CPU cooler of course if you are running stock cooling. The Phenom IIs are still serviceable gaming CPUs, and it shouldn't hold back either of those cards that much. Unless you are playing a very CPU heavy game, you'll still see better performance with a newer card over the 560. These new cards aren't so powerful that you must have a Sandy Bridge CPU to run them. The 660Ti and 7870 are about as powerful as the GTX 580 was, and it wasn't horribly hamstrung by a quad core Phenom II.

You can check for a CPU bottleneck by running task manager in the background. If your CPU is maxing out its cores with the new card, bump up your CPU clockspeed a bit to alleviate the bottleneck. You have a Black Edition CPU, so overclocking is as simple as changing the multiplier, and slightly bumping up the voltage if you run into instability.

My cooler now is a Cooler master evo or something, and if i downloaded MSI After burner, can i overclock it with it? And how? Sorry I'm new to this over clocking lol

 

[Supernova1138]

You have a good cooler so you don't need to change that unless you want an extreme overclock. CPU overclocking is best done in the BIOS. MSI Afterburner is only used to overclock the video card. Best advice for overclocking is to do incremental boosts, going up 100MHz at a time, then run a stress test like Prime95. Keep Prime95 running for a while, to ensure that there are no errors or Bluescreens.

Errors or Bluescreens means the CPU is unstable and you may need to ever so slightly boost your CPU voltage. You also have to keep an eye on your temperatures. For a Phenom II if you CPU core temps are exceeding 62 celsius, that is not good. Use a program like HWMonitor or CoreTemp to monitor your CPU temperatures. You can keep moving the clockspeed up until you hit temperatures that are too high, or instability becomes a problem, and you have the voltage up as high as you can safely take it.

Here is the guide for overclocking AMD Black Edition CPUs from the Overclocking forum if you need additional information.

 

[Leem123]

You have a good cooler so you don't need to change that unless you want an extreme overclock. CPU overclocking is best done in the BIOS. MSI Afterburner is only used to overclock the video card. Best advice for overclocking is to do incremental boosts, going up 100MHz at a time, then run a stress test like Prime95. Keep Prime95 running for a while, to ensure that there are no errors or Bluescreens.

Errors or Bluescreens means the CPU is unstable and you may need to ever so slightly boost your CPU voltage. You also have to keep an eye on your temperatures. For a Phenom II if you CPU core temps are exceeding 62 celsius, that is not good. Use a program like HWMonitor or CoreTemp to monitor your CPU temperatures. You can keep moving the clockspeed up until you hit temperatures that are too high, or instability becomes a problem, and you have the voltage up as high as you can safely take it.

Here is the guide for overclocking AMD Black Edition CPUs from the Overclocking forum if you need additional information.

Thanks I was in my Bios and i noticed there is an Optimal Mode what does it do? Mine is on normal now

 

[Leem123]

Your BIOS may include presets for overclocking. Depending on where you were in the BIOS, that may just be referring to the CPU fan profile. I wouldn't bother using those. Presets tend to go overboard on the CPU voltage, generating more heat and using more power than is needed. You'll get better performance by doing any overclock manually.

This is my Bios. Ez Mode.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=fvwp&NR=1&v=zLs4xdlBhi0

The first 50secs or so. I was looking about for Optimal mode but there is not many threads on it :/

 

[Supernova1138]

Your BIOS may include presets for overclocking. Depending on where you were in the BIOS, that may just be referring to the CPU fan profile. I wouldn't bother using those. Presets tend to go overboard on the CPU voltage, generating more heat and using more power than is needed. You'll get better performance by doing any overclock manually.

 

[Supernova1138]

Okay, setting you are referring to is the power saving mode. Normal slows down your hardware when it is not stressed to save power. Optimal mode probably just changes some of the power saving settings to offer either better power savings.

Generally speaking you don't need to run your CPU at full speed constantly, so power saving is nice. Some overclockers may turn off power saving features to offer better stability on some higher overclocks. I wouldn't bother changing that around unless you have to.

 

[Leem123]

Okay, setting you are referring to is the power saving mode. Normal slows down your hardware when it is not stressed to save power. Optimal mode probably just changes some of the power saving settings to offer either better power savings.

Generally speaking you don't need to run your CPU at full speed constantly, so power saving is nice. Some overclockers may turn off power saving features to offer better stability on some higher overclocks. I wouldn't bother changing that around unless you have to.

I still don't have a clue on how to increase the multiplier :/

 

[Supernova1138]

You probably have to go into advanced view in your BIOS, the simplified view probably won't have it. It should be under CPU settings. Refer to the overclocking guide I linked to for more information, it is quite detailed.

 

[Leem123]

You probably have to go into advanced view in your BIOS, the simplified view probably won't have it. It should be under CPU settings. Refer to the overclocking guide I linked to for more information, it is quite detailed.

Would this be any good for me?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rlm-0-aX3E

 

[Supernova1138]

It seems to be a good guide, though I think he is using an older motherboad that doesn't have the fancier BIOS interface you have. If all else fails, refer to your motherboard's documentation to find out how you get to the CPU settings.