Upgrade Amd 955 @4.0Ghz to Amd 8350 (Gaming, mainly Rome Total War 2)

[Sebbo90]

I'll start with my specs first:

Amd Phenom 955 @ 4Ghz with antec khuler 620
Gigabyte 990fxa-ud3
Amd 6950 2gb
8 ddr3 ram @1600
64gb sata 3 SSD

Basically I am thinking of upgrading my pc for when Rome Total War 2 comes out (current guess on system requirements are to be similar to shogun 2). I bought this PC before bulldozer came out with the intention of upgrading the CPU in it, big mistake. After seeing the performance of the 8150 I decided to skip.

The question is, price vs performance is it best to upgrade to the amd fx 8350 or buy a new mobo and intel cpu?

thanks

 

[skitz9417]

u should just keep that cpu and wait for steamrolleer or haswell and in those games u will be fine

 

[Wisecracker]

u should just keep that cpu and wait for steamrolleer [strike]or haswell and in those games u will be fine[/strike]

THOUGH, AMD is working with game devs to optimize Piledriver cores (see: Crysis3). The slick move would be to wait until just before Steamroller hits retail (or shortly thereafter) and snag a FX-8350 Piledriver bargain as AMD moves out old inventory.

 

[jaslion]

wait for steamroller and then get a pildriver WAY cheaper. example an fx 8150 cost about 140-150€ now and that is almost the price of an fx6300(piledriver)

 

[twelve25]

wait for steamroller and then get a pildriver WAY cheaper. example an fx 8150 cost about 140-150€ now and that is almost the price of an fx6300(piledriver)

I think that is just because bulldozer sucks and an fx-6300 is faster in some cases than an fx-8150. Old Phenom quads are still about the same price as new Bulldozer and Piledriver quads, because they were good performers. Piledrivers are good chips, so I don't know if they will clearance out very fast.

Another example with intel is that i5 sandy bridge and i5 ivy bridge are like $5-10 apart even after a whole year.

 

[jaslion]

I think that is just because bulldozer sucks and an fx-6300 is faster in some cases than an fx-8150. Old Phenom quads are still about the same price as new Bulldozer and Piledriver quads, because they were good performers. Piledrivers are good chips, so I don't know if they will clearance out very fast.

Another example with intel is that i5 sandy bridge and i5 ivy bridge are like $5-10 apart even after a whole year.

true but the phenoms are STILL awesome and REALLY cheap (85€ phenom 965 be) and if i can believe anandtech that 965 phenom prefroms a bit like a fx 6300 in applications that don't use more than 2-3 cores. intel is just wierd by letting their old products stay at the price of ther new ones (not going to sell the old stuff).

 

[Wisecracker]

I think that is just because bulldozer sucks and an fx-6300 is faster in some cases than an fx-8150. Old Phenom quads are still about the same price as new Bulldozer and Piledriver quads, because they were good performers. Piledrivers are good chips, so I don't know if they will clearance out very fast.

Another example with intel is that i5 sandy bridge and i5 ivy bridge are like $5-10 apart even after a whole year.

Actually, Intel does not drop prices as next-gen processors are brought to market. Those price points are the same as they were a year ago.

 

[twelve25]

Phenom II X4 perform just slightly worse than a FX-4300, which is exactly where they are priced at most places.

 

[Sebbo90]

Thanks for the replies my only concern with waiting for steamroller is that it's not going to be out till 2014 for desktops

 

[timil]

Hold on for steamroller m8 youll be thanking yourself later, get a dirt cheap piledriver or maybe even a new steamroller. Steamroller uses am3+ so no worries there

 

[bigj1985]

Phenom II X4 perform just slightly worse than a FX-4300, which is exactly where they are priced at most places.

I thought the P2 actually performed significantly better in multi threaded applications (around 15%-25%), has slightly better IPC, and slightly better overall performance.

To be fair when I was looking for camparisons a while back I was looking at the P2 980 not the 955. But they are pretty much all the same processor with different clockspeeds. I know the PD has lower power consumption though

 

[simon12]

Unless Rome II is highly CPU bound a better CPU may not help at all without a better GPU. The system is well balanced at the moment between CPU & GPU power so upgrading either without the other will just cause the other to be the bottleneck.

 

[SmartGeek]

I'll start with my specs first:

Amd Phenom 955 @ 4Ghz with antec khuler 620
Gigabyte 990fxa-ud3
Amd 6950 2gb
8 ddr3 ram @1600
64gb sata 3 SSD

Basically I am thinking of upgrading my pc for when Rome Total War 2 comes out (current guess on system requirements are to be similar to shogun 2). I bought this PC before bulldozer came out with the intention of upgrading the CPU in it, big mistake. After seeing the performance of the 8150 I decided to skip.

The question is, price vs performance is it best to upgrade to the amd fx 8350 or buy a new mobo and intel cpu?

thanks

Hi Sebbo90,

I think you should stick with your current configuration as it is enough for playing games smoothly. In your current PC, your GPU will limit the performance in games long before your CPU does.

I recommend you to spend your money on buying a new AMD HD 6900 series GPU so that you can CrossFire it with your AMD HD 6950. This setup should deliver 40+ FPS in even the most demanding games at 1080p with quality settings maxed out. Though, your processor will start to limit the performance of the CrossFire setup but overall this setup will always perform better in games when compared to a setup of AMD FX-8350 and single AMD HD 6950.

Regards,
SmartGeek