New to AMD cards. Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 OC 3GB DDR5

noxturno

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Hello everyone!!

I am very new to amd cards but one of my gamer friends told me and convince me to buy this card Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 OC 3GB DDR5 .

I always bought nvidia till now, the card that this 7970 replaced its an nvidia gts 450, and yes after I put it in there was a great improvement can play battlefield 3 on ultra settings, but minecraft and world of warcraft runs with very low fps, my 450 would have way better frames on minecraft.

all drivers from amd are the latest

catalyst version 12.8

Also how do you set up catalyst control center? to maximize the performance. I been messing around with it but I would like to know from some of you.

Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i3 CPU 530 @ 2.93GHz 6.9 5.9
Memory (RAM) 8.00 GB
Graphics AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series
Gaming graphics 5851 MB Total available graphics memory
Primary hard disk 201GB Free (466GB Total)
 
Solution
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i3 CPU 530 @ 2.93GHz 6.9 5.9
Memory (RAM) 8.00 GB
Graphics AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series
Gaming graphics 5851 MB Total available graphics memory
Primary hard disk 201GB Free (466GB Total)

from your specs it could be bottle necked at your cpu because its only dual core.
what power supply are you running?

IMA UNICORN

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Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i3 CPU 530 @ 2.93GHz 6.9 5.9
Memory (RAM) 8.00 GB
Graphics AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series
Gaming graphics 5851 MB Total available graphics memory
Primary hard disk 201GB Free (466GB Total)

from your specs it could be bottle necked at your cpu because its only dual core.
what power supply are you running?
 
Solution

noxturno

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700 psu yeah I am looking for an upgrade for it not sure how to find out if this motherboard DX4831 made by gateway can support anything higher than i3, do you know ? thanks in advance.
 

IMA UNICORN

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Since its a first gen i3 your mobo can support the first gen i5s and i7s, they might be hard to find tho unless you look for a second hand one, i'm not sure if the the newer core series processors would work with your mobo because the new core series require dual ram channels when the original Core series required triple channels of ram
 

IMA UNICORN

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Since its a first gen i3 your mobo can support the first gen i5s and i7s, they might be hard to find tho unless you look for a second hand one, i'm not sure if the the newer core series processors would work with your mobo because the new core series require dual ram channels when the original Core series required triple channels of ram
 

noxturno

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hey ! thanks for fast reply, would you happen to know the model name or number of the processors i5s and i7s that are compatible? . Also I forgot to mention I get 60 frames when I play battlefield 3, wouldnt it give me bad preformace if it was my i3 bottle necking my videocard?
 

IMA UNICORN

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first sorry about the double reply, i was using my phone.
I don"t know exact numbers sorry but any i5/i7 with a number less then 1000.
i would try reinstall the catalyst control center and see if that makes a difference or if tweaking any in game settings work like the refresh rate or AA settings. what interface are the monitors plugged in using?
 

noxturno

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thats my problem I dont know what all this stuff means... can you link me a guide on what stuff like aa means? .

thanks again!!!
 

noxturno

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so after doing mostly everything, no matter how I look at it seems like I have to upgrade this CPU from i3 to something else with 4 cores, you said that hey may be hard to find, do you mind helping me find which ones are the ones I can use ? that are compatible? i found some on ebay
http://www.ebay.com/itm/140846706772?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649#ht_483wt_1230

and

http://www.ebay.com/itm/130756875380?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649#ht_1408wt_882

would this be a good fit ? if not what other are outthere? I dont mind getting a used one or refurbished.
 

noxturno

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its a gateway dx4831-01e. I cant find something thats for sure everyone tells me maybe .
 

IMA UNICORN

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Well from a quick google you whole pc is the gateway dx4831-01e not the mobo. i also found out that any of the first gen i somethings will work so the on e in the link will work fine and should solve your problem
 

noxturno

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oh ok well i found out that too as soon as I get it I will let you know if it worked.. or should I just select best asnwer? they will lock the forum and you will never find out if I got it to work xD
 

noxturno

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which ones ? can I have a list ? or a way to find them? should I just look by socket?
 

IMA UNICORN

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Core i5-750
Core i5-760

Core i7-920
Core i7-930
Core i7-940
Core i7-950
Core i7-960
Core i7-965
Extreme Edition
Core i7-975
Extreme Edition

that's a list of the processors that will work and are better then your i3
 

noxturno

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you really think that the i7 9XX will work? found in some forum that only first gen i7 8xx

been thinking of getting this

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-i7-860-2-8GHz-8M-2-50GTs-Q3JR-CPU-Quad-Core-Processor-BV80605001908AK-/280963531022?_trksid=p5197.m1992&_trkparms=aid%3D111000%26algo%3DREC.CURRENT%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D14%26meid%3D2066463533419836095%26pid%3D100015%26prg%3D1006%26rk%3D1%26

very cheap and the vendor accepts returns.
 

noxturno

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ok guys I am done I got the i7 860 wasted no time and installed it (was my first time doing this type of thing...) anyhow I put it in after I replaced the old one and guess what its working xD windows 7 "installed it" and after a quick reboot done.

after I did that I read somewhere I forgot where, to stress test it so the thermal paste or what ever its called gets warm, I used intel extreme utility and I stressed it for 7 minutes the cpu heat got all the way to around 70-65 and stay there and it said passed, hope this temperatures are normal. I have no idea


thanks for your help/.