Question on Radeon 7950 bottleneck

[havene123]

Ok, so i'm considering picking up a 7950 soon. But, the problem is my processor it's a athlon ii x4 605e only 2.97Ghz no l3 cache pretty weak, yet i can seem to run a single 6970 fine but i really don't know how bad the bottleneck is because i've never had a different processor to see the difference. So basically just wondering how noticeable would this bottleneck be? any step up from my 6970? because my friend told me a gpu upgrade is much better than cpu and i'm low on cash atm. although in the near future i might get a phenom ii x6. anyways, any answers appreciated!

 

[unksol]

My 6970 plays everything at ultra over 30fps. At 1920x1200. Personally I wouldn't upgrade, especially with the HD8xxxs out in a few months

 

[havene123]

may I ask which CPU you have?

 

[ern88]

I would upgrade your CPU+mobo first. then look at a new vid card later.

 

[havene123]

What about if I can upgrade to the new piledriver cpus? I'm pretty sure my mobo can support one. I was actually looking at the fx 4300 vishera 3.8ghz stock

 

[ern88]

I am not really familiar with AMD CPU's. But if your mobo manufacture says it supports the new pile driver CPU. I t would probably be a big help.

 

[technoholic]

Do i get it right? You own a 6970 now right? It is still a decent GPU imo. Your CPU is kind of too slow for a HD 7950 imo. And even if you wait for Radeon 8xxx series, you'd have to upgrade your CPU. I'd recommend you get at least a Piledriver 63xx not 43xx (they have only 10 dolars difference in newegg) but you must know what motherboard you have now to be sure if it supports PDs. Then you can wait and see what new Radeons will bring on the table + their price point and decide. At the same time you can consider a AMD Phenom II X4 980 if you can find a very cheap one (though i don't know if you can find in stocks) BUT ULTIMATELY if you plan to build a new rig in the near future, don't invest in this machine any more imo

 

[havene123]

Yeah turns out that I have an am3, which means I can't support anything better than a phenom ii since the new architecture is using am3+, i think i'll just get my friend to install a 1155 mobo with a 2500k, which means no gpu upgrade for quite a while but when i do get the gpu upgrade i wont worry about bottlenecks.