Upgrading CPU.

[RockGOD16]

Okay, I've got a Phenom II X4 965 BE OC'ed to 3.7 Ghz. It's not cutting it sadly. My newer games are starting to chug, especially because I'm very much into modding (See Crysis 1 and Skyrim and ARMA II). I've been browsing for quite sometime, and I have flopped back and forth between getting an AMD FX-8350 or an Intel i5-3570k. Right now I already have a Sabertooth 990fx and it rocks, and getting the 8350 would mean I won't have to upgrade motherboards, but, it's still a Vishera, and not gonna rock the house gaming wise. The i5-3570k would be like a corvette compared to my 965, but it's really pricey because I would have to get a new motherboard (I would like to stick to ASUS Sabertooth because of their BIOS and safety precautions) So I was wondering what the community thought, and please, before the ranting begins, do not argue in my thread (Please?) We all have our budgets and preferences, so do not slam another's choice of hard ware, and lets have a good old fashioned debate on this!

 

[theloveablemoose]

intel definitley games just cant ustilize those 8 cores yet so i5 will outpreform the amd cpu is dissapointing i know but as is life

 

[AMD Radeon]

see this chart and decide yourself

 

[Daedalus12]

You're going to get more of an improvement with the i5 without a doubt. The difference between the FX-8350 and the i5-3570k may be small, like in Far Cry 3 and GPU bound games, or much larger in more CPU bound games.

The other thing to consider is that the i5-3570k is going to overclock much farther than the FX-8350, further expanding the difference between the two.

I guess what it comes down to is what you are willing to spend. You will definitely get a good performance boost by switching to the FX-8350. If you want the upgrade to be larger and last you a little longer, go for the i5 and new motherboard. If you plan to over clock, I say go for the i5 and new board.

Here are some more gaming numbers to help you decide.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6396/the-vishera-review-amd-fx8350-fx8320-fx6300-and-fx4300-tested/5

 

[knotman]

@AMD Radeon
How does it scale in different resolutions and settings? How is the scaling in other games?

This is numbers pulled off a single game, one resolution and one set of settings. It will merely give a pinpoint of how CPU intensive this game is.

 

[RockGOD16]

Okay, the 8350 is in the lead right now(price for performance) but what I'm really concerned for is minimum FPS. Particularly in ARMA II. I've seen benches with viewdisctance set to 10000, with an FPSof 33. No minimum was mentioned. Now obviously, thats overkill for me (4000 tops because I like choppers). Can anyone provide other stats or personal stories for such performance?

BTW: Thank you all for the speedy replies, this has already been quite helpful.

 

[swifty_morgan]

be nice if we knew the rest of your hardware.

 

[computernewb]

if you already have an am3+ board just get the fx 8350. theres no reason to spend an extra $100+ on the motherboard and cpu for a minimal real life difference.

if youre building from scratch, get the i5.

 

[RockGOD16]

Haha, yeah, sorry, forgot that bit.

CPUhenom 965 BE
MOBO: Sabertooth 990 FX
GPU: GTX 560TI SLI (1Gb)
HardDrive: 500Gb pieceo'crap, getting a 10, 000 RPM WD.
PSU: 850 watt
RAM: 8Gb
Cooler: Bigass Zaleman (forgot name, getting an H100)

 

[swifty_morgan]

first thing, the 10.000rpm HD will do nothing for you. waste of money. 7200rpm POS you have now is probably adequate.

you can put another processor in but............. my q9550/775 is faster than your machine. I ran FC3 and it's the first game to show that i am finally CPU bound. spending on another AMD processor really isn't, IMO, a wise decision.... ( but you do have some expensive hardware and if you want to... )

the 560, real POS, that without a doubt is holding back your machine as far as smooth game play goes. I would think about investing in a decent video card first.

 

[ikaz]

I would say just upgrade to the fx8350 and buy a SSD 128 for the OS and keep the "piece o'crap" HD for data. At somepoint in the future your probably going to have to upgrade your SLI since you only running 1 Gig cards. I would say after the CPU upgrade start saving up a little so in maybe two years you probably going to want to build a new rig (MB/Memory/CPU) since by then I hope games will start using more CPU/GPU (since new consoles should be there will be alot of ports).

 

[swifty_morgan]

that's one of the reasons ( 1gig ) but adding another won't make it 2gigs. it will still be 1. that's how it works.

also the architecture of the card is lacking. it can't keep up anymore. games change.

 

[Daedalus12]

Now that we can see that GPU, I would say upgrade to the FX-8350. You'll save over $100 with the 8350, and you can put that toward a new GPU when the time comes.

Also, like ikaz suggested, you could put the savings toward SSD over a 10k drive. You'll gain a much larger overall system improvement.

 

[RockGOD16]

Okay, now that we have all the data in review, I find (Much to the disappointment of some, I believe) I will go with the FX-8350. For its price, its quite a power house, and compared to what I have now, it will be a better investment than going all out. That being said, I will look at the i5 if my pocket change really can handle it and another sabertooth. I really am not an expert on hard drives, so I'll take your word for the SSD (I've heard great things, and I'll put my Steam on there instead of my OS). As far as GPU, after I got my second 560ti i realized the 1gb issue, and have toyed with RMAing it to EVGA to get two 2Gbs (Mine are superclocked, Waste of money) But I've been drooling over the GTX 690, so I'm getting that, no matter what. Monetary situations be dammned. Thanks again for all your help fellas, this has been a good learning experience for my upgrade path.

 

[RockGOD16]

Best answer selected by RockGOD16.