7870 bottleneck

chromex

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amd fx4100, OC 4.0ghz ***********
8Gb 1333 Ram
gigabyte 78LMT-S2P mobo *********
MSI Twin Frozr 7870 2gb gddr5,
550W XFX Pro PSU
1 TB HDD
HDTV 22' 1920/1080 via hdmi

Ofcourse when i started out it was just a budget build for entry level gaming, but now im upgrading bit by bit. I started off with the GPU + PSU, replacing random brand 500w psu, and my ATI 6450.

The 7870 and 550W , have made the wolrd of difference and ofcourse there is a bottleneck present.

So too unleash the full potential on my 7870, I will be upgrading my Mobo + CPU .

I'm not made of money so i would prefer to stick too AMD, so please i dont want people saying get a i7 2600k and z77.


***Price £70 *** Phenom II X4 965 - 3.4 Ghz AM3 Black Edition CPU , IF i oC this too around 4GHZ could this eliminate the bottleneck with my 4100 and 7870? Or shall i just get the new FX8350 Piledriver ***£143 ****


Asus M5A97 R2.0 AMD 970 AM3+ Motherboard is the mobo , im looking at which seems very decent at £68



So if anyone could shed some light on whether Phenom II x4 965, would be enough for my 7870, or shall i just get the FX8350.


thanks for your time and constructive replys are greatly appreciated

 

Sumukh_Bhagat

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i5 dominates all FX Series. Get a i5 3470 or i5 3570k. i7 aren't for gaming.
To get the best out of your 7870 you need i5.

But you prefer AMD, so get the new FX 8350. FX 8350 will not Bottleneck because its new.
 

Spaniard United

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OC to ~4 ghz the Phenom II x4 would be sufficient, as would the FX8350.

The 4100 is a Zambezi under the Bulldozer architecture. These were shown to perform worse than the Phenom's they were supposed to replace, especially when gaming. The Vishera line aka Piledriver made up the ground lost by bulldozer and is a much more solid CPU.

Either way you should see better results.
 

ddpruitt

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What makes you think your CPUs the bottleneck?? Before anyone could give you the correct advice we would need to know what type of games you play and what you use your computer for.

There are some games that use a lot of GPU power and very little CPU power, games that use a lot of CPU and little GPU, and games that use lots of both.

IMO a quad core CPU (regardless of make) isn't going to be holding back a 7870, you may want to spend the money on an SSD. I think it would give you a better bang for your buck.
 
The 965 is only *slightly* better than the 4100, and not worth the money to swap.

What cooler are you using on your 4100? AMD's chips tend to hit a heat wall with OC'ing. Almost all 4100's can reach around 4.5 ghz with a good cooler, which would be plenty for the 7870. If 4.0 ghz is the highest OC you've been able to reach, I'd suggest taking a look at your temps first.

good luck!
 

ddpruitt

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That setup isn't really much of an upgrade. If you're looking to get a better CPU something like this is a better option, similar CPU lower price:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/AMD-Black-Edition-AMD-FX-8120-3-1GHz-Desktop-Processor-8-Core-AM3-3-1GHz-L3-8MB-/330825831552?pt=UK_Computing_CPUs_Processors&hash=item4d06c19480

Though I still say you'll get a better experience from getting an SSD.
 
I seriously suggest upgrading your cooler if necessary (and maybe grabbing some arctic silver or other high-end paste) and overclocking your 4100 to 4.5ghz or so. At that speed it will accommodate your 7870 nicely.

No AMD chip is going to be a massive upgrade for you as far as gaming. the 4300 represents a 10-15% performance increase over the 4100, thoug it doesn't overclock quite as well, and the 4170 can only reach 200-300 more mhz than the 4100 when both are fully overclocked.
 

ojas

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If you were not planning to replace your mobo, a Vishera CPU could potentially represent a small but reasonable and inexpensive upgrade.
The problem with budget mobos in general though is that they really aren't good for high overclocks. Their BIOS may allow it, but they typically have weak VRMs that really can't push the increased power needed without overheating and/or failing. If you had a high-end overclocking board, I'd agree that you ought to try pushing your FX-4100 to 4.5GHz if only to see how it does. On the board you have though (or the cheap ones you've listed), I'd be concerned that an OC like that might kill it during an extended gaming session.
There is an alternative. Get a fairly inexpensive H77 (or even H61) mobo and an Intel i3. It will outperform your AMD system, and use a lot less power doing it. In a few years if it becomes slow again, you can drop in an i5 for another big performance jump.
 

maxalge

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Actually amd 4 core processors, bottleneck anything equal to or greater than a gtx 560, which the 7870 IS.


Amd have not been good for gaming for a long time, even i3's trade blows with them and they are only 2 core.



http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-fx-pentium-apu-benchmark,3120-9.html
 


I disagree. From that very article, "A trend emerges in this third data point. The overclocked processors perform behind or close to a stock Core i3-2100."

I was posting 64.7 fps in uniengine heave 1920x1080 (4xMsaa, 4xAF) with my previous rig, which was an x3 455 OC'd to 4.0 ghz and a 7850 @ 1200mhz core.

 

ddpruitt

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Except for the fact that the review is using a 7970 (which is much more powerful) and the games that show the biggest difference are more CPU bound don't show a huge difference (9 FPS difference at stock clocks, much smaller OC'd). Sorry but for the difference that your getting in FPS $150+ could be spent better elsewhere.
 

chromex

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I dont know something wierd has happened, I was just playing World of Warcraft all day , temps are fine, steady 90 fps on max setting.

Now the screen keeps flashing constantly if i run the game in direct X 11, but if i run it in Direct x 9 it plays fine
And also youtube/live streams videos stutter and flash, but audio is fine wtf.??


Any ideas whats causing this problem? My 7870 has been working fine for 4days
 

This is clearly nonsense, as has been shown. "Not been AS good" and "not been good" are two entirely different things.
I have two rigs, one Intel and one AMD. The Intel rig is clearly stronger, yet I'm able to play all my games quite enjoyably on the AMD rig.
I think what we're suggesting is that Intel is stronger for the same money. Upgrading an AMD CPU only might still make some sense (if you had a good overclocking board), but if you're going to replace the mobo too, it only makes sense to go Intel, especially if you cannot afford a mobo that can reliably apply a high overclock to an AMD CPU.
 
Did you wipe out the old video drivers before you installed your HD7870? Remove all the old video drivers, including the new ones. Use a program like CCLEANER to remove any remnants that the uninstallers, if present, leave behind. Reboot, then freshly install your video drivers. Use the latest ones from AMD.COM.
 

chromex

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Yes when i replaced my 6770, for the 7870 i removed AMD catalyst from control panel, and did ccleaner and rebooted my pc, then installed from amd.com. But it was working fine with no problems for 4 days .

And now if i run WoW for example in directX 11 the screen flashes, But direct X 9 its fine.

Shall i reinstall drivers again? thanks Onus
 

maxalge

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7970 removes the gpu from the equation yes, and shows the weakness/strength of the cpu.

The i3 3220 is only $119 where is this $150+ difference you speak of?


It even becomes more irrelevant when you consider you NEED to overclock the amd's to trade blows with the i3, thereby wasting money on an aftermarket cpu cooler.


Rendering your argument moot. And that is not even considering the energy consumption of an overclocked FX...
 
^Agreed. You can overclock an AMD CPU to equal a similarly-priced (or cheaper) Intel CPU, but you need to have a reasonable CPU cooler (the Xigmatek Gaia for $20 now would be my choice), a mobo with at least a 6+1 VRM setup (cheap boards are 4+1; good ones are 8+2 or even higher), and you'll use more power and generate more heat (meaning more fan noise) doing it.
 

ddpruitt

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Your missing parts. If you can't figure out where I obtain my number from then you need to go back and reconsider your argument. I'm not considering power consumption because (for the moment at least) it doesn't really factor into most buying decisions unless your building a low power machine.

Like you said and overclocked AMD trade's blows with the i3, so why would I spend money to get the same results? And the OP is using a 7870, he want's a difference in the machine HE has not the one Tom's was using to test CPU's. If the OP where using his machine in a way that taxed his CPU more I might agree with a CPU upgrade, for games I can't. I upgraded my machine in a similar way as the OP, I found that when I upgraded from my 3 core Athlon II to a 6 core Phenom II I didn't feel much of a difference. On the other hand I found that by going with an SSD my experience changed considerably.
 

ddpruitt

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If you overclocked the GPU bring it back down or push up the power usage. Mine did worked fine for months then it gave me all sorts of strange issues. When I dialed back the clocks and pushed up the power ceiling it turned out fine. Turns out won't reliably overclock at the same settings it use to, not sure why.
 


If he were starting a build from scratch I would agree with you. However, he already has a 4100, so checking his cooling solution and overclocking further is far cheaper than buying a whole new platform with an I3, even considering power consumption.