Will my motherboard support AMD A-8 3870k? New CPU suggestions

[tandaman008]

I have a HP p7-1174. I recently upgraded my GPU to a xfx radeon 6870 and upgraded the power supply to a 500 watt corsair.

My current cpu, the a8-3800 isnt quite cutting it so I have been thinking about upgrading my CPU. HP's official website shows my current motherboard supports up to the a8-3850. It does not list the 3870k as a supported cpu but I dont see why it shouldnt as the 3870 is also a Liano fm1 socket cpu. Can anyone confirm this for me and if it is compatible is it a worth while upgrade? Here is a link to my cpu and motherboard specifications - http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c03005744&cc=ad&dlc=en&lc=en&jumpid=reg_r1002_usen_c-001_title_r0001

I would be open to swapping my motherboard and cpu all together. I have my eyes on the phenom ii x4 965 or the amd fx-4130. I hear the copy of windows 7 that came with my desktop would not be valid if I swapped to a different mobo and cpu, is that true? Also would I lose all my data on my hard drive if i go this route? Any other obstacles I should be aware of?

Any tips or heads up for my situation would be much appreciated. What kind of cpu's should I be looking at? My budget is around $100 for the cpu and $50 for the motherboard. I am looking to get the best gaming performance possible at my budget.

 

[clutchc]

Other than the ability to an easy O/C by upping the multiplier, there's not much difference between the 3850 ans 3970k.
http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/240/AMD_A8-Series_A8-3850_vs_AMD_A8-Series_A8-3870K.html
The only reason that board wouldn't be able to use that CPU, would be if it needed a BIOS update in order for it to recognize the newer CPU. Without a manufacturer's list, it is hard to tell. Call HP.

If an improvement in gaming is your main desire to upgrade, you'd do better to add a discrete gfx card along with the CPU you have now.

 

[tandaman008]

If an improvement in gaming is your main desire to upgrade, you'd do better to add a discrete gfx card along with the CPU you have now.

I have a xfx radeon 6870 as my discreet graphics card but the a8-3800 cpu seems a little weak at times. Would the 3850 be a worthwhile upgrade over the 3800?

 

[clutchc]

It would make a bigger difference going from the 3800 to the 3850 than the difference between the 3850 and 3870. So yes, there will be some improvement, but how worthwhile is up to your expectations.

I did miss the earlier reference about you having a HD 6870. I guess I just assumed you were using the on-die gfx. Here is a hierarchy chart for gaming CPUs and Gfx Cards:
CPUs: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106-5.html
GPUs: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html

One of my machines has an Athlon II X4 640 with a GTX 650ti gfx card. As you can see, that combination falls in the same tiers as your A8-3850/HD-6870 would for gaming. I have no problem playing today's games at smooth frame rates with my combo at 1920x1080. Most of those at max settings. I would expect the same result with yours. Btw, I can't promise your HP will recognize the A8-3870K, if you choose it, without a BIOS update, but my guess is that it would.

 

[tandaman008]

It would make a bigger difference going from the 3800 to the 3850 than the difference between the 3850 and 3870. So yes, there will be some improvement, but how worthwhile is up to your expectations.

I did miss the earlier reference about you having a HD 6870. I guess I just assumed you were using the on-die gfx. Here is a hierarchy chart for gaming CPUs and Gfx Cards:
CPUs: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106-5.html
GPUs: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html

One of my machines has an Athlon II X4 640 with a GTX 650ti gfx card. As you can see, that combination falls in the same tiers as your A8-3850/HD-6870 would for gaming. I have no problem playing today's games at smooth frame rates with my combo at 1920x1080. Most of those at max settings. I would expect the same result with yours. Btw, I can't promise your HP will recognize the A8-3870K, if you choose it, without a BIOS update, but my guess is that it would.

Thank you for your help! What can I expect if I were to go swap my motherboard out to a am3 board and go with a phenom ii 980 solution? I probably would have to re-install windows but would i also have to format my hard drive? What else can i expect?

 

[clutchc]

Going to an AM3 MB/980BE would bump you up 1 tier in the hierarchy chart. An improvement, yes. But not one I would expect you could see in everyday gaming. And a lot of work to get there. If you read the article accompanying the charts, it says that unless you move at least 3 tiers, you won't notice much improvement.
Then there's always the issue that if you have an OEM licensed copy of Win7, it is only legal on the original MB. You may have to jump thru some hoops to get it activated on a new MB... or buy a new license.

What resolution do you game at? What game(s) is giving you low frame rates or poor performance?

 

[tandaman008]

Going to an AM3 MB/980BE would bump you up 1 tier in the hierarchy chart. An improvement, yes. But not one I would expect you could see in everyday gaming. And a lot of work to get there. If you read the article accompanying the charts, it says that unless you move at least 3 tiers, you won't notice much improvement.
Then there's always the issue that if you have an OEM licensed copy of Win7, it is only legal on the original MB. You may have to jump thru some hoops to get it activated on a new MB... or buy a new license.

What resolution do you game at? What game(s) is giving you low frame rates or poor performance?

I have to run most games at 1280x720 resolutions with low to medium settings to get around 40- 60fps i.e Dishonored, Darksiders 2, Sleeping dogs and metro 2033. Then there are games that I can run at 1920x1080 medium to high settings at 40-60fps games such as Spec ops the line, Skyrim, DMC devil may cry ant borderlands 2. So its weird i get a mixed bag of results. One game that gives me bad performance no matter what settings i try to set it at is assassins creed 3 or any assassins creed game for that matter.

What you are saying makes sense with my current setup I think i will settle for the a8 3850 and think about a better gaming rig down the line. Would you know if the a8 3850's stock heatsink that comes with the processor already has thermal paste applied on the heatsink like some AMD heatsinks that come with processors do? Or should I get something like arctic silver and apply it?

 

[clutchc]

You shouldn't have to run any of those games at 1280x720 to get good frame rates with your processor and GPU. Metro 2033 is a killer with any rig, however. My i5-2500K with 2 x GTX 570 SSCs can't run it smooth at 1920x1080 at highest settings.

You should be able to run any of those other games at 1080p with possibly some reduced settings in the more graphically demanding ones. And don't worry if you can't maintain 60fps. Anything above 30fps is smooth motion to the human eye. In fact, motion picture frame rate is as low as 24 fps sometimes. Keep your system clean by running CCleaner: http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner
And be sure to have the latest gfx driver installed. What kind of frame rates do you get with Dishonored, Darksiders 2, Sleeping dogs if you keep your resolution at 1080p? If you can't keep 30fps with somewhat reduced settings, check if your card is getting hot at that point. It may be throttling down. If so, it might be time to change the thermal paste on it.

All box processors come with coolers with thermal paste per-applied. And it is usually pretty good stuff. Since you're not going to be overclocking, there's no need to change it.

 

[tandaman008]

You shouldn't have to run any of those games at 1280x720 to get good frame rates with your processor and GPU. Metro 2033 is a killer with any rig, however. My i5-2500K with 2 x GTX 570 SSCs can't run it smooth at 1920x1080 at highest settings.

You should be able to run any of those other games at 1080p with possibly some reduced settings in the more graphically demanding ones. And don't worry if you can't maintain 60fps. Anything above 30fps is smooth motion to the human eye. In fact, motion picture frame rate is as low as 24 fps sometimes. Keep your system clean by running CCleaner: http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner
And be sure to have the latest gfx driver installed. What kind of frame rates do you get with Dishonored, Darksiders 2, Sleeping dogs if you keep your resolution at 1080p? If you can't keep 30fps with somewhat reduced settings, check if your card is getting hot at that point. It may be throttling down. If so, it might be time to change the thermal paste on it.

All box processors come with coolers with thermal paste per-applied. And it is usually pretty good stuff. Since you're not going to be overclocking, there's no need to change it.

I am able to maintain 30fps or more with darksiders and dishonored at 1080p. The problem is at times the game might stutter as fps dip very low at moments at higher resolutions. I am not sure if I have a bottleneck in my system somewhere. I have 8gb of ram and a 5400 rpm hard drive.

Also my gpu temp at 1080p is usually at around 70c to 75c.

 

[tandaman008]

I have another concern also. The 3850's heatsink looks to be using clamps to secure onto the cpu. My current heatsink on my cpu looks like it is using screws to clamp down onto the motherboard. My motherboard has no heatsink brackets. How would I seat the 3850's heatsink?

Here is a picture of my mother board - http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf-JAVA/Doc/images/739/c03098322.jpg

 

[clutchc]

Oh crap! That motherboard! I forgot HP used those odd-ball boards for their builds. And I just worked with a poster that had the same board in his HP, too. (He ended up upgrading to the Athlon II X4 651K over the A8-3870K because he didn't need the on-die GPU. Other than that the two chips are the same except for price) He ended up using his old cooler in place of the one that came with the APU.

Your stutter you notice with the games are likely "frame time" issues. New benchmarking has shown that while the FPS may be high, the time to render individual frames can vary enough to make the game 'stutter'. Here is a study on it if you are interested: http://techreport.com/review/21516/inside-the-second-a-new-look-at-game-benchmarking
Probably the only way to solve it, if that is what you are experiencing, is with a monster card.

 

[tandaman008]

Oh crap! That motherboard! I forgot HP used those odd-ball boards for their builds. And I just worked with a poster that had the same board in his HP, too. (He ended up upgrading to the Athlon II X4 651K over the A8-3870K because he didn't need the on-die GPU. Other than that the two chips are the same except for price) He ended up using his old cooler in place of the one that came with the APU.

So my pegatron hibiscus motherboard should support the Athlon 651k? It's not officially listed as a supported cpu on hps site like the 3850 is. Is there a difference between the a8-3850 and athlon 651k processor wise? Which is better? I wouldn't need the on board die of the 3850 either but price wise the 3850 and 651k are the same.

So the heat sink the poster that you helped with the 651k used the same heats sink and fan that he had on his older cpu right? I see the 651k is also a 100w cpu like the 3850. So if I were to get a 3850 I should be able to use my existing heatsink and fan and not have to worry about it overheating? What kind of thermal paste would you recommend? Would arctic silver do the trick?

 

[clutchc]

This was his HP PC and MB: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c02966470&tmp_task=prodinfoCategory&cc=uk&dlc=en&lc=en&os=4063&product=5227647&sw_lang=
He said the Cooler on his was actually a bit heftier than the one that came with the new processor. The cooler you have now should fit fine on the new chip; the chips are the same size... and I would guess that it is substantial enough for cooling the 100W processor as well. Just keep an eye on temps after you first install it to be sure. Run a stress test on the new APU with something like Intel Burn Test and watch the temps with whatever pgm you prefer.
IBT: http://www.techspot.com/downloads/4965-intelburntest.html
Once you know that the cooler does the job, you won't have to worry... unless you O/C.

The Athlon II X4 651K is the A8-3870 w/o the on-die GPU. http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K10/AMD-Athlon%20II%20X4%20651K%20-%20AD651KWNZ43GX%20%28AD651KWNGXBOX%29.html
It and the a8-3870K both came out after HP printed their CPU list. So, like the APU, it could work fine as is... or it could require a BIOS update. Hard to say unless someone has the same system as you and tried it. In the case of the other poster, his didn't have the A8-3870K or AthIIX4 651K listed either. He took a chance and went for it. It worked fine. No BIOS update needed.

Yes, AS5 is a good thermal paste (TIM). It's only drawback is its electrical conductivity. You'll want to be sure none of it gets on the MB. I switched to Arctic MX-4. It's non-conductive and actually gives a slightly better result for me.

 

[tandaman008]

So i installed the 3850 last night..used arctic silver 5...and I am getting idle temps of around 6 degrees celcius. Does that sounds right? Maybe thermal paste is new? I am using cpuid to read temps.

 

[clutchc]

6C? That isn't right. That's 43F. Room temp is way more than that, unless your PC is sitting out in the cold. Which product from cpuid are you using to read temps? HWmonitor? What does it show when stressed? Run prime95 or intel burn test.

Check the reading you get in BIOS too. That will be at idle w/o any C&Q or C1E throttling down the processor. If you can, post a pic of the results.

 

[tandaman008]

When i ran intel burn test the highest it got to was 50c. I think hp locks me out of the BIOS. My cpu that I replaced use to idle at around 25c. The software i use is called cpuid. I have hwmonitor which reading should i be looking at it has a few different cpu temps listed. You think it might be the thermal paste break in period causing low temp readings?

 

[clutchc]

The temps should be a tad high until the break-in time is passed, not low. Try AMD Overdrive. That seems to report the most realistic temps for mine.
http://sites.amd.com/us/game/downloads/amd-overdrive/pages/overview.aspx
Normal idle should be high 20s, low-mid 30s in a comfortable environment. High temp stressed should be 50s - 60s.

 

[tandaman008]

Im getting the same readings with amd overdrive. Could i have done something wrong along replacing the cpu? Is there such a thing as tightening down the heat sink to far. 6 degrees celcius just doesnt sound right but everything seems to be working properly.

 

[clutchc]

No, you couldn't have done anything wrong fastening the heat-sink. It will only go on as tight as the lever design allows. It isn't all that unusual for the sensor to be off at the low end. Idle temp isn't important anyway. I had a A10-5800K that wouldn't read accurately at idle either. But it was fine once the cores heated up. As long as the upper readings are good, you are fine. And from the temps you reported running IBT, it sounds fine.
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K10/AMD-A-Series%20A8-3850%20AD3850WNZ43GX%20%28AD3850WNGXBOX%29.html

 

[tandaman008]

Why is my 3dmark11 score coming out low. Im getting 3900. I thought with the a8-3850 and a discreet radeon hd 6870 i would atleast be getting a 3dmark11 score of around 7000. Is this normal? I ran the 720p version of the test.

 

[clutchc]

That doesn't sound out of line to me. I just checked my past 3DMark11 scores; the one run I did with an HD 6870 had a Phenom II X4 965BE. The default settings (720p) resulted in a score of 4123.

Score: P4123 with AMD Radeon HD 6870(1x) and AMD Phenom II X4 965

Graphics Score
4119

Physics Score
4266

Combined Score
3954

You'll never reach 7000. Maybe you're confusing it with some other benchmark.

 

[tandaman008]

That doesn't sound out of line to me. I just checked my past 3DMark11 scores; the one run I did with an HD 6870 had a Phenom II X4 965BE. The default settings (720p) resulted in a score of 4123.

Score: P4123 with AMD Radeon HD 6870(1x) and AMD Phenom II X4 965

Graphics Score
4119

Physics Score
4266

Combined Score
3954

You'll never reach 7000. Maybe you're confusing it with some other benchmark.

Check this video out - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPL6B3dmnKk

 

[clutchc]

That video wasn't 3DMark11 scores. That was 3DMarkVantage scores. Two different benchmarks with vastly different ratings. My stock Phenom II X4 965 system above scored 14730 on 3DMarkVantage at default settings.

 

[tandaman008]

Ohh I see sorry about that. Well clutch thanks for all your help!