Phenom II x4 955 bottleneck a 7870?

[Vasai]

I'm thinking of upgrading my GPU to a 7870 from my 6870. Right now I'm running a Phenom II x4 955 with 4GB RAM at 1333 mhz. I'm just wondering if I might see a bottleneck with this CPU/GPU combo and whether I need to consider upgrading the CPU as well. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[andycal]

The 955 won't bottleneck the 7870. I built a computer for my mom based on 955BE clocked @ 4.0Ghz on a 990FXA-UD3 board with a gigabyte 2GB 7850 and ran BF3 like a champ. I wanted to see what my moms setup would do, that's why I installed BF3 on her computer. I would actually up your ram to 8GB at 1600mhz.

 

[Vasai]

Cool, that's what I was wondering. I don't overclock (not enough disposable income to afford mistakes) but I've been playing BF3 among other things and I'm hoping a bump up to a 7870 will improve framerates a bit. I'll see about upgrading the RAM too.

 

[Andreas414]

I have a Phenom II X6 1605 with a 7870, and my CPU occasionally does bottleneck my system, depending on the game. While overall CPU usage is never a problem, poorly-optimized games (Planetside 2, for instance) will max one thread of a Phenom, slowing everything down. On the other hand, it's never made anything unplayable; I still max Bioshock Infinite no problem. Phenoms are decent for overclocking too, so that could be an alternative to upgrading, temporarily at least.

 

[Vasai]

I'll keep that in mind. Is using a PCIe 3.0 card on a board with only 2.0 capability going to be a limiting factor as well? I haven't read of any issues but I'm curious.

 

[andycal]

Right now there aren't any limiting factors when using PCIe 3.0 card in a 2.0 lane. The cards out can't fully saturate a PCIe 2.0 lane let alone a 3.0 lane. The only difference is in speed. PCIe 2.0x16 = PCIe 3.0x8.

 

[Vasai]

Got it, thanks for all your help!

 

[iam2thecrowe]

7870 + another 4gb ram will help BF3 amazingly. that game isn't very cpu demanding. but some other games are cpu demanding and you will see a cpu bottleneck.