I have an old Amd Fx 4100 in an older pc of mine, I'm wondering if there's anything worth upgrading it to

[Chrispurvis32]

HI about a year ago I replaced my older desktop with a new one with an Intel processor and a 980, but was wondering if there's anything I can do to my old system to improve on its performance besides maybe a CPU replacement since I don't plan on getting rid of it

I have an Asus m5a97 mobo with a gtx 660 inside the tower no SSD

My main issue is I think the 4100 is bottlenecking my 660 in some games

 

[KyleADunn]

HI about a year ago I replaced my older desktop with a new one with an Intel processor and a 980, but was wondering if there's anything I can do to my old system to improve on its performance besides maybe a CPU replacement since I don't plan on getting rid of it

I have an Asus m5a97 mobo with a gtx 660 inside the tower no SSD

My main issue is I think the 4100 is bottlenecking my 660 in some games

You could get a FX-4350, or Fx-83xx. Or overclock the FX-4100. Or both; buy a new one and oc it! FX-8320 OC'd to 8370 specs isn't bad.
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1989707/asus-m5a97-8320.html
http://www.overclock.net/t/1303806/asus-m5a97-overclocking-should-it-be-done

Best idea would be to upgrade the mobo and CPU, but if that's not an option, the above will work.

 

[King_V]

A quick search seems to indicate it'll support up to the FX-8xxx series CPUs.
Could be something to be gained if you could pick up a faster CPU. Not sure if more cores will help, but the FX-4100 is 4 core, 3.6GHz

FX-4170 and FX-4350 are 4 core, 4.2GHz, which can help some. A 17% boost in clock rate.
FX-8350 is 8 core, 4.0GHz... maybe the extra cores help more in some instances despite slightly less clock speed, and I suppose it's more optimized in performance per MHz.


It also supports Phenom II chips, but again, I'm not familiar with their performance characteristics compared to the FX series.

Going by the hierarchy charts, the 4170 is only one tier higher in gaming performance, the 4350 is 2 tiers higher, and the 8350 is 3 tiers higher.

Maybe your existing CPU can be overclocked, but I'm not really familiar with AMD's CPUs.

Are you looking to use it as a gaming computer, or other purposes?

I stumbled across a note that says the board will support CPUs up to 140W.

I suppose even an upgrade of the GPU, if you also upgrade the CPU, will make some difference as well.

It's a matter of weighing what you want to use it for, versus how much you're willing to spend on upgrades. But, if you can pick up a faster CPU for it cheap or free, why not give it a shot?

Then, possible GPU upgrades. But there's only so far you can go with this system.

EDIT: in other words, what Kyle said, but he's way more concise than I. :lol:

 

[Chrispurvis32]

Thanks for the replies. Do you think my motherboard is capable of overclocking? I also have a stock cooler so I would probably need to grab a new one if I attempted to overclock it.

I don't think I want to get a new mobo since I have a z97 gaming 5 in the desktop across from it.

 

[Chrispurvis32]

A quick search seems to indicate it'll support up to the FX-8xxx series CPUs.
Could be something to be gained if you could pick up a faster CPU. Not sure if more cores will help, but the FX-4100 is 4 core, 3.6GHz

FX-4170 and FX-4350 are 4 core, 4.2GHz, which can help some. A 17% boost in clock rate.
FX-8350 is 8 core, 4.0GHz... maybe the extra cores help more in some instances despite slightly less clock speed, and I suppose it's more optimized in performance per MHz.


It also supports Phenom II chips, but again, I'm not familiar with their performance characteristics compared to the FX series.

Going by the hierarchy charts, the 4170 is only one tier higher in gaming performance, the 4350 is 2 tiers higher, and the 8350 is 3 tiers higher.

Maybe your existing CPU can be overclocked, but I'm not really familiar with AMD's CPUs.

Are you looking to use it as a gaming computer, or other purposes?

I stumbled across a note that says the board will support CPUs up to 140W.

I suppose even an upgrade of the GPU, if you also upgrade the CPU, will make some difference as well.

It's a matter of weighing what you want to use it for, versus how much you're willing to spend on upgrades. But, if you can pick up a faster CPU for it cheap or free, why not give it a shot?

Then, possible GPU upgrades. But there's only so far you can go with this system.

EDIT: in other words, what Kyle said, but he's way more concise than I. :lol:

I plan on using the pc for gaming yeah,

I don't think a gpu upgrade would help as I think its getting peak performance at the moment (unless a new cpu works)

Maybe overclocking would work but i'm not familiar how to do that as both of my pcs are prebuilt, the only thing i've done to either of them is replaced the Gpu which was a pretty simple process.

 

[Ecky]

Any FX-x3xx will be an improvement. Bulldozer (first gen construction cores) was greatly improved upon with Piledriver (2nd gen). I'd suggest getting an FX-6300 or one of the FX83xx chips, depending on what's on sale, so you get both more and faster cores.

 

[King_V]

I can't really say much with regard to overclocking - I haven't done overclocking since the socket 7 days, when you had to manipulate the FSB speed with physical jumpers.

Asus is pretty good with support and documentation, you can probably get the PDF manual from them, which should detail if there's any overclocking options in the BIOS. Additionally, there may be forums, etc., where people discuss overclocking experiences with that board.

But I do think Ecky's info about the processors with the 3 as the second digit is insightful, you can definitely see performance gains going with the most powerful CPU that your motherboard supports.

 

[Chrispurvis32]

I can't really say much with regard to overclocking - I haven't done overclocking since the socket 7 days, when you had to manipulate the FSB speed with physical jumpers.

Asus is pretty good with support and documentation, you can probably get the PDF manual from them, which should detail if there's any overclocking options in the BIOS. Additionally, there may be forums, etc., where people discuss overclocking experiences with that board.

But I do think Ecky's info about the processors with the 3 as the second digit is insightful, you can definitely see performance gains going with the most powerful CPU that your motherboard supports.

I checked my Bios last night and it said that my cpu is running at 4.2ghz

 

[King_V]

That doesn't sound right - unless you've overclocked it. It might be worthwhile to download CPU-Z and see what it says.

Though I can't imagine why the BIOS would show the wrong speed...

 

[KyleADunn]

I can't really say much with regard to overclocking - I haven't done overclocking since the socket 7 days, when you had to manipulate the FSB speed with physical jumpers.

Asus is pretty good with support and documentation, you can probably get the PDF manual from them, which should detail if there's any overclocking options in the BIOS. Additionally, there may be forums, etc., where people discuss overclocking experiences with that board.

But I do think Ecky's info about the processors with the 3 as the second digit is insightful, you can definitely see performance gains going with the most powerful CPU that your motherboard supports.

I checked my Bios last night and it said that my cpu is running at 4.2ghz

Stock for FX-4100 is 3.6Ghz with 3.8 turbo.

You might have enabled the motherboard's builtin OC software at some point (OC-Genie and stuff like that). That's not bad, per se, but you'll want to switch it back to normal mode before installing a new CPU, boot up once with new CPU without OC mode on, then shut down and enable the OC mode (whatever the built in OC software is). This is just for stability on first boot's sake.

 

[jeffredo]

You could get an octa-core processor (up to an FX-8370) and it would be a lot better than an FX-4100. As far as overclocking goes the board can do a small overclock, but given its 4+2 power phase setup don't go crazy. You didn't say what version you have. If its an M5A97 LE don't overclock it at all - it has no heatsink on the VRMs. If its an M5A97 R2.0 you can do a mild/moderate overclock.

If you're in the USA Amazon.com has an FX-8300 on sale for $89.99. With a decent heatsink/fan you should be able to get it to 4.2 - 4.3 Ghz quite easily on an M5A97 R2.0.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00TR8YL4W/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

 

[Chrispurvis32]

That doesn't sound right - unless you've overclocked it. It might be worthwhile to download CPU-Z and see what it says.

Though I can't imagine why the BIOS would show the wrong speed...

I downloaded CPU-Z, what am I looking for on here?

 

[King_V]

I believe you have to run it as administrator - but when the program comes up, it will be on the CPU tab.

The top 2/3 will be the Processor section. The lower 1/3 is divided into a left and right half. The left half shows "Clocks (Core #0)" and will list Core Speed, Multiplier, Bus Speed, and Rated FSB.

At the bottom middle you'll see a button labeled Tools, with a down-arrow next to it. Click on the down arrow, and one of the items that pops up is Clocks. Select that.

This should pop up a window that will show a list of all the cores, and what speed they're running at. You may notice that the CPU cores are running lower than their rated speed, possibly significantly, lower. I don't know if the FX chips slow down significantly when they don't need to do much.

Drag this clocks window to the side so you can see the main CPU-Z window again. On the CPU-Z main window, select the Bench tab, then try starting and stopping the Bench Test (runs a single core hard), and Stress Test (runs all cores hard). This will cause them to max out, and you should see this on the Clocks window.