Defying anti-cheat, creator gets Battlefield 6 running on 12-year-old AMD FX-9590 CPU, playable at 40+ FPS in 786p with an RX 5700 GPU — experiment reveals only SecureBoot, not TPM, is necessary for Javelin anti-cheat

(Image credit: Fully Buffered on YouTube)

Battlefield 6 launched a month ago on console and PC to rave reviews, becoming a commercial hit. While the community has expressed anything but positive feedback for the FPS, one area where BF6 wasn't the most well-received was its implementation of the Javelin anti-cheat, which requires TPM and Secure Boot... or so we thought. In a new video by Fully Buffered, Battlefield 6 is shown running on an almost ancient FX-9590 CPU from AMD's Bulldozer era, over a decade ago, which didn't have TPM enabled.

Battlefield 6 on AMD FX... - YouTube

Watch On

Now, the FX-9590 is not that old; it launched back in 2013 as the flagship offering from the FX-9000 series. It had 8 cores that consumed up to 220W, serving as the antithesis to Intel's single-threaded performance focus. By modern standards, the FX-9590 is outdated, but more importantly, it comes from an era where SecureBoot and TPM — essentials for modern anti-cheat software — were very new concepts.

SecureBoot on an Asus 990FX motherboard, running the FX-9590 — (Image credit: Fully Buffered on YouTube)

When paired with an RX 5700 GPU and 16 GB of DDR3 1833MHz RAM, at 1080p, the game ran in the "mid 30s, sometimes up to 40s," but there was noticeable input lag and the CPU was clearly struggling with animations in a large, sprawling arena. It’s a testament to the game's optimization that it runs smoothly on decade-old hardware — something most modern blockbusters can't do even on current-gen systems — and it’s a reminder of how things should actually be by default.

While in-game, Task Manager showed 100% CPU utilization while the GPU was only sitting at around 25%, and at one point in the video, you can see the RX 5700's fans stop spinning to indicate just how severely bottlenecked this setup was. Switching to a smaller map with fewer players does alleviate most of the input lag and boosts the framerate a bit, netting you 40+ FPS on 1024x786 resolution.

Battlefield 6 running on an FX-9590 and RX 5700 — (Image credit: Fully Buffered on YouTube)

Going from Fullscreen mode to a Windowed mode didn't result in any performance improvements, but Fully Buffered said he was still impressed that the game was even playable on an FX-9590. More importantly, Battlefield 6 ran on hardware that doesn't have TPM enabled, confirming that it's only SecureBoot that actually matters for its anti-cheat, a sentiment echoed by other commenters on Reddit who corroborated that TPM is not a hard-and-fast rule for the military shooter

Edit 11/7/2025 2:51pm PT: Clarified TPM support.

Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds.

TOPICS

Hassam Nasir is a die-hard hardware enthusiast with years of experience as a tech editor and writer, focusing on detailed CPU comparisons and general hardware news. When he’s not working, you’ll find him bending tubes for his ever-evolving custom water-loop gaming rig or benchmarking the latest CPUs and GPUs just for fun.

9 Comments Comment from the forums

Moores_Ghost

Watched that video yesterday. Loved it. I have a couple of FX machines left and knew it should be possible but hadn't tried it. It was nice to see it. I need to give it a shot. One system has a 5.2 Ghz all core OC w/32GB DDR3 2133. I'd like to see if i could get a stable 45 fps. For me, 45 fps is a good spot for control latency.
Reply
wakuwaku

In a new video by Fully Buffered, Battlefield 6 is shown running on an almost ancient FX-9590 CPU from AMD's Bulldozer era, over a decade ago, which doesn't support TPM.
Look, I know part of the contract here at Future is to not read user comments and criticism so I know you wont read this and improve yourself, but I hope others will and will not become like Future writers.

Bulldozer did not have an integrated TPM is not the same as does not support TPM. Bulldozer does support usage of TPM on motherboards that have external TPM pin connectors on the board. And no you do not need an a business, enterprise or server motherboard, there are consumer boards that have them.

And no I am not hallucinating like your AI here Mr. Tom. I legitimately have an old bulldozer system that at one point experimented with buying a TPM module to try installing Windows 11 directly without modifying the iso to bypass any requirements. And yes it worked just fine. I am no more running that system but I assure you i still have it ready to rock provided it hasn't died by itself in the cupboard.

edit:

In fact, checking the user manual for the M5A99FX PRO R2.0 mentioned in the article, that motherboard too supported external TPM. So please learn to do proper research dear Tom's writer.
Reply
bigdragon

I have an Asrock x79 motherboard from that era. It also supported UEFI Secure Boot and had a TPM header with BIOS support should you plug one in. You could get Windows 7 to use Secure Boot when doing UEFI boot. You could also manage your own Secure Boot certs and hashes no problem. Systems of that time period absolutely could be made to support the latest obtrusive anti-cheat, but not in a plug-and-play fashion.

I still use that Asrock x79 system as a file server. It runs Windows 11, unfortunately. Secure Boot works fine. However, the transition from 2011 certificates to 2023 certificates and lack of support means that I will need to manually insert the 2023 certificates into the DB and KEK. Asrock won't have an update for me, and I don't think the system supports UEFI capsule updates that would automagically let Microsoft make the change for me.

News that BF6 and its anti-cheat run on such old hardware is not really a surprise. TPM and Secure Boot were designed for system integrity and to protect credentials. They're not good at the role of DRM intended to protect a microtransaction store and progression slog.
Reply
Joomsy

Meanwhile, the game still has cheaters, which really diminishes the claim that either of these technologies are necessary for stopping them. I'm actually quite fed up with these big name studios stroking themselves over their anti-cheats because of this, as it allows them to now get away with having the lowest level of access by selling a lie to consumers. Like, what happens when a 0day in Javelin is found, and gets used to install a bootkit? Forget rootkits, because once you get infected with a bootkit, you might as well trash your machine. And to anyone who doesn't know what these are, read up on HybridPetya. It's a pretty good example of one of the nastiest ones out there, as it's able to bypass Secure Boot.
Reply
Paul Alcorn

wakuwaku said:
Look, I know part of the contract here at Future is to not read user comments and criticism so I know you wont read this and improve yourself, but I hope others will and will not become like Future writers.

Bulldozer did not have an integrated TPM is not the same as does not support TPM. Bulldozer does support usage of TPM on motherboards that have external TPM pin connectors on the board. And no you do not need an a business, enterprise or server motherboard, there are consumer boards that have them.

And no I am not hallucinating like your AI here Mr. Tom. I legitimately have an old bulldozer system that at one point experimented with buying a TPM module to try installing Windows 11 directly without modifying the iso to bypass any requirements. And yes it worked just fine. I am no more running that system but I assure you i still have it ready to rock provided it hasn't died by itself in the cupboard.

edit:

In fact, checking the user manual for the M5A99FX PRO R2.0 mentioned in the article, that motherboard too supported external TPM. So please learn to do proper research dear Tom's writer.
I have corrected the article to reflect that TPM wasn't enabled, rather than that it wasn't supported. I think the distinction between fTPM and discrete TPM was the disconnect here.

In either case, the error does not impact the true thrust of the story. This is a small technical error that does not invalidate the story.

I would like to ask you to re-read your comment, then ask yourself whether you would bother replying to a comment that is clearly and openly insulting you. Because that is exactly what your comment does - it hurls insults at the writer in the very first sentence. If you truly would like folks to listen to you or learn from you, it is always generally a good idea to treat them with at least a tiny modicum of decency.
Reply
ezst036

I love the spirit of this person who made this video. This spirit is that which won't be contained by the artificial constraints that the corporations are trying to place on us.

A boot on our necks.

No thank you. We will be free.
Reply
blppt

Ugh. I had a 9590. One of the worst cpus ever made. Its astonishing when you consider how much of a massive failure Bulldozer and Piledriver were and yet, AMD was able to rise from the ashes with their aptly named current line of CPUs.
Reply
DavidM012

I have a 990fx sabertooth one of the few mobos that could run the fx9590 stably in my recollection. 220w cpu. Never actually bought one though since I was rockin a tier C 650w power supply not a 850 tier A power supply. I ran the 125w 8350. And I had a good cooler but it was a bit of a jury rigged water loop that I stopped using eventually. So I could've tried a 9590 but, the high energy usage and not cheap price at any stage in the product cycle were practical deterrents. Second hand? No thanks.

Besides that I was never sure about the pci-e 2.0 slot pwr rating since peeps were getting gpu induced fizzles if they put anything more than a 1060 or maybe 1660 on fx boards. Eg. a 1070 broke some of it. Was never really sure whether pushing a 990fx chipset board would break it or not. Probly get an answer after the fact now. C'est la vie.

They were the more sturdily built variants. But, you don't get uh 'research insurants' or 'experimental funds'.

You get to buy your system once if you plan to preserve the value for money.

There was a time when I was playing tomb raider (nearly )sub hd at 900p or 720p when most everyone else was 1080p/1440p. Finished the story, done with it.

On my new system, replayed it and, there were definitely more details that the fx system simply didn't render fully. Same gpu, more deets. Cpu couldn't max the gpu.

So walked a mile in those sub 1080p shoes. Anyway they decided to obsolete the platform w/o tpm for windows 11 . I definitely went looking for a tpm module but the compatible 1.2 modules for a sabertooth were out of stock. 2.0 couldn't find one anywhere. It was a hallucination.

And the intel i got on win 11 was, even if you have a tpm module, but the cpu is unsupported it doesn't work. Early beta releases weren't as strict as the final release is the way I remember it.

Besides that if you were actually content with cheap and cheerful you could get a zen 2 r5 4500 for £50 which is 1/4 the power consumption for 2x the cpu - with far lower cooling, mobo vrm, and psu requirements. and a more reliable modern possibly even reinforced pci-e 3.0 or 4.0 gpu slot so, your gpu isn't restricted to 2.0 bandwidth.

What's the deal? a £50 cpu, £50 mem, £100 board, decent cooler £20, £85-£100 psu if you're lucky.

Gimme a second hand one of those all in w/o warranty for £50 whwere -> scalpers/gougers have inflated the price of 2nd hand parts above msrp for literal years . The actual bargain where they sell you the crumb of leftover value for a proportional price is.. pie in the sky fi. It will happen in our ai powered betta future world.
Reply
blandead

What's so surprising about this? If you overclock a bulldozer you get nehalim or sandy bridge performance

Also why, for $100-200 bucks you can get an i7, 32gb memory and motherboard

Throw that hot power guzzler out, there's no way you're seeing the full performance of your GPU with that
Reply

Show more comments