quick question. upgrade or not?

[stopper]

Hi all

I currently have a Phenom x4 9850 [email protected] after running a lot of tests, I found the CPU is seriously bottlenecking my 1GB GTX460 in games.

So, I'm literally about to go out and buy a new CPU...

Is the Athlon II 445 x3 a big enough upgrade or am I better of sticking with what I have?
Bear in mind, I have the N68C-GS UCC motherboard which is designed for core unlocking.

I have compared the 2 CPUs on cpu-world and it seems the Phenom is the better choice apart from the speed, but I don't quite trust it so I'm asking the pro's here.
Any help would be great. Cheers.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would stick with your current processor TBH unless you are finding that your games are becoming unplayable due to the CPU.

Your overclocked processor is probably around the same speed as a Q6600 at stock speeds:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/21?vs=53

An Athlon II X4 and the Phenom X4 seem to have similar performance in game at the same clockspeed:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/21?vs=106

Hence,the much higher clockspeeds of the Athlon II X4 is where the main improvement will come from and I suspect a Phenom II X4 will be a bigger upgrade.

 

[stopper]

An Athlon II X4 and the Phenom X4 seem to have similar performance in game at the same clockspeed

Well this is it, my CPU now overclocked is only at 2700, the x3 445 is 3100 stock, which will be overclocked and unlocked if possible.

Also those comparisons didn't do much for me either as neither of the CPUs were the ones I'm messing with atm.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Well this is it, my CPU now overclocked is only at 2700, the x3 445 is 3100 stock, which will be overclocked and unlocked if possible.

Also those comparisons didn't do much for me either as neither of the CPUs were the ones I'm messing with atm.

Why is not useful?? If you unlock an Athlon II x3 to an Athlon II X4 it is around the same speed as a first generation Phenom at the same clockspeed.

Unlocks to Phenom II X4 processors are not always that common with an Athlon II X3 as it depends on whether you get a Propus or Deneb based Athlon II X3.

So even with the higher clockspeed of the Athlon II X4 you are looking at most a 20% to 25% increase in speeds which is not that much TBH.

On top of this your motherboard will not run the HT at full speed with the new processors which will slightly degrade their performance too.

The comparison to a Q6600 is valid as many review sites still use the Q6600 as a legacy test to gauge CPU performance in games.

Having said that my Q6600 at stock speeds with an HD5850 1GB runs DiRT2 and Bioshock 2 fine at 1680X1050.

 

[TerryH]

Disregard this post, I just realized OP is Over Clocking his CPU, which was my advice. Sorry.

 

[stopper]

Well after a lot of reading up on performance differences between the 2 CPUs, I went ahead and bought an Athlon II x3 450 as the 445 weren't in stock and I got it at a bargain price. Either way, my second PC needed a CPU upgrade so it would have been put to good use regardless.
Apparently the first gen Phenoms are pretty cack (just what I have been reading) and the overall architecture of the Athlon/Phenom II series are massively better in every way.

Right, just tested Bulletstorm which I have been running on the overclocked 9850 at 1920x1080 with 2xTRSAA and 8xAA with an average FPS of 35-40. Afterburner reporting my 460 usage was around 40%, and that's how I found out the CPU was a massive bottleneck.

Now, with the x3 450 installed and at stock 3.2 (for now), 16xAA and 4xTRSAA flying away at 60 solid FPS (vsync enabled), and Afterburner now reports GPU usage around 88%

Now that is one hell of a performance boost if you ask me!
So I might miss out on a few seconds of video encoding speed unless I unlock the last core, but that's nothing to worry about.