Is there a way to use all my computers potential?

mckevstah · 11 Feb 2012 at 11:51

Hi,

So basically, I am a noob lol. I know about computers, just not about the gaming side of things as I have always been poor and not been able to afford high end stuff. So anyway I bought this:

AMD Phenom II X4 850 3.30Ghz
8 GB RAM
Home Premium 65 bit
ATI HD VFX 6950 2GB
GA-870A-USB3L Motherboard

And this runs all games very well, Skyrim at ultra 2x AA @ 45fps.
And other games like CoD MW3 well over 60 fps on max.

But when it comes to Battlefield 3 and even bad company 2, it has big lag issues. I heard its because their more CPU intensive than all other games but im not sure.

Anyway, i have a gadget installed and it said it was only using about a third of the RAM and CPU cores when playing them games. Is there a way to use it all and get max performance?

panyan · 11 Feb 2012 at 11:54

mckevstah said:
But when it comes to Battlefield 3 and even bad company 2, it has big lag issues. I heard its because their more CPU intensive than all other games but im not sure.

im not sure about bc2, but bf3 is almost cpu-ignorant as anything with over 2 cores and its fine

BF3 is, by my knowledge, very gpu dependant, and if you are short of cash and want extra performance, overclocking is a good way to eek more out of your components, but please be careful and ONLY on a good power supply

panyan · 11 Feb 2012 at 11:57

mckevstah said:
ATI HD VFX 6950 2GB

ive never heard of this brand, is it XFX or VTX?

honosuseri · 11 Feb 2012 at 12:06

panyan said:
ive never heard of this brand, is it XFX or VTX?

Nevermind that.....where do you get windows 65 bit!

mckevstah · 11 Feb 2012 at 12:09

panyan said:
im not sure about bc2, but bf3 is almost cpu-ignorant as anything with over 2 cores and its fine

BF3 is, by my knowledge, very gpu dependant, and if you are short of cash and want extra performance, overclocking is a good way to eek more out of your components, but please be careful and ONLY on a good power supply

Is it? Dayum, I always thought it was CPU intensive lol, but yeah i've looked into that but i'm pretty scared to do it TBH lol. And I don't have any extra fans etc.

Also I think I only have 650w power supply.

mckevstah · 11 Feb 2012 at 12:11

Hahaha you guys

Its some weird graphics company ive not heard of either haha.. its one of them, VTX 3D HD 6950 or something lol..

And i got the operating system straight form Bill gates himself, its the latest craze

honosuseri · 11 Feb 2012 at 12:24

mckevstah said:
Is it? Dayum, I always thought it was CPU intensive lol, but yeah i've looked into that but i'm pretty scared to do it TBH lol. And I don't have any extra fans etc.

Also I think I only have 650w power supply.

That CPU of yours doesn't have any L3 cache so it's not really a phenom but a rebadged athlon. L3 cache helps with gaming.

Your mobo most likely has an auto overclock option (easytune i think gigabyte call it). If you have a stock heatsink it would be worth cleaning the heatsink of dust to make sure it's working at peak efficiency before trying the auto OC.

panyan · 11 Feb 2012 at 12:26

honosuseri said:
Nevermind that.....where do you get windows 65 bit!

oh yeah! lol

mckevstah · 11 Feb 2012 at 12:33

honosuseri said:
That CPU of yours doesn't have any L3 cache so it's not really a phenom but a rebadged athlon. L3 cache helps with gaming.

Your mobo most likely has an auto overclock option (easytune i think gigabyte call it). If you have a stock heatsink it would be worth cleaning the heatsink of dust to make sure it's working at peak efficiency before trying the auto OC.

Damn, so i got ripped off basically lol

Okay thank you, how much you recommend I overclcok my CPU by?

honosuseri · 11 Feb 2012 at 13:27

mckevstah said:
Damn, so i got ripped off basically lol

Okay thank you, how much you recommend I overclcok my CPU by?

I dont know when you bought it or where you got the system from. I went with the phenom X2 555BE (has L3 cache), it OC'd to 3.8Ghz (as a dual core on stock heatsink) and the mobo was able to unlock it to a quadcore but that was some time ago now.

I have no idea what you will get from that 840. It's not a popular chip, let the auto OC do it's thing and leave it at that.

Your mobo can take bulldozer CPUs but I wouldnt suggest one as an upgrade really. If you see an improvement after overclocking then it would be worth investing in an aftermarket heatsink. This will help keep your CPU cool OC'd and you might well be able to reuse it when you upgrade the CPU.

Finally it's worth checking you are using the latest drivers for your GPU and chipset. Check those first to see if that makes any difference then proceed with the OC.