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how much CPU limited?
- Thread starter yannis76
- Start date
True...
The 740 is pretty much the best CPU you can get for FM2 apart form the black edition (minor upgrade) or the 5800K (minor upgrade and expensive due to iGPU) so any CPU upgrade will require a motherboard upgrade too.
Soldato
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- 6 Feb 2010
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Going from the 7790 to the 7850/660 is just one tier up, the little performance gain wouldn't worth the loss you make nor the hassle on selling the 7790...
IMO you should just save up toward upgrading to a i5, and then you would get better frame rate than you currently getting on the same medium/high graphic settings. Then later in the future, upgrade the graphic card as well, then you can turn up the eye candy. But as I said before...it's really up to you what you prioritise.
If you can make do with current graphic quality, but want higher frame rate more, then upgrade to i5; if you don't mind having the same average frame rate of 20-40fps but just want to be turn up the eye-candy, then upgrade the graphic card instead. However, I strongly disagree with upgrading to 7850/660, as the performance gain is so little, it's hardly worth the £70-£80 extra you'd have to pay after selling the 7790.
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According to this link the difference between the two cards is quite substantial:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/776?vs=783
Shogun2: +15fps
Hitman: +10fps
Sl. Dogs: +17fps
Crysis: +10fps
FC3: +16fps
BF3: +22fps
Civ5: +13fps
All in 1080p and Ultra Q.
I thought this was a big difference, no? Also I am leaning towards this card because its the fastest card with one 6pin connector. This gtx660 I am talking about is this:
http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=03G-P4-2665-KR
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/776?vs=783
Shogun2: +15fps
Hitman: +10fps
Sl. Dogs: +17fps
Crysis: +10fps
FC3: +16fps
BF3: +22fps
Civ5: +13fps
All in 1080p and Ultra Q.
I thought this was a big difference, no? Also I am leaning towards this card because its the fastest card with one 6pin connector. This gtx660 I am talking about is this:
http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=03G-P4-2665-KR
There is also the new 760K 600Mhz higher clocked...
Soldato
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You keep forgetting one thing- those performance/result difference is under the condition of not being CPU bottlenecked (Anandtech's test system is most likely a Intel i5/i7...and may be overclocked...). With your current CPU, you are NOT going to get that kinda of increase...or anywhere near it.
If you are upgrading, aim for AT LEAST a 7950. For extra £40-£50, the 7950 would be faster than the 660 and 7850 by a fairly big margin and in comparison, with the faster CPU, 384-bit memory bus and 1GB extra vram could potentially last you at least 1 more year...or 2 at a push (if don't mind turn some settings down a bit), before you need to upgrade again.
But if it is higher frame rate you want, then the CPU upgrade must come first. Upgrading graphic cards at this point with your current CPU it is only really gonna allow you to play a higher graphic settings, without much frame rate increase.
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It s an interesting discussion, hope you don't get bored
I do understand that i may not see these absolute numbers, but there will a relative increase especially in gpu limited games. The reviews i read consider the gtx660 a close to 7870 performance, especially this oc model of evga. Then you must also understand that such big cards like 670\680\7950\7970 can't fit into my case (Silverstone gd04). Even if i had a strong PSU, i would have to stay with a 9,5" card.
Soldato
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If I'm completely frank with you, I can actually picture that in many of the situations, even your 7790 is not getting 100% usage. I'm not saying this from pure guessing- I had a Intel Core2Quad Q6600 overclocked to 3.60GHz (which is quite a marginal faster than your Athlon X4 740 at 3.20GHz...possible around the speed of the Athlon X4 740 overclocked to 4.00-4.20GHz), and it was bottlenecking my 5850 (roughly around the same speed as your 7790) in lots of games that doesn't use 4 cores fully. Even when the 4 cores are used fully, it is only just about the right balance with the 5850 to not bottleneck it (too much). In games like Global Agenda and DC Universe online which I use to play, with my Q6600 at 3.60GHz would the minimum frame rate would frequently dip down to low 20s fps, and GPU usage dropping down to as low as 50-60% during the intensive scenes...but after upgrading to my i5 2500K overclocked to 4.50GHz back then, the same games barely dipped below 58fps at all, despite I was using the same 5850. Granted recent games has gotten more graphic demanding nowadays, but the same apply for CPU as well. If you want consistent 50-60fps in most demanding games (if ignoring GPU limitation), an overclocked i5/i7 is needed. I just gonna quote myself againIt s an interesting discussion, hope you don't get bored
I do understand that i may not see these absolute numbers, but there will a relative increase especially in gpu limited games. The reviews i read consider the gtx660 a close to 7870 performance, especially this oc model of evga. Then you must also understand that such big cards like 670\680\7950\7970 can't fit into my case (Silverstone gd04). Even if i had a strong PSU, i would have to stay with a 9,5" card.
I don't want you end up in the position of upgrading to the 660 with your current CPU, and not seeing any (noticable) increase in frame rate and with ended up with me saying I told you so again...
In terms of card length and power consumption, the GTX670 is short enough, if you find the right one at the right price
Forget I mention the 7950...in your circumstances, a GTX670 max power consumption 162W with a short PCB is probably a better choice (in terms of power consumption and length).
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What you do is largely down to the games you want to play. If it includes a lot of CPU-bound games (e.g. Skyrim), it'd make a lot of sense to upgrade the CPU to the 760K. Some, like Bioshock Infinite, will work fine with lower end CPUs.
With an overclocked 760K and a GTX 670/760 you'd be getting 60fps+ in most games at 1080p.
With an overclocked 760K and a GTX 670/760 you'd be getting 60fps+ in most games at 1080p.
Soldato
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Your 430W PSU is a decent made one...I hope?
I use to run my Q6600 3.60GHz vcore at 1.50v (peak power consumption 140W) together with my 5850 (power consumption should be higher than the 162W of the GTX760 and GTX670) on the Corsair CX400W without problem (other than PSU fan get a bit noisy), but of course that was a legendary budget Seasonic made PSU unit. I don't see any CPU you getting (with the exception of overclocked FX-8 or SandyBridge-E 6 cores) would come closes to consumption 140W.
Ehhh...I seriously doubt it is a good idea for OP to change CPU for the 3rd time on the FM2 znd waste more money. 60fps+ in none-demanding scenes means very little (pretty sure the 740 does around the same in those scenes), if it is going to dip down to low 20s to 30fps during demanding scenes. The 760K is just the same CPU as the 740, other than having 200MHz higher stock clock (unless you were talking about the Black Edition with the unlocked multiplier). Even if the 760K was overclocked to 4.8GHz (being 50% higher clock than the 740 at 3.20GHz), and performance increase scaling proportionate to the amount of overclock (which it is never the case), all it does is increase the 740's frame rate by 50% (realistic increase in reality would be more like 20-30% performance increase from a 50% overclock), which would still be too low (i.e. 20fps becomes 30fps...but realistically it would be more like 20fps becomes 25-26fps).
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