7970 vs phenom 2

Spenty · 4 Feb 2012 at 20:34

Martini1991 said:
That Vcore is fine for Phenom II.
3.6GHZ is stock clock which Heaven shows.
Minimum FPS on heaven is sketchy unless you let it run before doing the benchmark.

That vcore is high for only 4.1ghz. Depending on his cooling it could be throttling. Heaven does not show my stock clock it shows 4100mhz.

Shinebox · 5 Feb 2012 at 02:41

ok so what is this throttling you speak of? my cooling is a CM 212 plus in push - pull. Max temp on prime is 40 and on intelburn its 43. im gonna go google that n check it out.

Shinebox · 5 Feb 2012 at 02:42

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
Ideally your CPU usage should be at nearly 100% not 85% to 95% which indicates the CPU is not being fully used.

I wonder if the motherboard the OP is using is throttling as it only has a 4 phase VRM:

http://uk.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_AM3/M4A88TM/

Has the OP tried their HD7970 3GB on the CPU at stock clockspeeds?? Is the CPU at 100% utilisation during the game??

ill check that out man n report back asap

muon · 5 Feb 2012 at 02:49

Battlefield 3 with 7970 isn't bottlenecked by a quadcore phenom 2.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-7970-cpu-scaling-performance-review/9

gurusan · 5 Feb 2012 at 02:56

anyon said:
Battlefield 3 with 7970 isn't bottlenecked by a quadcore phenom 2.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-7970-cpu-scaling-performance-review/9

Those benchmarks are from the single player....when compared to multiplayer it's really apples to oranges.

Shinebox · 5 Feb 2012 at 03:54

ok here we go. oc'd 7970 is at max CCC and the red circles are at full screen 1080
Stock CPU and stock 7970

Stock CPU oc'd 7970

CPU at 4.1 and 7970 oc'd

what do you guys think?

Shinebox · 5 Feb 2012 at 04:53

and heres on the high preset and only 24 players on the map (there was 64 on the other screen shots) and that was on the ultra preset

Martini1991 · 5 Feb 2012 at 13:49

Spenty said:
That vcore is high for only 4.1ghz. Depending on his cooling it could be throttling. Heaven does not show my stock clock it shows 4100mhz.

Since when? Back in the day, we needed 1.55v for 3.9GHZ OC's.

Spenty · 5 Feb 2012 at 13:55

Martini1991 said:
Since when? Back in the day, we needed 1.55v for 3.9GHZ OC's.

The C3 Phenom 2's safe max is 1.5v on air. I struggle to see how his temps under load are only in the 40's with a fairly cheap air cooler. He must have it outside his house or something.

Martini1991 · 5 Feb 2012 at 13:56

Spenty said:
The C3 Phenom 2's safe max is 1.5v on air. I struggle to see how his temps under load are only in the 40's with a fairly cheap air cooler. He must have it outside his house or something.

You could be fine well about the throttling.
But since when was Phenom 2's max safe temp 1.5?

I remember us all throwing 1.55v into them

And the C3's originally weren't *that* much better.
My C3 did like 4GHZ at 1.5, but would never go further.
But since then I've had chips do 4GHZ at 1.4v.

At either rate though, OP's bottlenecked with his Phenom II.

Spenty · 5 Feb 2012 at 13:59

http://products.amd.com/(S(1s0ubp45o3zk4wyxoe1cqk2h))/pages/DesktopCPUDetail.aspx?id=534

Check that link. Many people do go over but I'd rather leave it at 1.5v instead of adding another .05 to get another .1 ghz or so. His temps seem way to low in prime95, 40c on air at those volts is madness.

Martini1991 · 5 Feb 2012 at 14:03

Oh, I've seen that, but I'm sure it was documented at 1.55v, rather than 1.5v
At any rate, I've had a C3 965 abused that's still kicking today, they're some pretty resilient chips.

Spenty · 5 Feb 2012 at 14:09

The C2 versions were 1.55 they lower it for the C3 versions though. 1.5v gets me 4.1ghz prime stable and 4.2ghz game stable.

d_brennen · 5 Feb 2012 at 14:51

Shinebox said:
i dont think i can afford one of them! it would be nice but....

heres my heaven score... look at the min fps

d_brennen said:
Just got round to fiddling with my VTX 6950 2GB

850MHz core 1350MHz memory, unlocked shaders, stock volts

1055T @ 3.5GHz
8GB 1666MHz

My minimums are over twice as high with a 6950 and a lower clocked Phenom II?

~>Dg<~ · 5 Feb 2012 at 15:02

overclock probably not right in bf3 its gpu limited and it has been done to death

a 955 for eg will get same as a i5 2500k at 5ghz.

Martini1991 · 5 Feb 2012 at 15:04

~>Dg<~ said:
overclock probably not right in bf3 its gpu limited and it has been done to death

a 955 for eg will get same as a i5 2500k at 5ghz.

Depends on the GPU set up.
OP looks, from the graphs like he's CPU bottlenecked.
His GPU has passed what the Phenom II is capable of doing.

tommybhoy · 5 Feb 2012 at 16:53

Borsch said:
I dont know- FailDozer costs the same as 2500k, so the only saving is the mobo - z68ap-d3 is as low as £50 on auction... Not worth putting money into BD imho.

No it isn't, 8120 is ~£10 cheaper, plus add the £20 cashback offer=~£30 cheaper, no MB reqiured, which is a saving of at least £80!

As I said much cheaper for gaming in the op's case and the 2500K isn't £80+ better for gaming over the 8120!

tankskun · 5 Feb 2012 at 17:16

Sorry to hijack thread, but does anyone think the same bottleneck will happen with a stock 1055t 95w edition?

Was thinking a similar upgrade path in future.

Martini1991 · 5 Feb 2012 at 17:18

tankskun said:
Sorry to hijack thread, but does anyone think the same bottleneck will happen with a stock 1055t 95w edition?

Was thinking a similar upgrade path in future.

2.8GHZ 1055T will bottleneck a 7970 yeh.

tankskun · 5 Feb 2012 at 17:27

Martini1991 said:
2.8GHZ 1055T will bottleneck a 7970 yeh.

Ok thanks, might do a complete system change for Ivy bridge time.