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955 to 3570k

Snodge

Snodge

Snodge

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Joined
14 Apr 2012
Posts
1,762
Hiya guys, looking to futureproof my pc for another 2-3years again I bought a HIS 1GB 6950 in April 2011 and have always thought it's a decent card however I feel my 955 is holding me back will a new IB or SB say 3570K or 2500K increase my performance that will cater for £225 pounds?
 
In games that are gpu bound you won't see much of a difference at 1920x1080.
But games that are cpu bound you will see some gains, like assassins creed is a poorly coded game and my unlocked 6950 runs smoother on the intel than my old amd. What resolution you running at? What games do you feel you lack performance in?

And is your 955 clocked or standard?
 
you should see a pretty healthy increase on changing cpu's tbh, i recently swapped from a 955 to a i5 2500K and the difference in games is a lot!
 
Depends on your other components and what you need how close to £225 you could get, but it will undoubtedly be a little more than that until the 2500k comes down in price after Ivy is released. Whats your 955 clocked at?
 
955 is a stock. Well I'm having to run COD4 on low to sustain 250 FPS which is a must for PROMOD strafing. Well L4D2 is struggling to sustain 60 FPS which is rather annoying. And I plan to play Battlefield in the future.
 
BF3 is very CPU intensive in MP so an upgrade is a must to get the most out of your 6950. I'd recommend overclocking the 2500k as well as you can easily get 4.5Ghz.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £173.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £84.98
1 x Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £23.99
Total : £282.96 (includes shipping : FREE).



Can't get any lower really until IB and possible reductions on the 2500k.
 
what resolution you using?

I stlll think theres some potential for more performance with an increase to the cpu speed to around 3.6ghz, and the nb-cpu + ram.
Also if the 6950 is stock at 800mhz core /ram 1250, then getting it around 900/1350 will give you a few fps too.

The games you mentioned are really old and one especially is a console port !
I have no experience in requiring 250fps for promod strafing So cant help you there.
 
Krono = Agreed i did some testing between single player and multiplayer on my 2600k with 1 core 2 core 3 core and 4. on a 64 man server you really need all those cores to stop the fps spikes.

I've noticed its this game that has caused a lot of people on these forums to ask advice or to spend a lot of money upgrading to make it run nice.

In honesty I've played it for about 20 hours online, and it bores me.
 
1920X1080, and Ok I've tried overclocking CPU no lock there. My 6950 can hardly keep below 80 degrees currently. So I doubt i'll be getting 900/1350 and besides i'd have to use an unlocked Bios.

And ok the games aren't a great example I admit.
 
Krono5 said:
BF3 is very CPU intensive in MP so an upgrade is a must to get the most out of your 6950. I'd recommend overclocking the 2500k as well as you can easily get 4.5Ghz.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £173.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £84.98
1 x Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £23.99
Total : £282.96 (includes shipping : FREE).



Can't get any lower really until IB and possible reductions on the 2500k.
Click to expand...

Looks good, but I would make sure mobo is sli capable as well.

Is the cooler capable of cooling at 4.5Ghz overclocks?

Add 8gigs of ram and good to go.
 
Fair enough but the 955 is really easy to play with but theres guides for that all over the net. The 6950 won't require an unlocked bios, thats for unlocking shaders which is rare on the 1gb models but not impossible. All you need is afterburner or Sapphire trixx to unlock the gpu v-core, but even then a 1.10 vcore might get you close to 880.

The temperature issue can probably be solved by making a custom fan profile using trixx or afterburner.
 
Lol I'm not promising miracles, Just from my experiences of a heavily clocked amd to my current i7 2600k, I've seen the gains and the not so's.
I have a lot of experience with overclocking and unlocking amds though, dating back to my first k6 II :)

The main thing is cooling, max core temp for reliability you want is around 48-50 c anymore and you'll be hitting thermal issues.
and if your 955 is a c2 stepping or c3 stepping that will mean the difference between, 3.6 and 3.8ghz+.
Anyway rather than me talk on her for 50 pages,i recommend this guide from good old dolk.

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=596023

As for your gcard if it doesnt have a bios switch on it then I'd recommend you leave it be and just try using some software to clock it. You'll see about 5-6fps increase from a 800 to 880 core. The extra shaders don't really make much difference (just like the 7950 vs the 7970 Lol !)
 
Last edited:
Davedree said:
Lol I'm not promising miracles, Just from my experiences of a heavily clocked amd to my current i7 2600k, I've seen the gains and the not so's.
I have a lot of experience with overclocking and unlocking amds though, dating back to my first k6 II :)

The main thing is cooling, max core temp for reliability you want is around 48-50 c anymore and you'll be hitting thermal issues.
and if your 955 is a c2 stepping or c3 stepping that will mean the difference between, 3.6 and 3.8ghz+.
Anyway rather than me talk on her for 50 pages,i recommend this guide from good old dolk.

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=596023

As for your gcard if it doesnt have a bios switch on it then I'd recommend you leave it be and just try using some software to clock it. You'll see about 5-6fps increase from a 800 to 880 core. The extra shaders don't really make much difference (just like the 7950 vs the 7970 Lol !)
Click to expand...

That is indeed a great guide to read. I can also recommend clocking your cpu although really it shouldn't be a problem in BF3 even big mp games, my 965 at 4.2 manages to keep my 2 6950's with unlocked shaders and at 900/1300 maxed out constantly (one of the very few games this happens in). I thought the general consensus is that BF3 was not particularly cpu demanding?

Clocking your gpu will indeed also give you a decent boost in fps, but with the very low limits set by amd you will need to bypass these to really get anywhere. For this I would recommend googling racerx registry edit and using afterburner.
 
you might be correct on that, But that only works if you flash a 6950 with a 6970 bios, and I did do that origianlly but then found out it might be safer for a shader unlock only bios, (after looking at my afterburner just recently I had to edit the config file and the eula. But trixx which is what I use you dont have to.

Afterburner with unofficialoverclocking registry edit or trixx would get you past the 840 limit that is in ati ccc overdrive.???
i leave overdrive turned off too.
 
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Snodge said:
Davedree I can only get 840 Core you've got the option for 880 due to unlocked shaders?
Click to expand...

You can try the racerx registry edit tool I talked about above, it allows you to change your max clock to whatever you want among other things. Its what I use to overclock my cards with a shader unlock bios.
 
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