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A10 7850k upgrade

Biggie

Biggie

Biggie

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Joined
30 Sep 2007
Posts
21
Location
Yorkshire
HI guys,
I got myself an a10 7850k a few months ago as i was on a terribly tight budget and had 2 pcs to build. Ive since aquired a HD7970 and would like some ideas regarding cpu upgrades to go with the gpu. I would need a mobo too as mine is am2+.
Ive been looking at the FX8350, would this be a significant upgrade on the 7850k?
Thanks for any help
 
HUGE upgrade, especially if you overclock the 8350. Might as well try and get the 8230 chip as it's the same chip but clocked marginally slower than the 8350. Just overclock manually to 4.5 or so and you're good to go. Will be a big upgrade over the 7850. Get a good cooler though.
 
Thanks for the info sub.
No i havent tried overclocking yet. I just installed the hd7970 and away it went. Didnt disable anything or anything
I only have the stock cooler so what oc would you recomend?
Thanks again
 
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Just been in and had a look at the overclocking settings, and its a bit confusing. So i think id rather leave that option and go with an upgrade.
Is the fx 8350 my best option?
Or are the intel chips worth the extra dollar?
Thanks for any help

sys specs
amd 7850k a10
hd 7970
Gigabyte GA-F2A88XM-DS2
HyperX 8GB 2400MHz DDR3
XFX XXX 750W

Game i play is Guild Wars 2
 
With only a 7970, in my opinion it isn't worth it to go beyond what you and spend big money. I would get some advice from people on here (including myself if you want it), and just ensure you are getting the best from your current chip.

It 'may' be worthwhile selling your 7850k and going for something like the 880k though when it comes out.
 
Your current motherboard only supports FM1/2 range of APU's & Athlons like the 860K. Fastest chip your board will support is the 7870k but that will only give you 200mhz boost on the base clock 100mhz extra on boost. FX8350 would need a compatible AM3+ motherboard and recommended to stick with ATX 970/990 chipset as the current MATX boards only come with 760g chipset and will hold the FX8350 back.

For cost best option is 2nd hand market and look for something like a socket 1155 Z77 compatible motherboard and go for a 2500k/3570k or 2600k/3770k if you need the extra oomph of 8 threads.

Now Skylake is out another option could be to look for discounts on the Haswell Range, already noticed some retailers discounting socket 1150 motherboards for z97/h97 and the older H81/B85 can still be found at good prices. A pentium G3258K would be a good cheap option can usually be easy to overclock it 4.2 or look for a bargain on an i3, i5 or i7.

With you Ram being DDR3 it will work any of the above, you would only need to look to change it if you went for a Skylake or Haswell-E build.
 
As scrumpy mentions, unless you are talking about another board then your's is either FM2 or FM2+ as it has a 7850K.

Also.. REALLY don't know why you are wanting to upgrade your CPU. The 7850K is more than capable. What res are you playing at?

For example, I have a 7850K and an R9 380 4GB, and it runs games great and I just bought a shed load of recent games to play with it.
 
Thanks for the replys guys.
I currently play GW2 with decent frame rates with low spots during big wvw zergs hitting 30. Which is playable, but my friends talk of 60 in the same situation and i thought maybe it was my chip holding me back.
I play on 1920 x 1080 res and enjoy the experience. But i have a bit of spare cash and wondered if it would be worth it. Seem the only real option is to switch to intel, which is a bit more than i was looking at, oh well, best start buttering the wife up eh :)

Thanks again
 
I would run your fan on your CPU at 100% and try overclocking a little just to see how it does GW2. Oh and disable the iGPU in the bios so it isn't heat things up.

I would imagine the GW2 is CPU limited, so if overclocking doesn't help enough then consider a board/cpu upgrade.

Curious, what CPU/GPU does your friend have?
 
Ok i disabled the igpu in the bios, saw all the scary setting, and came back out again.

1: how do i set my cpu fan to 100%
2: what do i do next :P

my freinds all seem to be on i7 and i5 cpus. One on skylake i7 with a fury whos having very good results, as expected and one on a 4690k who is also getting nice fps.
I tried setting my memory to 2400, as thats what it is but i got bsod after about 30 seconds of play in game. So the mobo only seems to like 2133.
 
The i5's and i7's are fantastic chips. The question is whether you want to fork the money out for at minimum the chip + Motherboard. Then you might also need some memory. Depending on what OS you are using, maybe even pay for a new OS as well. (but you can get those cheap).

Haven't got time right now, but look up some videos on you tube of overclocking the 7850k's etc. EDIT: Also look in the overclocking section on this forum :)

For reference, I have mine running at 4.3Ghz with a R9 380 4GB. It runs fantastic IMO for the money. I did exactly like you, I was tight on budget so I went the route where I could upgrade later, I have have to say I was very impressed with the 7850K.

Do you have any clock monitoring software on, so you can see what the CPU is doing whilst you are gaming? (Is it going up and down in frequency whilst gaming etc?)
 
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I also find the 7850k a great chip for the money.

as scougar says defo overclock from the bios setting not AMD overdrive as you will get a more stable overclock for gaming or at least that's what I have found and I have even left the IGU switched on....

I found that overclocking from AMD Overdrive would some times cause flashing HUD's in games.

these chip will clock to 4.7ghz for benching but you want to be under 4.4ghz for stable gaming I would say. I will be keeping mine till ZEN comes out anyway.
 
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For me the sweet spot is 4.3Ghz, at 4.4Ghz I get occasional issues, but then I'm not using the best of coolers, and I applied paste, but had to reseat the cooler, and I had run out of paste... it's been running like that for quite some months lol. (Remind me to buy some more paste! lol)

I have found the chip to be excellent, and I've not struggled with framerates in games that I can tell. Crysis 3 can be tasking if I set too high, but that's more down to the mid range GPU I have. Even the CPU intensive Planetside 2 runs pretty darn good on it.

Don't get me wrong, it isn't an i5 level chip, but then I didn't pay i5 money!

So the bottom line is with your chip, you are more than likely going to easily be able to run the boost clocks without issue on your stock cooler. It might be a little noisy, but you should be fine. Getting a decent cooler should be a target anyway, no matter what chip you own.
 
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