Botteneck check

Adster3000

Adster3000

Adster3000

Associate
Joined
18 Jul 2010
Posts
381
Location
Not here
Hey,

I recently discovered that my AMD 440 3GHz tri-core is bottlenecking my system in terms of gaming. I'm using an ATI 5850 and found that Battlefield Bad Company 2 lags because of the CPU.
I discovered this because a friend of mine recently upgraded his CPU while having a similar computer to mine and found his performance in BFBC2 improved greatly.

I've come here to ask if my motherboard will bottleneck my system if I were to upgrade to a Phenom ii 1090T hex-core.

My motherboard is an Asrock M3A770DE. Specification:
http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=M3A770DE

This is the processor I am looking to get:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-266-AM

And its specification, if needed:
http://products.amd.com/en-gb/DesktopCPUDetail.aspx?id=640

Any help, advice and opinions will be greatly appreciated.
 
Cookeh said:
No point in X6 for gaming.

Phenom II X4 955BE is your best bet :)
Click to expand...

The thing is.. My mate who I previously referred to earlier bought an ATI 6870, which is a bit better than a 5850. He had the same amount of lag and slowdowns as I did, due to us both having the same AMD 440 tri-core.

He then upgraded to a Phenom II 965 and found that his performance improved a lot, but it wasn't perfect. I.e. not a flawless 60 fps.

This made me unsure if it was now the CPU or the GPU that's still causing his small dips in fps and since I plan on crossfiring my 5850 soon enough anyway, I thought I should just spend an extra ~£20 on a hex instead of the quad.

So.. I dunno..

Thanks for all the replies people. :)
 
Last edited:
Cookeh said:
No point in X6 for gaming.

Phenom II X4 955BE is your best bet :)
Click to expand...

What this guy said.

OP, have you tried unlocking the fourth core of your processor? You might get lucky.

Oh, and hard drive bottlenecking is a myth in PC games. The only thing a slow hard drive will actually slow down is load screens. From there, everything is so aggressively cached into RAM that a 5400RPM EcoGreenMegaSlow drive will run at the same speed as an SSD.
 
mikeyholt said:
www.anandtech.com/bench

The last website you will ever need.
Click to expand...

Care to elaborate? Those rating mean nothing to me.

I also do not understand how all the Intel processors have huge ratings compared to the AMD equivalents.

I sense bias.. But what do I know?

hybrid572 said:
What this guy said.

OP, have you tried unlocking the fourth core of your processor? You might get lucky.

Oh, and hard drive bottlenecking is a myth in PC games. The only thing a slow hard drive will actually slow down is load screens. From there, everything is so aggressively cached into RAM that a 5400RPM EcoGreenMegaSlow drive will run at the same speed as an SSD.
Click to expand...

I have attempted to unlock the fourth core and was successful.

The only reason why I didn't keep it was because I needed to buy an after-market cooler as it was unstable with the stock cooler. I didn't want to do this at the time.

Would it not be worth me upgrading the CPU just to have the L3 cache? I was under the impression that it would be worth it.

Also, does anyone know how a crossfired pair of 5850s will fare with the x16 and x4 PCI-E slots?
 
I think I read a 5850 in a PCI-E slot running @ x4 will only decrease performance by about 5%. It's not an ideal board for crossfire, but it's advertised with crossfire so it has to work.

As long as your Athlon II X3 doesn't unlock some L3 cache and the extra core then an upgrade to a Phenom II X4 or X6 is a good bet. I would still grab an aftermarket cooler though whatever you do, I couldn't stand listening to the stock AMD heatsink fan, I swear it spins at about 2000rpm. :eek:
 
Don't go Crossfire, a single 5850 is plenty enough- it's definitely your X3 that's holding you back.

If your X3 was unstable when unlocked, it's likely that it's due to the 4th core being unstable, rather than a lack of aftermarket cooling, unless temperatures were seriously through the roof. If you could unlock it safely with a cooler, I'd say do that- an Athlon II X4 at 3.0 or so is easily enough for modern gaming- but if not, get the Phenom II. The L3 cache on the Phenom is nice, but it's no game changer.
 
SouthEastBlue said:
I think I read a 5850 in a PCI-E slot running @ x4 will only decrease performance by about 5%. It's not an ideal board for crossfire, but it's advertised with crossfire so it has to work.

As long as your Athlon II X3 doesn't unlock some L3 cache and the extra core then an upgrade to a Phenom II X4 or X6 is a good bet. I would still grab an aftermarket cooler though whatever you do, I couldn't stand listening to the stock AMD heatsink fan, I swear it spins at about 2000rpm. :eek:
Click to expand...

9000rpm load according to HWMonitor :D

Sounds like a bloody jet engine next to me - getting on my nerves!
 
SouthEastBlue said:
I think I read a 5850 in a PCI-E slot running @ x4 will only decrease performance by about 5%. It's not an ideal board for crossfire, but it's advertised with crossfire so it has to work.

As long as your Athlon II X3 doesn't unlock some L3 cache and the extra core then an upgrade to a Phenom II X4 or X6 is a good bet. I would still grab an aftermarket cooler though whatever you do, I couldn't stand listening to the stock AMD heatsink fan, I swear it spins at about 2000rpm. :eek:
Click to expand...

Yeah, my friend had to upgrade his cooler the next day he received his CPU because it was too loud. This is what made me consider it in the first place for when I upgrade.

And no, I'm pretty sure it didn't/doesn't unlock any L3 cache.

hybrid572 said:
Don't go Crossfire, a single 5850 is plenty enough- it's definitely your X3 that's holding you back.

If your X3 was unstable when unlocked, it's likely that it's due to the 4th core being unstable, rather than a lack of aftermarket cooling, unless temperatures were seriously through the roof. If you could unlock it safely with a cooler, I'd say do that- an Athlon II X4 at 3.0 or so is easily enough for modern gaming- but if not, get the Phenom II. The L3 cache on the Phenom is nice, but it's no game changer.
Click to expand...

What I meant by unstable was I ran a stress test and It soon shot over 70C, which I did not like at all considering it didn't scrape 60C when it's all stock.
My apologies.

I get horrendous lag on DX11 setting in some games (Lost Planet 2), probably like 20-30fps if I remember correctly.
Could this be to do with my CPU? or is it still a GPU thing? Games like this are the reason why I wish to crossfire.
 
Last edited:
I have a 720be running a 5770 and have no stutter at all in BC2 when i installed a 955 I noticed no difference at all so sold it.. I have the 720 unlocked to a quad and running at 3.6ghz and it only cost me £40 on the MM..

Could be worth getting a cheap Phenom II from the MM as it seems the extra cache makes quite a difference...
 
Cookeh said:
Phenom II X4 955BE is your best bet :)
Click to expand...
+1 from me.

Adster3000 said:
...earlier bought an ATI 6970, which is a bit better than a 5850.
Click to expand...
Its more than a "bit" better :)

Adster3000 said:
Care to elaborate? Those rating mean nothing to me.
Click to expand...

Mikey has pointed you in the right direction, however this URL compares the 6970 against the 5850: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/292?vs=295 The 6970 looks about 30% faster to me.

Imho if a game is a "console port" then it will benefit more from a multi-core CPU than a better graphics card, but thats just mho. Cheers
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom