CPU And Motherboard

[wizzykid1984]

hi looking to upgrade my amd x4 965 and motherboard. my budget is around £300 to £400 and want something that is going to last long term any advice would be great

currently play bf3 and 4 and have a R9 280 Graphics Card

 

[ALXAndy]

Are you brand loyal? got any DDR3 already? how much?

If AMD =

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-576-AS

And

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-383-AM

When stock comes back or order elsewhere..

If Intel then a 4670k or whatever it's called and a suitable board will suffice. IMO though if you're playing BF3 and 4 then the AMD is cheaper and just as good.

Edit. what motherboard do you have? please answer, this could drastically alter your needs for spending money. You *may* be able to drop in something like a FX 6300 and then spend the money where it matters, on something like a R290.

 

[mmj_uk]

i5 4690K or i7 4790K + motherboard depending on if you want to spend £300 or £400.

If you go the i5 route you could sell your current R9 280 and have enough left over to pick up a R9 290, that way you'll have a well balanced system which runs all games well.

 

[ALXAndy]

i5 4690K or i7 4790K + motherboard depending on if you want to spend £300 or £400.

If you go the i5 route you could sell your current R9 280 and have enough left over to pick up a R9 290, that way you'll have a well balanced system which runs all games well.

There's absolutely no need in spending that much, though. Especially when he doesn't have a high end GPU.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jV2Voo5h3eU

Go to 10:30 and watch from there. IMO he's better off buying a FX 6300 and R290. That would net him the biggest boost in the games he plays.

 

[wizzykid1984]

got this motherboard Gigabyte 970A-DS3P AMD 970A and running corsair vengeance ddr3
want something that's gonna last long term for future games

 

[ALXAndy]

got this motherboard Gigabyte 970A-DS3P AMD 970A and running corsair vengeance ddr3
want something that's gonna last long term for future games

OK awesome. So, IMO -

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-338-AM

Or

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-383-AM

And then

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-334-AS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1752

IMO will obliterate any Intel CPU and your current GPU combo. Especially in BF3/4. You will also have your old CPU and GPU to sell on, I reckon you'd get a ton back out of those alone easily.

Edit. Just be sure to update your bios BEFORE switching the CPU out mate.

 

[wizzykid1984]

I got the R9 280x of that card.will the board be ok to overclock on if I wanted to do that?

 

[ALXAndy]

I got the R9 280x of that card.will the board be ok to overclock on if I wanted to do that?

Dave will be your best bet there mate I'm no expert on Gigabyte. I'll do some poking and see if I can find out what sort of phases it has, but TBH? even at stock the AMDs are very, very good in Battlefield.

BF3 natively supports up to six cores, BF4 8, so it's a bit of a win win on AMD (see video 10:30 and on, there's no real difference between a 6100 and a 3770k).

Edit. OK well at least from the pic I can see it has phase cooling. So even if it's 4+1 then it should do 4.2ghz or more on the 8320E or higher on the 6300.

Dave will know more, he's your resident AMD/Giga expert

Edit. OK, 4+1 confirmed so see above for clocks. 4.2ghz is where you want to be on the 8320, maybe 4.5 on the 6300. Either or will do you fine

 

[mmj_uk]

I've given you your best short and long term option within the stated budget if you are prepared to sell your R9 280.

i5 4690K + mobo + R9 290 would be far better in both the short and long term than what ALXAndy is recommending, his suggestion is a good short term fix and cheap that's all. Even if you don't want to sell your R9 280 now it's still a better decision for the long term to get the fastest CPU now so that when you eventually get a decent GPU you'll have the CPU for it and don't need to upgrade yet again.

An FX6 is hardly going to be faster than your current Phenom in 'unfavourable' situations (ie. poorly threaded software), for which there are still plenty, particularly games.

See here:
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18659011

 

[ALXAndy]

i5 4690K + mobo + R9 290 would be far better in both the short and long term than what ALXAndy is recommending, his suggestion is a good short term and cheap that's all.

Rubbish. Given that games are now following console suit my suggestion is absolutely perfect for now and well into the future. The future is 8 slow cores.

Common sense. Why on earth replace a board that can run AMD's latest processor with one that's no better in gaming. Note - I said gaming, and most notably the games he plays.

There are times when Intel does not make any logical or financial sense and this is one of those times.

 

[This never ends well]

dont go with that ds3p board with a 8 core the vrms will overheat if your going to overclock, get the newer updated one which is the ud3p

 

[Scurburg]

If you are prepared to go second hand, a x58 (approx £100+ atm) that can clock a x5660 (6core xeon cost about £60+) could be another alternative. They generally clock to about 4ghz+ and offer better single thread performance over AMD and has 6 cores so even when more cores are utilized its still faster most of the time. You may have to sacrifice some newer tech going this route though (depending on the mb choice)

For AMD, I would not recommend running an fx-8 on a 4+2 board, other than the ones davedree recommends. The sabertooth is a solid board to aim for, but there are other cheaper options such as the gigabyte 970a-ud3p (8+2)which can be had for around £80 and seem just as capable with the 8320E (best value and clocks just as high as the more expensive fx's most the time, others are just better binned, which seems to mean little when ocing these chips)

Going new intel i5 will probably cost you more compared to amd (around £80 for a non locked version), but it will offer more consistent gains compared to amd, and is generally faster in games. Do not compromise your GPU budget to get a better CPU though. GPU is king for performance gains in games of course.

 

[ALXAndy]

dont go with that ds3p board with a 8 core the vrms will overheat if your going to overclock, get the newer updated one which is the ud3p

The VRMs have a heatsink so I wouldn't be too worried. I used to have a 4 phase Asus board and it would easily do 4.2ghz. And, from all of my testing and research 4.2ghz hardly slacked in terms of performance. To go higher you usually need 8 phases and it gets expensive. TBH? it's not worth the outlay. 4.5ghz and beyond net hardly anything in benchmark and gaming terms so a day to day clock of 4.2ghz is more than enough IMO.

I used to have two AMD rigs. One running a 8320 at 4.7-4.9ghz and one running a 8320 at 4.2-4.3ghz and the results were pretty much even. One rig had a 7990 the other 670 SLI so they were very similar*

*bear in mind the 4.2ghz rig was a 970 chipset so no SLI but I got around that easily using a freely available patch.

If you are prepared to go second hand, a x58 (approx £100+ atm) that can clock a x5660 (6core xeon cost about £60+) could be another alternative. They generally clock to about 4ghz+ and offer better single thread performance over AMD and has 6 cores so even when more cores are utilized its still faster most of the time. You may have to sacrifice some newer tech going this route though (depending on the mb choice)

Not worth it IMO. I also have a hex core Westmere rig and it came back with pretty much even results compared with the AMD. In fact, when all was said and done (and believe me I did some real world real terms testing) the AMD FX 8320 @ 4.9ghz was actually faster and produced better benchmark scores than a 8 core Ivy Xeon clocked to 2ghz on all 8 cores.

People will come on here swearing you need to go Intel but the problem is their claims are completely baseless. I have more rigs than you could shake a stick at and believe me, there is nothing wrong with FX 8s now or going into the future. Sometimes you have just got to accept that.

A drop in is quite obviously THE best idea of all. It saves buying a new board which is another £100 expense that absolutely and unequivocally can not be justified in any terms at all.

 

[Scurburg]

Not worth it IMO. I also have a hex core Westmere rig and it came back with pretty much even results compared with the AMD. In fact, when all was said and done (and believe me I did some real world real terms testing) the AMD FX 8320 @ 4.9ghz was actually faster and produced better benchmark scores than a 8 core Ivy Xeon clocked to 2ghz on all 8 cores..

I'll take you word for it, I have not experience of this setup and was just offering it as another alternative based what I have read.

You are correct that a drop in would be the cheapest option, as long as the board hold it ok.

 

[ALXAndy]

I'll take you word for it, I have not experience of this setup and was just offering it as another alternative based what I have read.

You are correct that a drop in would be the cheapest option, as long as the board hold it ok.

No worries. People get all feverish about how important a CPU is when really they don't know what they are talking about.

In older, lower core counted games sure, the Intel gives a nice boost. However, when the game and more importantly the operating system are geared up to use more cores? the AMD is an absolute cracker.

People don't seem to understand that the 8 core AMDs were in part a massive server hand-me-down. They were not desktop processors, they were more designed around the AMD Opterons and thus had a pretty funky layout. It's been ages but they're finally starting to see the support they should have had from the beginning. They didn't even work properly in Windows 7; that's how bad things used to be.

But now? the future is to eliminate the CPU from the equation completely, leaving all the work down to the GPU when gaming which is how it should be. The GPU in computer terms is the most powerful component in a PC and as such should be the priority. Making code lean back on a CPU is lazy and sloppy IMO.

That's why the comment made about Intel being the better bet for the future is unfounded and tbh complete twaddle. It's typical Intel Witness (TM) fodder. Scaremongering.

Mantle, DX12 and god knows how many new APIs being touted (VR ones too IIRC?) all aim to eradicate the need for a fast CPU.

What I will say is that AMD are stupid. Mostly because they launched a completely odd CPU structure then just expected support to happen overnight. It didn't, it's only been since Windows 8 that the OS even knows what the hell a FX 8 is. Before that it was 4 cores and a dodgy patch that sorted out the core parking somewhat.

It's only been very recently that I can honestly recommend buying any AMD CPU. Maybe a year at best, mostly the past six months is where they come into their own though.

http://www.techspot.com/review/956-dying-light-benchmarks/page5.html

See that? 7 FPS off of a £800+ Intel CPU. Why? because of what I've pointed out. Games go "Oh look 8 cores, cool" and don't really care who made them and more significantly how fast they are running. They're all treated, and come back with pretty much the same.

 

[maklabouhlel]

No worries. People get all feverish about how important a CPU is when really they don't know what they are talking about.

In older, lower core counted games sure, the Intel gives a nice boost. However, when the game and more importantly the operating system are geared up to use more cores? the AMD is an absolute cracker.

People don't seem to understand that the 8 core AMDs were in part a massive server hand-me-down. They were not desktop processors, they were more designed around the AMD Opterons and thus had a pretty funky layout. It's been ages but they're finally starting to see the support they should have had from the beginning. They didn't even work properly in Windows 7; that's how bad things used to be.

But now? the future is to eliminate the CPU from the equation completely, leaving all the work down to the GPU when gaming which is how it should be. The GPU in computer terms is the most powerful component in a PC and as such should be the priority. Making code lean back on a CPU is lazy and sloppy IMO.

That's why the comment made about Intel being the better bet for the future is unfounded and tbh complete twaddle. It's typical Intel Witness (TM) fodder. Scaremongering.

Mantle, DX12 and god knows how many new APIs being touted (VR ones too IIRC?) all aim to eradicate the need for a fast CPU.

What I will say is that AMD are stupid. Mostly because they launched a completely odd CPU structure then just expected support to happen overnight. It didn't, it's only been since Windows 8 that the OS even knows what the hell a FX 8 is. Before that it was 4 cores and a dodgy patch that sorted out the core parking somewhat.

It's only been very recently that I can honestly recommend buying any AMD CPU. Maybe a year at best, mostly the past six months is where they come into their own though.

http://www.techspot.com/review/956-dying-light-benchmarks/page5.html

See that? 7 FPS off of a £800+ Intel CPU. Why? because of what I've pointed out. Games go "Oh look 8 cores, cool" and don't really care who made them and more significantly how fast they are running. They're all treated, and come back with pretty much the same.

If the cpu is eliminated from the equation completely then I should be okay pairing a Sempron with a R9 280x, right?

 

[ALXAndy]

If the cpu is eliminated from the equation completely then I should be okay pairing a Sempron with a R9 280x, right?

Supposedly. Sadly in reality no PC tech every pans out to be as good as it was slated to be

I think HSA will help AMD. The problem is, will any one actually help AMD?

They do like releasing things that don't work without software support, then flap their arms around panicking when no one supports them.