CPU or GPU update....

RichBowman · 19 Apr 2010 at 16:19

Hi all,

After a bit of advice – I’m looking to possibly update my PC and I’m not sure whether to upgrade CPU or GPU. I’m currently running a E8400 at 3.6ghz, coupled to 4gb ram, EVGA nvidia 260 card (not been overwhelmed by that to be honest).

The E8400 won’t go any higher than 3.6 (most likely down to the MB – Gigabyte P43).

Options would be for an i5 750 based set up for around £350-£375, or up to about £200 for a new GPU (the cheaper option) – not really up to date with the latest and greatest GPU’s at the moment.

I largely run games (FPS like BFBC2, MW2) but do a little photoshop etc...

Any thoughts/suggestions? As understand it, the CPU might not be the bottle neck at the moment anyway.

Cheers,

Rich

Kill_Phil · 19 Apr 2010 at 16:23

id personally carry on saving and wait to see the price point of amds 6 core offering that dues soonish. then make your mind up from there, cause your system is able to do the job atm

Ryan-3 · 19 Apr 2010 at 16:26

I'd personally go for a GPU upgrade. The E8400 will still cut it among newer tech, where the 260 would hold the i5 up, and something like a 5850 would let your CPU really open up

RichBowman · 19 Apr 2010 at 17:01

Cheers chaps. Much appreciated.

Out of interest, what sort of power PSU would the 5850 need to run? I've a 480w at the moment and wouldn't be sure it if it was fully up to the job.

Rich

pastymuncher · 19 Apr 2010 at 19:20

RichBowman said:
Cheers chaps. Much appreciated.

Out of interest, what sort of power PSU would the 5850 need to run? I've a 480w at the moment and wouldn't be sure it if it was fully up to the job.

Rich

Providing it's a quality psu it will be enough. The rig in my siggy only pulls a max of 274w at the wall and even then only if i run Prime and Fur stability test together.

CAPTAINBUMFLUFF · 19 Apr 2010 at 19:53

Agree a gpu will be better option a e8400 is still a really good gaming cpu, 5850 would be best bet

Luffy · 19 Apr 2010 at 20:02

RichBowman said:
The E8400 won’t go any higher than 3.6 (most likely down to the MB – Gigabyte P43).

Are you sure you can't squeeze some more from your E8400?

Marine-RX179 · 19 Apr 2010 at 20:48

If specifically for BFBC2, I think GTX260 itself should still capable of delivering reasonble frame rate at high settings (and doesn't suffer frame rate dive since it is running in dx9/10 instead of dx11).

Considering there's actually enough game data to take advantage of Quad cores to give 50-100% boost in framerate for 4870x2 (someone tested the game using a 4870x2 with a Phenom II 550 and 550 unlocked to 4 cores both at 3.8GHz), I would say CPU would be the bigger limitation for this particular game, since all the distructable enviroment physics and all kinds of crap are done on the CPU.

May be you should log your GPU usage (think MSI Afterburner would do) and see how much of your GPU is using vs how much of CPU you are using (task manager would do) for the game may be?

Liampope · 19 Apr 2010 at 20:58

I'd say go for the graphics card (5850) unless you game at quite a low resolution, in which case your 260 probably still cuts the mustard and you might see better gains upgrading the CPU as Marine suggests.

RichBowman · 19 Apr 2010 at 22:25

Cheers again guys - your views are very much appreciated.

I'm gaming at 1680 x 1050 - I've run the EVGA monitor, and it looks like the GPU is running at pretty much full tilt as far as I can tell - running BC2 in DX9 (anything else results in the White screen of death).

Ideally, I'd upgrade both! ;-)

Rich

RichBowman · 19 Apr 2010 at 22:42

Luffy said:
Are you sure you can't squeeze some more from your E8400?

I've had a good hard try - don't seem to have any joy. Seems nice and happy at 3.6, which it did almost immediately out the box without any adjudtments. I reckon it's good for 3.8 to 4 as the CPU barely ever hits high 40C under prolonged load, but think it's the RAM or MB holding it back. If I were to replace both, I might as well go the whole hog.

Rich

Marine-RX179 · 20 Apr 2010 at 00:18

I think a P43 chipset Gigabyte board should have no problem overclocking a E8400 to 4GHz (or even more). You should try adding more voltage to the vcore...but definitely no more than 1.4V, as a E8400 should not need that much power for overclocking. I think your default vcore should be around 1.25-1.275v, try upping it to may be 1.3 or 1.325, and see if you can get a stable 4GHz.

Scania · 20 Apr 2010 at 04:03

RichBowman said:
Cheers again guys - your views are very much appreciated.

I'm gaming at 1680 x 1050 - I've run the EVGA monitor, and it looks like the GPU is running at pretty much full tilt as far as I can tell - running BC2 in DX9 (anything else results in the White screen of death).

Ideally, I'd upgrade both!

Rich

If your gaming @ 1680x1050 then I would not bother swapping the GTX 260.

I say this as I'm running BFBC2 with a GTX260 at the same rez with an e5300 @3.46ghz and its absolutely fine (using a G31 Motherboard as well!)

Sure, you could get a different card but I doubt you'll notice any improvement at that resolution.

RichBowman · 20 Apr 2010 at 09:52

Marine-RX179 said:
I think a P43 chipset Gigabyte board should have no problem overclocking a E8400 to 4GHz (or even more). You should try adding more voltage to the vcore...but definitely no more than 1.4V, as a E8400 should not need that much power for overclocking. I think your default vcore should be around 1.25-1.275v, try upping it to may be 1.3 or 1.325, and see if you can get a stable 4GHz.

Cheers - I might have another crack at it when I get a chance. I've a feeling if it is failing, it's something to do with the FSB divider thing with the RAM (instead of figures like 133/166/200/800 and whatnot, it's got some strange arbitrary 2.00D or 2.00B) - can't quite see how it affects the actual speed the RAM is running at. If I could (understand how to) lock it down to 800 MHz (like the ram is supposed to run at) - I might have bit better luck - less variables. I used to have a nvidia board that ran the FSB and Memory clocks asynchronously - which would be useful.

If anyone knows of a good guide, feel free to pointme in the right direction!

Thanks,

Rich

Rich

Devrij · 20 Apr 2010 at 12:18

Yeah, the 2B and 2D are both 1:1 dividers but based on different timings, I think 2D is the one you want to give your RAM more breathing room, to get to 4GHz you'll need at least 1.3V for the cpu (maybe a touch more) and depending on your board, you may need to up the NB voltage as well to push up to the higher fsb needed. Your RAM will probably need a bit more juice to make it up to 4GHz as well, seeing as you'll have to have it running at 888MHz even on a 1:1 divider. Start by dropping your cpu multi and ram down to stock speeds. but raise the fsb until you start failing stability tests, then you'll know where your board hits the wall.

I say go for the gpu (5850), seeing as the e8400 will be fine even at 3.6GHz for the majority of the games out there. Admittedly, mine is pushed to its limits with BC2 at 4.5GHz, but so is my gpu (5770), so with a 5850 you could at least crank up the eye candy and still get playable framerates until you can afford a complete system overhaul. Your card will be the bottleneck in most games now, and as said above, once the new line of cpus start making their way out, your cpu upgrade might be cheaper/smarter done then.

Marine-RX179 · 20 Apr 2010 at 13:16

Devrij said:
I say go for the gpu (5850), seeing as the e8400 will be fine even at 3.6GHz for the majority of the games out there. Admittedly, mine is pushed to its limits with BC2 at 4.5GHz, but so is my gpu (5770), so with a 5850 you could at least crank up the eye candy and still get playable framerates until you can afford a complete system overhaul.

Just want to say although 5770 is pretty much almost as fast as GTX260, but I believe running the game in dx9/10 mode would give (much) higher frame rate than in dx11 mode...and we all know that in terms of graphic, there is hardly noticable difference between dx10 and dx11 on BFBC2. The dx11 on BFBC2 is almost just marketing gimmick...

Devrij · 20 Apr 2010 at 13:26

Marine-RX179 said:
Just want to say although 5770 is pretty much almost as fast as GTX260, I believe running it in dx9/10 mode would give (much) higher frame rate than in dx11 mode...and we all know that in terms of graphic, there is hardly noticable difference between dx10 and dx11 on BFBC2. The dx11 on BFBC2 is almost just marketing gimmick...

Oh I still get good framerates (50-70), but min framerates are a bit weak in big explosions. I've heard a lot of talk about mouse lag in lower dx modes so I'll stick with dx11 seeing as I'm getting on fine with it. I would like to stick some higher AF/AA on there though.

Marine-RX179 · 20 Apr 2010 at 13:47

Devrij said:
I've heard a lot of talk about mouse lag in lower dx modes so I'll stick with dx11 seeing as I'm getting on fine with it. I would like to stick some higher AF/AA on there though.

Well I haven't seen those, but I do see lots of mentioning of insanely long loading time issues with the dx11 cards though...

Either way, I think before he decide on upgrading the CPU or graphic card, he should try overclocking the E8400 further first, as it doesn't cost anything.

uk_unbeliever · 20 Apr 2010 at 13:50

Marine-RX179 said:
I think a P43 chipset Gigabyte board should have no problem overclocking a E8400 to 4GHz (or even more). You should try adding more voltage to the vcore...but definitely no more than 1.4V, as a E8400 should not need that much power for overclocking. I think your default vcore should be around 1.25-1.275v, try upping it to may be 1.3 or 1.325, and see if you can get a stable 4GHz.

I have an ep43-ds3l and it tops out at 417FSB, and to get over about 400-410 required addi volts out of proportion to the small increase in Mhz. From reading around the net it seems that 415-420 is the FSB limit on these boards so I'd be surprised if the OP can get much more out of the CPU if they have the same board.

On a positive note for the Gigabyte p43's, to get around the issue I bought a p45 board and found that the GA P43 gets my e8400 to 3.6 much easier and is stable on lower volts than the MSI p45 board I bought to try and take the CPU further. Probably should have just got a p5Q or Gigabyte p45 but the MSI was only £35.

Devrij · 20 Apr 2010 at 16:36

Marine-RX179 said:
Well I haven't seen those, but I do see lots of mentioning of insanely long loading time issues with the dx11 cards though...

Either way, I think before he decide on upgrading the CPU or graphic card, he should try overclocking the E8400 further first, as it doesn't cost anything.

This has been sorted by latest cat previews and 10.4 hotfix, but there's going to be a 15 sec delay added on wed anyway.

I had the same problem with a gigabyte p43 board myself where i got stuck at 420 fsb, but a p5q deluxe is an easy ticket to 4.5 and beyond

However, as the OP astutely observes, if he's gonna change board might as well change socket as well.