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Upgrade to a 990x?

FloppyPoppy

FloppyPoppy

FloppyPoppy

Soldato
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27 Jan 2012
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Hey currently running a 930 cpu and its deffinately my bottleneck in everything gpu overclocking makes no difference to anything for me a tiny cpu overclock makes mass improvements. I 100% will not be going with ivy so i know the 990x will massively out perform the 930 but i was wondering if anyone could give me any ideas of how much its going to help before i invest in a 700pound cpu.
 
Get a 980x instead. You can find a much better bargain, and they essentially OC exactly the same.

Gaming wise you will hardly see any difference, but for professional software and generic CPU benchmarks you will see gains.
 
Your 930 should be capable of doing over 4ghz, so get clocking what you already have.
Just as an aside, an i7 clocked over 4ghz along with GTX 580 is going to need more grunt and headroom than a ModXtream 650w.
Get a bigger PSU and get clocking the 930 to 4ghz+.
 
Well at current its at 4.2 with turbo turned off, and my psu is happy with it, i think the boards 16 phase power around the cpu helps and im still not really getting results i would expect


edit i just havent changed my siggy from 3.5
 
+1 for overclocking

If your current cooler isn't up to the job then invest in a high-end air cooler like the Noctua NH-D14 or Thermalright silver arrow.

Also, if you are mainly playing games then going for a Gulftown hex core won't actually improve your performance any better than overclocking your existing quad core to the same level - since games can't make good use out of a hex core.

May I ask what resolution you play at and what games are you having trouble with?
 
1920x1080 my cpu is overclocked as far as i can get it and i have a noctua on atm, since a company ripped me off for watercooling (wont name on here but il be shopping at oc uk from now on) and the cpu is at 4.2 turbo off
 
At 4.2GHz you shouldn't be having trouble with gaming.

EDIT: Noctua is a great cooler.

At that res, a 580 should rip through anything. What games are causing problems?
 
How well would you expect it to? Looking at your specs, even with a GTX 580 3GB your system will be GPU bottlenecked in pretty much all games (at 1920x1080 resolution, high settings, decent AA/AF applied). If you really want to spend some money to improve performance then your best bet is a second GTX 580 3GB or wait for kepler.

For some perspective, here is a gaming performance comparison of many CPUs (inluding the 980X hex core, i7 975 - basically the same CPU you have just clocked at 3.33GHz, and the sandy bridge quad core chips). The GPU used in that test is a high-end one so that GPU-bottlenecking isn't a problem and the resolutions are lower than 1080p so the CPU bottlenecks are identified.
 
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Well in all my games gpu overclocking makes no difference but cpu does il take a look anyway i have a friend on a 980x with a 580 so i will ask to borrow both and see what improves me the most, your probably right im not the best on computers but my gpu overclocking makes no difference for me thats why i assumed it was cpu bottlenecked
 
It really depends on the games you are playing, for the VAST majority of modern games you will not be CPU bottlenecked (especially with an i7 quad core at 4.2GHz).

But a small number of games (like GTA4, ARMA2, Civ 5, FSX, supreme commander, total war series) are instead much more dependent on CPU power - so if you are mainly running games like this then indeed a faster CPU could provide better performance. However, if this is the case then going for a s1366 hex core is not a good option, since these games are usually not optimised to run on hex cores - so your performance will be the same as your i7 930 when at the same clockspeeds. Instead, the best option for this scenario is to sell on your core system and replace it with an i5 2500K sandy bridge/Z68 board and overclock it as fast as possible (try for 4.5GHz to start with) - since these CPUs are faster per-clock and can be overclocked higher than an i7 900 series.


harry5522 said:
when i test i tend to run unigen heaven- 3dmark11, kombuster (forstability) ffxiv benchmark
and sometimes 3dmark vantage
Click to expand...

Are you saying that the only evidence of a CPU bottleneck is in benchmarking applications? Have you had any problems with games not running as fast as they should?

Also, your spec says "16GB" of RAM. Is that running in triple channel mode? (you can check with CPU-Z, memory tab.
 
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Thats my problem, ive only just built this rig like in the last 2 months and dont really want to get rid of it, would you expect a high clocked quad on 1366 to work better for it then, i do a lot of gta iv lots of civilisation and i play probly to much total war, il see what i think would benefit me more a new cpu or gpu when i borrow a second 580 and a 980 il probly ugprade depending on what seems to benefit the most
 
Ah, in that case you seem to be running some very CPU heavy games, which is fair enough.

I certainly wouldn't buy a new i7 1366 quad - as these are all just Bloomfield chips (even the very nicest i7 975 - and you can only expect them to overclock as high as 4.2GHz. Since you already have this on your i7 930 then there really isn't anything to be gained from a new s1366 quad (or hex) core CPU. Therefore, if you really want a faster CPU then your only real option is a sandy Bridge or wait until June for the new Intel Ivy Bridge line.
 
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harry5522 said:
So you aswell think id probly benefit most from a new gpu if im not changing sockets because i really like my assassin build atm
Click to expand...

If the most graphically intensive game you play are GTA4, total war (shogun 2, empire etc) and Civ5 then tbh buying a second £400 card won't give you much of a performance boost - since the existing GTX 580 will play them very nicely at 1080p.

Just to confirm, are your RAM modules running in triple channel mode?
 
yep they are running at tripple channel over 4 dimms i was thinking of removing one but i checked my motherboard manual and it showed me how to get it in tripple over 4 dims and my 580 still costs around 800 on certain websites i got it discounted to 500 from a local store.

Any my gta iv is ice enhanced seriously high i get about 30fps on it so im sure a upgrade would improve that a bit :)
 
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