Wanting to upgrade - AMD CPU

Martini1991 · 14 Jun 2012 at 15:38

nkata said:
I don't know of any PC software that depends on Intel to run.

Martini1991 · 14 Jun 2012 at 15:42

Marine-RX179 said:
I recall Martini1991 being a long time AMD users...and with him jumped boat, went Intel and now recommend you this he knows what he's talking about.

Oh God, please don't remind me.
I did the whole AMD thing, AM2+ Phenom II, over to an AM3 790FX board, over to an AM3 890FX board when I simply couldn't go ahead anymore, my 6870's were so ridiculously bottlenecked by my 1055T at 4.37GHZ it was getting silly, I gained 40 FPS in Dawn Of War 2 going to a 2500k.

I used to justify it with "Yeah, but you can't tell the difference".

If I'd have gone Intel straight off the bat I'd have saved rather a lot of money.

Also, Phenom II was Core 2 IPC (or around there) with the FX4100 being slower than Phenom II clock for clock, a 3.6GHZ should best an FX4100 in a lot of situations, there's almost half a decade between the CPU's too.

Omaeka · 14 Jun 2012 at 15:44

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
I think as Martini1991 says,the Core i3 2100 would have been a good choice in the first place. I have one,but TDP was the main reason,as my rig is quite small and the lower TDP SB CPUs were silly money. Luckily,IB is not so bad in that regards,so I will eventually change over to them.

Skyrim is demanding as it uses only two threads. However,have you tried to play around with the settings and drivers,to see if you can improve peformance?

Silly question - I assume you got a decent PSU when you bought the rig? If you are changing over to an overclocked HD7850 2GB,it will still consume more power in that state than your HD6850.

I've found a compromise with Skyrim at the moment, got the unreal cinema ENB, 2k Texture Pack LITE (2x vanilla resolutions) on medium base graphical settings (no AA with FXAA and 8x antistrophic, with about average medium draw distance on actors, objects, land detail etc)

It ran perfectly until I got the 2k LITE 2x resolution Texture Pack now its decent and playable, but not perfect. Which is weird as when I first got my PC I ran it with the 2k Texture Pack FULL which had 8x he resolution of vanilla with little to no problems, then I decided to swap to the official HD texture pack and then it ran poorly, rebuilt my Skyrim again on the setup I have now and I can't even run it perfectly with the 2x textures let alone the 8x, with no trace of the official HD texture pack anywhere, did it blow my hardware? LOL

I believe my power supply is a OCZ ZS 750W PSU.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-210-OK

This is my rig, but with a 6850 and Windows Ultimate x86.

Martini1991 said:
Oh God, please don't remind me.
I did the whole AMD thing, AM2+ Phenom II, over to an AM3 790FX board, over to an AM3 890FX board when I simply couldn't go ahead anymore, my 6870's were so ridiculously bottlenecked by my 1055T at 4.37GHZ it was getting silly, I gained 40 FPS in Dawn Of War 2 going to a 2500k.

I used to justify it with "Yeah, but you can't tell the difference".

If I'd have gone Intel straight off the bat I'd have saved rather a lot of money.

Also, Phenom II was Core 2 IPC (or around there) with the FX4100 being slower than Phenom II clock for clock, a 3.6GHZ should best an FX4100 in a lot of situations, there's almost half a decade between the CPU's too.

So I really shouldn't of even gone AMD

shame really, I quite like the company and all. I'll go Intel when I have the £££.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 14 Jun 2012 at 15:46

Cool! Your PSU would be enough for two HD7870 cards let alone a single HD7850!!

Strange issue,you are having - I assume you didn't pour some Skyrrum onto your PC:

http://greatcocktailrecipes.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/elderflower-scrolls-skyyrum-elder.html

So,even after you re-installed the game,it started to have issues?? Maybe a game update or driver update has broken something?? Have you had a look on the Bethsoft forums or any of the dedicated Skyrim ones?? Its worth a look.

Martini1991 · 14 Jun 2012 at 15:48

Omaeka said:
So I really shouldn't of even gone AMD shame really, I quite like the company and all. I'll go Intel when I have the £££.

It's not that they're "bad", it's just they're not as good as Intel, and their latest line up is a disgrace.

Lowering their own price/performance in some instances.
AMD can be good if second hand, take a Phenom II X2 BE, you can pick them up for like 30-40 quid, some can unlock to full fledge Phenom II X4's, overclock one to 4GHZ and that's incredible performance for the money.

I prefer higher AMD tier boards, take this ; http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-461-AS&groupid=701&catid=1903&subcat=2046

Lovely looking board, to get that type of board (Which I have) costs insane money;
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-475-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1990

I have the P67 variant though.

EDIT : The FX line are really bad on Skyrim aren't they? CPU limited like hell by all accounts.

Omaeka · 14 Jun 2012 at 15:49

Martini1991 said:
It's not that they're "bad", it's just they're not as good as Intel, and their latest line up is a disgrace.

Lowering their own price/performance in some instances.
AMD can be good if second hand, take a Phenom II X2 BE, you can pick them up for like 30-40 quid, some can unlock to full fledge Phenom II X4's, overclock one to 4GHZ and that's incredible performance for the money.

I prefer higher AMD tier boards, take this ; http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-461-AS&groupid=701&catid=1903&subcat=2046

Lovely looking board, to get that type of board (Which I have) costs insane money;
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-475-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1990

I have the P67 variant though.

EDIT : The FX line are really bad on Skyrim aren't they? CPU limited like hell by all accounts.

Skyrim is the main thing I'll be running when I play PC that is actually seriously demanding, its just so good with mods! What your basically saying is what somebody said to me a few months ago when I got my PC, AMD is a poor mans Intel, which it is! The only logical time to get an AMD is when you want mid end PC performance on a budget, I don't know why I went into this hoping to hit top tier performance on an AMD machine, least I got a good PSU and a nice case and HDD though!

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
Cool! Your PSU would be enough for two HD7870 cards let alone a single HD7850!!

I can crossfire on this motherboard and this processor right?

Step 1) Upgrade to Intel i5

Step 2) Upgrade to HD 7850

Step 3) Crossfire to 2x HD 7850

Step 4) ???

Step 5) Enter the Matrix.

:cool:

Martini1991 · 14 Jun 2012 at 15:50

Omaeka said:
I can crossfire on this motherboard and this processor right?

Step 1) Upgrade to Intel i5

Step 2) Upgrade to HD 7850

Step 3) Crossfire to 2x HD 7850

Step 4) ???

Step 5) Enter the Matrix.

Indeed.
I'd personally love two 7850's, but I'm stuck on a single 7970

Marine-RX179 · 14 Jun 2012 at 15:50

Omaeka said:
So long story short, I should upgrade to an i5 sharpish and then look for an 7850 afterwards? I'd say short term (until about August) I can afford one or the other, so logic would have me upgrade mobo+proc first?

You might not need to upgrade you 6850 just yet if you are ok with playing games with slightly lower graphic settings.

To help you get a clearer idea on graphic card vs CPU, let me put it this way...

If you had a fast CPU that's capable of deliver 60fps+ but your graphic card can only deliver 25-40fps at max graphic settings, you could always reduce graphic details to help improve frame rate and push it closer toward 60fps;

but if you had graphic card that can do 60fps+ at max setting, but CPU is only capable of delivering 30-40fps, then there's not much you can do to push the frame rate to above 30-40fps, and adusting graphic settings won't help.

Hope this make sense to you.

Martini1991 · 14 Jun 2012 at 15:51

You can probably overclock that 6850 to 950MHZ using Asus GPU Tweak (Has quite a VRM library)
I run my brothers 6850 at 950MHZ with a Pentium dual core G620.

Omaeka · 14 Jun 2012 at 15:59

Marine-RX179 said:
You might not need to upgrade you 6850 just yet if you are ok with playing games with slightly lower graphic settings.

To help you get a clearer idea on graphic card vs CPU, let me put it this way...

If you had a fast CPU that's capable of deliver 60fps+ but your graphic card can only deliver 25-40fps at max graphic settings, you could always reduce graphic details to help improve frame rate and push it closer toward 60fps;

but if you had graphic card that can do 60fps+ at max setting, but CPU is only capable of delivering 30-40fps, then there's much you can do to push the frame rate to above 30-40fps, and adusting graphic settings won't help.

Hope this make sense to you.

I'm stupid when it comes to hardware but I get the theoretical's

CPU can limit performance regardless of the graphical quality, whereas a GPU can only increase performance if the CPU can actually cope with it aswell. I'd say a CPU is a more integral part of the machine then.

Martini1991 said:
You can probably overclock that 6850 to 950MHZ using Asus GPU Tweak (Has quite a VRM library)
I run my brothers 6850 at 950MHZ with a Pentium dual core G620.

Are you talking about my graphics card from my other thread? I'm using the CCC at the moment, it seems to do the job.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 14 Jun 2012 at 16:00

Omaeka said:
I'm stupid when it comes to hardware but I get the theoretical's CPU can limit performance regardless of the graphical quality, whereas a GPU can only increase performance if the CPU can actually cope with it aswell. I'd say a CPU is a more integral part of the machine then.

Are you talking about my graphics card from my other thread? I'm using the CCC at the moment, it seems to do the job.

MSI Afterburner is better for overclocking AMD cards.

Martini1991 · 14 Jun 2012 at 16:04

OP needs Windows 64 bit too.
You'll have 10GB of RAM with a 7850 (2GB G card, 8GB system) 32 bit (x86) can only address 4GB total, so your Skyrim issues may/may not be RAM limitation but I doubt it.

But you will likely encounter issues with the 7850 2GB if you don't get 64 bit.
Thankfully Windows 7 32 bit keys and interchangeable with 64 bit keys.

Omaeka · 14 Jun 2012 at 16:08

Martini1991 said:
OP needs Windows 64 bit too.
You'll have 10GB of RAM with a 7850 (2GB G card, 8GB system) 32 bit (x86) can only address 4GB total, so your Skyrim issues may/may not be RAM limitation but I doubt it.

But you will likely encounter issues with the 7850 2GB if you don't get 64 bit.
Thankfully Windows 7 32 bit keys and interchangeable with 64 bit keys.

My bad, I have 64 bit, I thought x86 was the smart mans way of saying 64 bit.

I have 8GB system RAM, DDR3 @ 1100Mhz I think?

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
Cool! Your PSU would be enough for two HD7870 cards let alone a single HD7850!!

Strange issue,you are having - I assume you didn't pour some Skyrrum onto your PC:

http://greatcocktailrecipes.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/elderflower-scrolls-skyyrum-elder.html

So,even after you re-installed the game,it started to have issues?? Maybe a game update or driver update has broken something?? Have you had a look on the Bethsoft forums or any of the dedicated Skyrim ones?? Its worth a look.

Wow!

that drink looks awesome!

I really have no idea what happened, but in short;

Got my PC, bought Skyrim retail, cracked it to avoid having to use Steam (I was anti-steam at this time until a friend opened my eyes

) and then I got the 2K Texture Pack FULL which is something like 4096x4096 resolution which is huge compared to the official HD texture pack which is 2048 x 2048 and ran it with a 'summer' ENB on ULTRA (I kid you not, I ran it on ultra as those were the settings it detected for me) and it ran fine, wasn't perfect, had some stuttering etc. but definitely playable. Then I got the official HD texture pack off Steam and installed that and BOOM, my entire experience went to **** and could barely run it, it was 30+ fps on average but the amount of stutters when I panned the camera was immense.

^ That was all on a 1280x720 monitor.

Now I have a 1440x900 monitor and slightly struggling to run it with the 2K Texture LITE (2048x2048 resolution) pack and the unreal cinema ENB.

Don't think it was the resolution change though that's doing it, I far outspec the system requirements for the 2K LITE @ 1980x1080, let alone 1440x900.

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
MSI Afterburner is better for overclocking AMD cards.

Isn't that just for temp monitoring during gameplay?

Martini1991 · 14 Jun 2012 at 16:09

Omaeka said:
My bad, I have 64 bit, I thought x86 was the smart mans way of saying 64 bit.

Damn, thought I was being awesome.
32 bit is X86 and 64 bit is X64.

Omaeka said:
Isn't that just for temp monitoring during gameplay?

Nah.
It's one of my preferred OC'ing tools, but it has quite a VRM library limitation in regards to none reference cards and the developer is an arrogant *****.

IvanDobskey · 14 Jun 2012 at 16:13

No point in changing that CPU for another amd chip, just wasting cash. Either stick with what you have or do a complete Intel rebuild.

Omaeka · 14 Jun 2012 at 16:14

Martini1991 said:
Damn, thought I was being awesome.
32 bit is X86 and 64 bit is X64.

Strange that 32 bit has a higher number as an X or whatever

how come?

Martini1991 said:
Nah.
It's one of my preferred OC'ing tools, but it has quite a VRM library limitation in regards to none reference cards and the developer is an arrogant *****.

VRM Library? I feel so stupid.

IvanDobskey said:
No point in changing that CPU for another amd chip, just wasting cash. Either stick with what you have or do a complete Intel rebuild.

That's the conclusion we've come too

shame though that AMD have to fall so far behind when it comes to end game.

Martini1991 · 14 Jun 2012 at 16:15

Omaeka said:
Strange that 32 bit has a higher number as an X or whatever how come?

VRM Library? I feel so stupid.

Couldn't tell you on the first part, and second part, VRM is voltage regulation, to increase voltage, which is paramount for getting higher overclocks.

Omaeka · 14 Jun 2012 at 16:15

Martini1991 said:
Couldn't tell you on the first part, and second part, VRM is voltage regulation, to increase voltage, which is paramount for getting higher overclocks.

So I'm better off using CCC to overclock and MSI to monitor ingame temps? I don't mind using two programs, I use about 5 to mod Skyrim.

Martini1991 · 14 Jun 2012 at 16:17

Omaeka said:
So I'm better off using CCC to overclock and MSI to monitor ingame temps? I don't mind using two programs, I use about 5 to mod Skyrim.

No.
Use MSI to do both.
CCC can't overvolt.
MSI can overvolt, but doesn't have the same VRM compatibility as GPU Tweak/Sapphire Trixx.

Omaeka · 14 Jun 2012 at 16:28

Martini1991 said:
No.
Use MSI to do both.
CCC can't overvolt.
MSI can overvolt, but doesn't have the same VRM compatibility as GPU Tweak/Sapphire Trixx.

Jesus Christ, how many programs are there? Which one should I use then?

Thanks.