Whats my bottleneck?

times_champion

times_champion

times_champion

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Hi,

My system currently looks like this:

M3N78 Pro mobo
Athlon 64X2 6000+
Radeon 4850
3GB DDR PC2-6400 RAM

I'm guessing that the processor I am using is my bottleneck right now, would this be the case? In the absence of serious cash I am looking for a modest gaming system that will play games like Sleeping dogs, Alan Wake and Diablo 3 on high settings at 1600x900, then hopefully I can go for a major upgrade or new system next year. If I replace my processor with a Phenom II 965 and double my RAM, would that give me what i'm after when tied to my 4850?
 
To be fair a Athlon 64X2 6000+ & Radeon 4850 are a fair match.

You'd probably more from a GPU change, but any one you change is gonna result in a bottleneck. :)
 
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Cheers - so do you think I would be better paying the bit extra and maybe pairing a Phenom II with a 6850 or something, along with 6/8gb of RAM? Would that be a fair match for a respectable upgrade?
 
times_champion said:
Cheers - so do you think I would be better paying the bit extra and maybe pairing a Phenom II with a 6850 or something, along with 6/8gb of RAM? Would that be a fair match for a respectable upgrade?
Click to expand...

yes, a phenom X4 would be a decent upgrade on what you have now, even better if you overclock it

6GB will be fine if that fits easier with the slots you have (4 slots so I'm guessing you have 2GB and 1GB now?)... or if you are ripping out dimms to replace them anyway then may as well go to 8gb if you can find some cheap cheap

a 6850 will be a fairly minor upgrade to what you have now not sure how well they overclock, you could go higher if you wanted but obviously that will cost you more (2nd hand 6950 maybe if you can find one, again cheap cheap)
 
Personally I would not waste money buying second hand gear unless you can find it very cheap.

AMD Bulldozer FX-4 Quad Core 4100 Black Edition 3.60Ghz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail with FREE Dirt Showdown PC Game **£10 Cashback**

Gigabyte GA-78LMT-S2P 760G (Socket AM3+) DDR3 MicroATX Motherboard

GeIL EVO Leggera 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GEL38GB1600C9DC)

Get that and hold on to the 4850 for now...then replace it later when you can with something like a 7950 or 660ti. Make sure your PSU is strong enough.

To see what your bottleneck is simply run GPU-Z and open task manager Performance tab to see what utilization your cpu/gpu runs at. This can change depending on which game you play.
 
P0tenc said:
Personally I would not waste money buying second hand gear unless you can find it very cheap.

AMD Bulldozer FX-4 Quad Core 4100 Black Edition 3.60Ghz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail with FREE Dirt Showdown PC Game **£10 Cashback**

Gigabyte GA-78LMT-S2P 760G (Socket AM3+) DDR3 MicroATX Motherboard

GeIL EVO Leggera 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GEL38GB1600C9DC)

Get that and hold on to the 4850 for now...then replace it later when you can with something like a 7950 or 660ti. Make sure your PSU is strong enough.

To see what your bottleneck is simply run GPU-Z and open task manager Performance tab to see what utilization your cpu/gpu runs at. This can change depending on which game you play.
Click to expand...

Surely if you`re changing mobo you might as well go for Intel... It has better value for money these days... Although I do respect the FX-8120 but 4 series is trash.
 
bottlenecksmall.jpg
 
You just can't build a quad core intel system with £150. Sure maybe you can get an i3...but with many games optimizing for quad core you will find yourself wishing you had more cores soon enough.

The FX 4100 is not great, but with cash back its only just over £80 and much better than Athlon 64X2 6000+

If you are desperate for an upgrade times champion and on a £150 budget AMD is the way to go. Personally I would never buy last gen processors even if they are of the same performance or marginally faster. The FX 4100 might be a tad slower than the Phenom II x4 in certain tasks but its more energy efficient and newer. Windows 8 scheduler is also modified to work better with the bulldozer architecture which will bring more efficiencies and small performance improvement.

Bottom line is you can't upgrade that system sufficiently for £150 unless you catch a bargain and buy some old gear from friend or so. Upgrading the 4850 might yield small improvements in gaming. Upgrading the CPU might yield small improvements in gaming. Really you need to upgrade both. For games a strong GPU is required! and to a lesser degree a good CPU. With my i52500K my CPU would barely break the 50% utilization mark with a AMD6870 gfx card. Only recently upgrading to a GTX 670 have I seen processor utilization move up to 50-70% So for best gaming don't spend too much on a CPU.

So you see it's a bit tricky finding the perfect setup. My advice for £150 is upgrade the cpu/ram/mobo the i3 will also be good but I would not buy dual core or last gen. Good luck!
 
P0tenc where do you find this ****

The Phenom beats the BD in EVERY way.
And BD, energy efficient. Thats like suggesting it runs cool.

Windows 8 will not make BD any better than the Windows 7 update did, which was like a 3% performance increase?

Right now very few games run quad cores, and those that do bulldoze the bulldozer processor into a bottleneck.

If he cant spend much money then get the new Ivy i3's, they beat BD at everything apart from heavy coding!
 
Thanks guys - sound advice. I will have to think whether my budget can be increased or whether I should maybe stick to gaming on my PS3 for a little longer! To be fair I tried out the Diablo 3 and sleeping dogs demo and they actually played fairly well on my existing system, and Alan Wake shouldnt be too demanding. Most of the other games I was after I can play on the PS3, albeit not as prettily!
 
Hi Bacon. To answer your question and back up my statements.

AMD FX-4100 is a 95 Watt part, this means it produces less heat. Ultimately temperature is dependant on cooler used. It also has a feature size of 32nm further reducing voltage requirements and as a result heat...hence the 95watt rating.

AMD Phenom II x 4 is a 125Watt part. It's feature size is 45nm. This unit produces more heat and uses more power.

Correction...Win 8 Scheduler contains some small improvements the windows 7 updates do not, if memory serves core parking was one such feature. Obviously these changes will be small +/- 1% if I would have to guess.

Bulldozer is cheaper, cooler, costs less to run and is a viable alternative.

I own both a FX-6100 and an intel i5 2500K, and can indeed with great certainty say...the Bulldozer is no slouch( In every day use and gaming I certainly don't see a big difference). Sure it's not as fast as people were expecting or as the hype claimed, but that does not change the fact that if you are on a budget as our friend here with £150 to spend, you could do worse than a FX-4100.
 
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Can you? So what is worse than a 4100?
Currently for gaming there isn't a worse CPU xD
Even the G840 can beat it.
 
andybird123 said:
a 6850 will be a fairly minor upgrade to what you have now not sure how well they overclock, you could go higher if you wanted but obviously that will cost you more (2nd hand 6950 maybe if you can find one, again cheap cheap)
Click to expand...

The HD 6850 has almost twice the performance level of his HD 4850, I call that more than a minor upgrade. It's a shame the cheap ones on OC have all gone, they were a bargin. :/

HD 4870 v HD 6850 (The HD 4850 has around 75% the performance of the HD 4870.)
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/513?vs=539
 
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