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Will a 955 limit a 7950?

Associate
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Hello. I'm thinking of treating myself to a GPU upgrade. My current system is AMD 955 BE @ 3.6Ghz with two different brands of 5770 in crossfire.

I only run a 1080p single monitor and would like to ultra every game I play 'Shogun 2, Skyrim, stopped playing Bf3 but might go back to it, arkham city'
All these games are quite choppy, avg 30fps when I play them, except for Bf3 at high/ultra settings with my current system.

Would the recent price drop of the 7950 be a good upgrade? And would my CPU be able to get the full potential out of it? This coming Christmas I'll be close to graduating from uni so have promised myself a new computer, a well CPU and mobo , so will upgrade to the latest intel chip then to go with it, but will my 955 be ok with a 7950 until then? 60 fps on most games at 1080p is all I'll need.

Cheers. Also will the 7950 stay at 299 for a while or go back up. I'd rather wait a month until my exams are over and summer officially starts.

Also any other GPU cards can be recommended, but I'd ideally want something that doubles the performance of my crossfired 5770s which warrants me investing in a new card., and this upgrade seems to do that. I'd also get 100 ish back selling my old cards.

Cheers
 
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Your 955 should hit around 3.9-4.2ghz. It wont bottleneck it in all games but at only 3.6ghz I think it may produce a slight bottleneck on the likes of BF3, Metro 2033 etc etc.
 
Associate
OP
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Your 955 should hit around 3.9-4.2ghz. It wont bottleneck it in all games but at only 3.6ghz I think it may produce a slight bottleneck on the likes of BF3, Metro 2033 etc etc.

Currently my vcore @ 3.6 is 1.35v, stock being 1.40v and to get it above and stable at 3.7-9Ghz requires 1.5v and the temps go 60c+

not worth it I find.

That's cool being a slight bottleneck

I think I'll buy a 7950 then, since I'll only be using this chip for another 8 months or so. Should still give me excellent performance, since I'm just using a single monitor.
 
Soldato
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To be honestly...rather than getting a 7950 and prepare not to get full performance out of it...wouldn't you be better to just get a 7850 and overclock it? It should give reasonable balance of performance between the CPU and the card, rather than spend extra £120 to get a 7950 for extra performance that you ain't gonna be getting.
 
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To be honestly...rather than getting a 7950 and prepare not to get full performance out of it...wouldn't you be better to just get a 7850 and overclock it? It should give reasonable balance of performance between the CPU and the card, rather than spend extra £120 to get a 7950 for extra performance that you ain't gonna be getting.

I'll be buying the latest or new 2500k by Christmas as I said in my OP and it'll be my system for the next 5 years or so. Also the 7850 isn't a massive upgrade from my xfire 5770, more like a 30-50% jump when I want a 80-100% improvement to warrant my investment
 
Soldato
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I'll be buying the latest or new 2500k by Christmas as I said in my OP and it'll be my system for the next 5 years or so. Also the 7850 isn't a massive upgrade from my xfire 5770, more like a 30-50% jump when I want a 80-100% improvement to warrant my investment
Sorry missed the part about the possible computer upgrade in Dec.

Yes the 7950 is may be faster than the 7850, it also cost over 50% higher in price, and it most certainly isn't going to be 50% faster than the 7850.

If you got nothing against crossfiring, think of it his way...
a) get a £300 7950 now or
b) get a 7850 for £180 now, and at Dec pick up another 7850 for £180 or less (it is not unlikely for 7850 to price drop to £150-£160 by then with mid-range Nvidia cards out)...that would be £330-£360 total on graphic for hugely faster performance than spending £300 on 7950

Getting a 7950 with your current CPU would possibly mean it is not gonna offer better than 7850 performance for the next 8 months, despite you paying extra £120 straight away...just my two pence.
 
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Associate
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Interesting point but

Currently my two 5770s, got em overclocked gives out better performance than a 5870 and here's the comparison between my setup and a 7850

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/511?vs=549

Hardly worth an upgrade, even loses a score in portal 2. Also I'd have to upgrade my PSU to accommodate two 7850s, so that's another £80-90 ish
my current cards run fine on a 500w :D
 
Soldato
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Interesting point but

Currently my two 5770s, got em overclocked gives out better performance than a 5870 and here's the comparison between my setup and a 7850

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/511?vs=549

Hardly worth an upgrade, even loses a score in portal 2. Also I'd have to upgrade my PSU to accommodate two 7850s, so that's another £80-90 ish
my current cards run fine on a 500w :D
For 7850, I would suggest you best not to look at stock performance...this is because according to 7850 thread, these cards can easily overclock by 40%...if not more.

And while it's all good and all looking at how much extra performance of x card vs x card on benchmarks, you have to bare in mind that these test are mostly carried out on i5/i7 systems...so what it means is you are most likely won't be getting the same amount of performance boost as them with a Phenom II system. No graphic card upgrade is gonna give you double the performance, when the CPU is dragging its legs.
 
Last edited:
Associate
OP
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For 7850, I would suggest you best not to look at stock performance...this is because according to 7850 thread, these cards can easily overclock by 40%...if not more.

And while it's all good and all looking at how much extra performance of x card vs x card on benchmarks, you have to bare in mind that these test are mostly carried out on i5/i7 systems...so what it means is you are most likely won't be getting the same amount of performance boost as them with a Phenom II system. No graphic card upgrade is gonna give you double the performance, when the CPU is dragging its legs.

another good post. I've just got my student loans paid in and really want something that will last 5+ years alongside other future upgrades. Plus my heart is set on a 7950 now :D

Think I'm gonna wait a few weeks to see if the game codes get released in the UK for the 7950. If they do I'll buy one, as it should definitely make it worth the purchase

cheers
 
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