Would an AMD FX-4170 Bottleneck a 7950?

GamingRealist · 18 Oct 2012 at 11:16

Hey guys. I know i do have a similar topic up like this (Upgrading PC help) where we talked about some CPU's, but i thought i'd start a new one.

Anyway; i'm upgrading my PC and i am going to get an AMD Radeon HD 7950 Graphics card and an AMD FX-4170 4.2GHz.
Would this CPU bottleneck the high-performance 7950?

I don't want to get an Intel CPU - as they are too expensive and my mobo doesn't support Intel.
So what are your suggestions? Is there also any other good AMD CPU's? Will the combination of the two upgrades be good for gaming?

Cheers lads.

passey89 · 18 Oct 2012 at 11:49

i had sli 570's which are a little bit more powerful than a 7970 / 680.

My Phenom 2 X6 wasn't bottlenecking them at all CPU usage was about 80 - 90% and GPU usage was 98 - 99 % always.

TBH even if it did bottleneck it would only be a few fps the improvements of a newer gpu outweigh the bottleneck anyway.

If you really want a new cpu piledriver is out this month. The section is already on OCUK site. the 8350 should be a nice upgrade

Martini1991 · 18 Oct 2012 at 12:07

passey89 said:
i had sli 570's which are a little bit more powerful than a 7970 / 680.

My Phenom 2 X6 wasn't bottlenecking them at all CPU usage was about 80 - 90% and GPU usage was 98 - 99 % always.

TBH even if it did bottleneck it would only be a few fps the improvements of a newer gpu outweigh the bottleneck anyway.

If you really want a new cpu piledriver is out this month. The section is already on OCUK site. the 8350 should be a nice upgrade

And there's only a handful of games that can do that to a hexcore (Let me guess, you're quoting BF3 figures?), in games that aren't that highly threaded (Most games), your X6 would bottleneck a SLI 570.

An FX 4170 is going to bottleneck a 7950 at stock, you're best off waiting for Vishera (Which still might not be great) or getting a cheap Phenom II 955 for 60 odd quid and overclocking it.
Also, your Phenom II X6 > FX4170.

Vishera's not looking like it can 100% best Phenom II either yet (But since you have an Athlon II, it could be a moderate upgrade)

Although, checking your previous thread your mobo won't take 125W TDP CPU's.

I'd just stick with your Athlon II X4 (Fake Phenom II branding, GG AMD) as clock for clock, it's pretty similar to the FX.

You'll bottleneck, but until you're willing to go Intel, it's the only choice you've got.

Marine-RX179 · 18 Oct 2012 at 12:11

Martini1991 said:
And there's only a handful of games that can do that to a hexcore (Let me guess, you're quoting BF3 figures?), in games that aren't that highly threaded (Most games), your X6 would bottleneck a SLI 570.

Don't waste your breath. I said that to him multiple times that not all games are well-threaded like BF3, and he just keep ignoring it and keep saying the same thing about his Phenom II X6 no bottlenecking his GTX570 SLI everytime someone asked a AMD CPU related to bottleneck question. He fail to comprehend the simply reasoning of having graphic card(s) that can do 60-100fps meanings very little, when the CPU is only able to do 30-50fps in games that are not using more than 3 threads...comparing to faster CPU that can hold 50-60fps minimum...

passey89 · 18 Oct 2012 at 12:14

tested on heaven as well as crysis & batman arkham city.

got a EVGA gtx 670 ftw now though 570's ran outa vram.

Martini1991 · 18 Oct 2012 at 12:15

Heaven doesn't mean anything to me.
I know how a Phenom II X6 with a decent GPU set up can cope in Heaven, I've done it myself.

It's an extremely GPU limited benchmark, and isn't comparable to real world gaming usage, unless everyone plays flythroughs?

EDIT : I also can't be fussed with this conversation, I don't need you to justify your AMD CPU to me, I'm merely answering the OP. Although your logic is fallible. How is almost running your CPU 100% justification of how it doesn't bottleneck? Surely by the very fact even with 6 cores it can almost be taken to its maximum potential means that in games that can't take it to its potential (Due to them simply not being able to utilise even half the cores), it's going to bottleneck, my 2500k doesn't get anywhere near that CPU usage regardless of the game I play.

I'm not doing the Intel/AMD thing.

Marine-RX179 · 18 Oct 2012 at 12:19

Heaven Bench only really flex the muscle of the graphic card, pretty much in the ideal situation of CPU don't matter at all- which is no good for representing actual gaming performance. All Heaven is good for is for showing purely on what the graphic cards is capable of.

This is what I find ignoring sometimes..."blind man leading an old lady asking for help across the road". People that don't even know what botteneck really means and think Heaven means everything shouldn't be even advising people and potentially leading them into spending hundred of quids, when they could have gotten better performance for the same money elsewhere gaming wise...

As for CPU usage, try something OTHER THAN BF3...if you tried Guild Wars 2, the overall CPU usage wouldn't even go above 50% on your 6 cores CPU, because the game only scale up to 3 threads.

passey89 · 18 Oct 2012 at 12:22

you will be fine with a 7950 and that bd the bottleneck will be nothing if anything

http://benchmarkextreme.com/Articles/Phenom II X6 1100T/P17.html

Assuming that a benchmark is run at 2560 X 1600 and high image quality settings:

- A stock Phenom II X6 1100T is sufficient to run GTX 570 and GTX 570 SLI at full potential.

- Everything below Cryostasis in the above graph is heavily GPU dependent and a stock Phenom II X6 1100T is sufficient even in TRI SLI mode.

- In some GPU heavy titles TRI SLI exhibits significant CPU bottleneck even up to 4.2 GHZ CPU frequency. In the above graph all the games above the "average" bar fall in this category.

Martini1991 · 18 Oct 2012 at 12:23

2560x1600, not exactly in the realms of normality.
Tri-Sli scaling doesn't exactly look that good anyways, so it's not really great to measure a CPU bottleneck (I don't care what CPU you use, but 3 cards has never been perfect)

passey89 · 18 Oct 2012 at 12:24

yeh thats extremes

passey89 · 18 Oct 2012 at 12:27

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/fx-4170-core-i3-3220-benchmarks,review-32544-6.html

4170 vs i5 roughly the same scores

Martini1991 · 18 Oct 2012 at 12:27

The Tri-Sli scaling looks abysmal, so I don't fully understand how this in anyway helps the OP.

EDIT : Why are those frame rates so low on all 3? 50 FPS on BF3?
Although, I do like how you didn't pick the second page ; http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/fx-4170-core-i3-3220-benchmarks,review-32544-7.html

Not that it makes a difference to me, but if you're going to pick and choose your argument, at least do it with more subtlety.

passey89 · 18 Oct 2012 at 12:30

17.2% bottleneck on a 7970.

** No Hotlinking - Rules on posting images ***

Martini1991 · 18 Oct 2012 at 12:33

There's more than 5 games in the world, different reviews show different games, you can't solely base an opinion on one review and pick and choose which one you want to look at.

Telling him there's no bottleneck with an FX4170 and a 7950 as a blanket statement, and your own X6 and 570 SLI blanket statement are lies.

Different situations yield different results.

He's best off seeing how vishera turns out before doing anything, depending of how it turns out, getting a lower GPU ; Such as a 7870, and then going for a 1155 set up, or if Vishera's decent enough, paring a Vishera up with a 7950.

passey89 · 18 Oct 2012 at 12:34

WE all know the i5 will perform better but the OP has already stated that he can't afford to change to an i5.

It all depends on what games you play and what FPS you want to see. Noted that the human eye can only see 29fps roughly.

So 7950 you might only get about 90 / 95% performance.

Martini1991 said:
The Tri-Sli scaling looks abysmal, so I don't fully understand how this in anyway helps the OP.

EDIT : Why are those frame rates so low on all 3? 50 FPS on BF3?
Although, I do like how you didn't pick the second page ; http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/fx-4170-core-i3-3220-benchmarks,review-32544-7.html

Not that it makes a difference to me, but if you're going to pick and choose your argument, at least do it with more subtlety.

Martini1991 · 18 Oct 2012 at 12:36

I haven't said anything about buying an i5.

Play all your games at 29 FPS, see how you get on, I promise you it won't be nice.
Also, hot linking is against the rules.

You're also kidding yourself if you think you're getting 90-95% of a 7970 with an FX4170 as an overall gaming experience.

passey89 · 18 Oct 2012 at 12:38

I used to play eve on 15 lol.

Like i posted earlier you might get a bottleneck but will be an improvement and see what piledriver has to offer if you don't want to swap to intel.

If you do get it run some tests and post the results.

Martini1991 · 18 Oct 2012 at 12:40

560TI isn't exactly a slouch, I certainly wouldn't go from a 560TI with Athlon IIX4 to a 7950 with Athlon IIX4.

passey89 · 18 Oct 2012 at 12:57

Yeh 560ti is a pretty good card.

eddyr · 18 Oct 2012 at 13:17

passey89 said:
Noted that the human eye can only see 29fps roughly.

We aren't limited to ~29 fps. We dont even see in distinct frames. The continuity of motion determines how smoothly we see anything visual. The 30fps figure was simply a stage at which ppl noted gameplay appears to have acceptable fluidity. Theres also more to the frame times thans averages and minimums. Per frame time plays an important role too (techreport try to take this into account in their reviews, def worth a read).

http://techreport.com/review/21516/inside-the-second-a-new-look-at-game-benchmarking
http://www.100fps.com/how_many_frames_can_humans_see.htm