Upgrade an AMD Phenom II 965 - Radeon 6870 HD

SaNdMaN82 said:

Hello.
My current PC has the CPU and GPU described in the title, with 8gb of ram and a 600w power supply.

It's been a while since I put this machine together, so the idea of upgrading it a bit has crossed my mind...

I can play new games at 1080p, but of course not at ultra detail...
Most recent one, Cites Skylines, actually is a really heavy one, and once you progress in the game, computer starts to struggle...

So I was thinking in getting the fx-8350, and 270x...
What would you think ?

Thanks.

You would be alright with that CPU but the bottleneck is the PCI-E also i would place at least a 280x to be atleast somewhere with in normal range of fps a 270x is not a good enough card in my opinion

Would help to know the make and model of the motherboard. Depending on what it is, you may be looking at an almost total rebuild and not an upgrade.

SaNdMaN82 said:

Hello, thanks for your feedback.
I'll look into that model further...
From what I've seen, they are not that far away...
According to benchmarks, they are pretty close.
The difference in price isn't that much either...

My gamming experience with my current setup has been more than satisfactory.
But I'm not sure if the games and applications overall have evolved in order to actually use 8 threads...
When I bought the 965 (4 cores), there where already some 6 core CPUs...
Nonetheless, that didn't actually mean better performance...

So I ended up with the 965...

Now, usually my bottleneck is on the GPU... When the GPU is at 95-100%, the CPU can hover around 85%...

Thank you

Most applications will not use 8 threads. The advantage to owning an 8 core CPU is that you can run many applications at the same time with no slowdown. Most apps struggle to use four cores and the only one I can think of which uses 8 is Handbrake for video encoding.

An FX-8350 is nice, I own one myself, but you may have to change your motherboard to be able to use one, depending on the board that you have. If you have to change the motherboard, you may want to consider going Intel and picking up an I7 4790K and appropriate motherboard. It performs better than the FX-8350. Changing a motherboard also means fussing with your Windows license. If you have an OEM version, you can't move it to a new motherboard.

If you're going to get a R9 280X, you may have to consider getting a new power supply. Most of the 280X's that I was shopping for recently required a 750 Watt PSU. The 280X is a good card. I have a 280 and so far it's taken everything I've thrown at it and played it at ultra settings.

There is nothing wrong with the 965BE that you have. You might just do well upgrading the GPU and power supply, rather than getting a new CPU and motherboard (if needed). A good graphics card will improve the quality of your games much more than a new FX-8350 will. I know from experience.

Mellon Head said:

SaNdMaN82 said:

Hello, thanks for your feedback.
I'll look into that model further...
From what I've seen, they are not that far away...
According to benchmarks, they are pretty close.
The difference in price isn't that much either...

My gamming experience with my current setup has been more than satisfactory.
But I'm not sure if the games and applications overall have evolved in order to actually use 8 threads...
When I bought the 965 (4 cores), there where already some 6 core CPUs...
Nonetheless, that didn't actually mean better performance...

So I ended up with the 965...

Now, usually my bottleneck is on the GPU... When the GPU is at 95-100%, the CPU can hover around 85%...

Thank you

Most applications will not use 8 threads. The advantage to owning an 8 core CPU is that you can run many applications at the same time with no slowdown. Most apps struggle to use four cores and the only one I can think of which uses 8 is Handbrake for video encoding.

An FX-8350 is nice, I own one myself, but you may have to change your motherboard to be able to use one, depending on the board that you have. If you have to change the motherboard, you may want to consider going Intel and picking up an I7 4790K and appropriate motherboard. It performs better than the FX-8350. Changing a motherboard also means fussing with your Windows license. If you have an OEM version, you can't move it to a new motherboard.

If you're going to get a R9 280X, you may have to consider getting a new power supply. Most of the 280X's that I was shopping for recently required a 750 Watt PSU. The 280X is a good card. I have a 280 and so far it's taken everything I've thrown at it and played it at ultra settings.

There is nothing wrong with the 965BE that you have. You might just do well upgrading the GPU and power supply, rather than getting a new CPU and motherboard (if needed). A good graphics card will improve the quality of your games much more than a new FX-8350 will. I know from experience.

You can always move a OEM license to another Build as long as you contact Microsoft and tell them the other system is deactivated

You will not need a new OS also FYI if you are using the hardrive from the other system and it is all AMD it will actually boot into your old settings with the new chip AMD is cool like that

Hello.
Thanks again.

I agree, only a handful of applications will actually take advantage of having a lot of cores...

I've played for a few moments, and these are the results:

BF3 - Online (1080p low graph settings)

Cities Skylines (1080p, high detail)

For BF3, the bottleneck is at the GPU side...
BF3 is pretty GPU intensive, and even at multiplayer the CPU has no issues.

On the other hand, Cities Skylines is a simulation game so you can see CPU really struggling there...
GPU does not max out, normally...

That's why I first though of upgarding both components, since they were bought at the same time many years ago...

Motherboard is an Asus M5A87.
From what I understand, the 8350 is compatible with this motherboard.
So from a card point of view, I can upgrade both CPU and GPU without touching the motherboard.
I'm not a heavy gammer, so OC is not required...

About the PSU, yes, maybe I will need to change that... But I'm not determined yet to purchase these items...

What I need to find out first, is if I'll really notice an improvent that's worth the kind of money I'd spend...
I live in Argentina, and let's just say that tech stuff is not cheap, for sure...

Thanks!

The load when playing Cities Skylines is likely not going to change much if you go to an 8350.

You might notice a difference in playing both games, as the 8350 is 600 MHz faster. 800 MHz faster in Turbo mode.

Where you will really notice a difference is in upgrading the GPU. The 280X has around double the processing power of your current card, and more memory, plus a wider data bus. For the money, it's the best upgrade that you can do.

Your motherboard will take an 8350, if you want to do it, but I think you'll get a better, more cost effective upgrade by just doing the graphics card and PSU.

Just my opinion. YMMV.

Mellon Head said:

The load when playing Cities Skylines is likely not going to change much if you go to an 8350.

You might notice a difference in playing both games, as the 8350 is 600 MHz faster. 800 MHz faster in Turbo mode.

Where you will really notice a difference is in upgrading the GPU. The 280X has around double the processing power of your current card, and more memory, plus a wider data bus. For the money, it's the best upgrade that you can do.

Your motherboard will take an 8350, if you want to do it, but I think you'll get a better, more cost effective upgrade by just doing the graphics card and PSU.

Just my opinion. YMMV.

Since we are on the Upgrade Subject i would go as far as to find one of the old PhenomII Hexcores and get a 280x or even a GTX 970 reason why i run a 8320E cost me $99 flat but the thing of it is i had to clock it to 4.8Ghz to even compete with a I5 and the frames could be much better but the GPU is bottlenecked because the PCI-E lane is 2.0 NOT 3.0 none the less still offers robust performance

Solarstarshines said:

Since we are on the Upgrade Subject i would go as far as to find one of the old PhenomII Hexcores and get a 280x or even a GTX 970 reason why i run a 8320E cost me $99 flat but the thing of it is i had to clock it to 4.8Ghz to even compete with a I5 and the frames could be much better but the GPU is bottlenecked because the PCI-E lane is 2.0 NOT 3.0 none the less still offers robust performance

Good point about the PCIe lanes being a bottleneck, but I think a better card would still be a significant improvement. As you say "robust performance".