Phenom 2 x4 965be replacement?

[BFBunny]

Long story short my am3 asus motherboard broke and i'm thinking of upgrading the cpu.

 

I'm not in a major hurry as Im waiting for the spitfire to come out, but I want a cpu that is significantly better than the 965 be. I've got to buy a new mb anyway.

 

I've looked up the newest amd cpus and they stack up at 1 to 5% better. AMD cpu wasteland.

 

CPU is phenom 2 x4 965be 3.4ghz [4 years old]

Graphics asus gtx 760 direct cu 2 oc - 2gb gddr5 1006mhz 1072 boost

8gb ddr3 ram

ssd

Win 7 64 bit.

 

DCS settings & current fps.

 

No civ traffic

Average trees range - 50% ish

No shadows

No birds

Max model, effects, clouds (could be medium), cockpit tex 1024 and overall textures.

 

hdr effect warm with 16x aa q at an average of 30fps - 60fps @ 1920x1080 and drops over airfields.

 

no hdr 2x aa at an average of 100fps @ 1920 x 1080 - 100fps is really nice in DCS.

 

I think these are close from memories using in game counter when the motherboard was working OK in Jan.

 

Question?

 

Was my phenom 2 holding back the 760 or is the 760 just rubbish for the fps i'm hunting?

 

If YES would a new intel cpu significantly increase fps in dcs or keep 60+fps with shadows?

 

If it's worth upgrading then what intel cpu should I get? I still want a quad core minimum.

 

Thanks guys. I'm an intel CPU noob. I used a Pentium 4 last.

 

Current prices are welcome. Ideally in £, USD if not. Cheers.

Edited May 18, 2015 by BFBunny

[MTFDarkEagle]

I went from a AMD 955 to a Intel 4670k. Big difference. It was a good while ago so I don't remember the performance before/after, but I do remember the difference being very significant.

[jvanhoog]

965be to 8350 to 4790k. I sure don't want to ever go back!

[trooph]

Actually any modern cpu will be better than that :) I've switched from 965be running at 3.9 at very high temps to I5 4670k and than to 4790k and i will never go back to Amd. Even though i was a fanboi... :)

[BFBunny]

Thanks for the heads up.

 

Nothing good going on at AMD at the moment unless you like APUs

 

They need to make more stuff so intel keeps pushing.

[Brisse]

The FX-8350 is significantly faster than what you have now. I have no idea where you get "1-5%" from, but I can tell you it's bullshit. Multiply that with ten, and you might be closer to the truth. Note that 50% more CPU power does not give you 50% framerate increase in your average games, because games utilize the CPU very poorly. That will change in the future with games going to DirectX12. FX-8350 is performing really well with games in DX12 and Mantle.

 

I had a CPU like yours a long time ago, (many years) and upgraded to a x6 1100T. That was a really good upgrade for the money. Then I had that for a few years and went to the FX-8350 which I have had for perhaps half a year now. Not quite as big upgrade as 965 to 1100T, but still worth it considering the good price I got the FX for. The Intel fanboys will tell you AMD is a wasteland, but it's really good value for the money, especially when it's compatible with your old motherboard. Comparing the FX-8350 and 4790k is just stupid, because the Intel CPU is three times more expensive, and you would have to change your motherboard and memory.

 

The FX-8350 is a sensible choice in your situation.

[Davschall]

Depends on the games you play really but if dcs or arma are high on the list of games you play then intel is where you probably want to be for now.

 

AMD is awesome price to performance especially in newer games. I know because I had an 8350 and my brother had a 4670k. I had a 7950 oced and he had a 7970 no oc(I sold my 7950 for more than his 7970 in the end lol) then we both got 290s. We sat next to each other for 2 years comparing fps in games, and there were only 4 games that he had significantly better fps: arma, dayz, skyrim, and dcs world. Now this wasnt always consistent but in critical times where you really need the frames the 4670k would definitely pull ahead.

 

AMD takes a bit of work sometimes to get the best out of it but Im a tinkerer so its not as if I wouldn't have oced it anyway. In games like crysis 3, far cry 3, far cry 4, BF4 basically any game that isnt shite for optimization it is a great option. Single threaded and single core intensive games and it starts to lag behind.

 

IF you had an AM3+ mobo still Id say just get an FX series chip. Seeing as how you want to upgrade AND need a new mobo, its easier to say intel. I loved AMD and will always buy their GPU's, but depending on your budget a 4690k will be a huge upgrade. I mean I launched DCS yesterday and getting 55-80 fps on the ground is huge especially with headtracking and landing is amazing without 15 fps lag city.

 

In answer to your question an 8350 will be a large improvement over your 965 even in single core, especially stock vs stock. For 50 bucks moreish a 4690k will be an improvement in GAMES such as dcs world and ARMA 2/3. But that 50 bucks also can go towards a great ocing mobo. These are US price estimations unfortunately.

 

The principle is: if you're like me and you play only dcs or arma 3 then intel is kinda the way to go. But yea 1-5% increase is not at all true. I had my 965 be at 4.0 and still noticed an almost 15 frame improvement in arma 2 dayz, stock 8350. Good luck!!

Edited May 19, 2015 by Davschall

[Brisse]

By the way, you might want to wait a little with deciding on a new CPU. DCS2 with the new rendering engine is just around the corner. You might want to see what people write on the forums once that gets released and see how the CPU's compare in DCS2 instead of the current version, which will become obsolete.

[OnlyforDCS]

Let me just chime in as I have the MSI GTX760 4GB version. This is a great card, it's only showing its age in GTAV although it is still very playable with some reduced settings.

 

In DCS the card performs very admirably, I have everything set to the highest settings and hardly notice any FPS drops. (They seem to be CPU related anyway). I did disable the Antialiasing, but that was due to target visibility being slightly better with AA off, not because of any performance concerns.

 

My CPU is an Intel 3570K @ 4 Ghz.

[BFBunny]

The 1-5% was based on some comparison websites.

 

Appreciate the replies though especially from everyone using the stuff.

 

I'll certainly weigh the options. It would have been a no brainier if the motherboard was ok, just do a cheap AMD upgrade.

 

Cheers all so far.

[Brisse]

The FX series will be the last CPU's compatible with your motherboard, so there's no reason to wait for anything new to come out. The next AMD CPU's in the high performance segment isn't going to be released until next year, and it's using a different socket.

 

Edit: Ah, I did not realize you wrote that you had to change your motherboard anyway. Disregard what I wrote :)

Might as well go with Intel then I guess.

Edited May 20, 2015 by Brisse

[Dudikoff]

I'll certainly weigh the options. It would have been a no brainier if the motherboard was ok, just do a cheap AMD upgrade.

 

It seems to me you never mentioned which motherboard you have exactly? Some had unofficial support for the FX8350 CPU's. The Phenom II is rather outdated (still, not as much as Core 2), but I'd still expect you'd get a bigger FPS boost in general with a GPU upgrade (although you'd be CPU limited then and would not get the most out of it).

 

If you're on a budget, the best option would be to buy some used CPU+Motherboard+GPU combo still under warranty.

Edited May 20, 2015 by Dudikoff

[Hadwell]

ok on passmark, the phenom 2 x4 965 is ranked 416th... as a comparison... the intel core i3 2140 is ranked 406.... so basically any intel cpu better than a low-end i3 is better... in fact there are still some intel core2 (pre-date the i3/i5/i7) cpus faster than it...

 

but if you do buy an intel cpu, make sure you get a K, if its not a K, it's multiplier is locked, so you can't overclock it... for instance my i7 2600k is stock at 3.4GHz, but because it's a K i can run it up to 5GHz, though you won't get that out of a newer cpu since the ivy and haswell don't have as good thermals, their more efficiant, and get more done per clock cycle, so even at a lower frequency... for example a haswell at 4.6ghz is faster than my sandy at 4.6ghz, and their both faster (overclocked) than a FX-9590 at 4.7ghz by quite a bit (in single core performance, which is what dcs needs).

Edited May 20, 2015 by Hadwell

[ANGST]

I just went from an AMD 965 to a intel 4790K . Definitely smoother, most noticeable when you time compress .