MSBoxer Posted July 21, 2011 Posted July 21, 2011 OK, here is my situation. My current rig is 3.5 years old and while I can play A-10c...it is far from optimal. Current Specs AMD Phenom Quad Core 2.2Ghz ATI Radeon 3850 4 Gb My FPS is rather low (14-20) and when I monitor system performance while playing I notice that my CPU is working hard (70%-80%) and my GPU is also performing in the same range. At this point I can only afford 1 upgrade...Either get a new Video card or upgrade CPU to an AM2+ or an AM3. Any recommendations?
112th_Rossi Posted July 21, 2011 Posted July 21, 2011 I would say the CPU is fine, just. Go for a new graphics card, perhaps a 6870? You didn't specify a budget but a 6870 can be bought for £160 ish.
slowhand Posted July 21, 2011 Posted July 21, 2011 4 more gigs of mem won't hurt ...:thumbup::pilotfly: [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC] SMOKE'M:smoke: IF YA GOT'M!:gun_rifle: H2o Cooler I7 9700k GA 390x MB Win 10 pro Evga RTX 2070 8Gig DD5 32 Gig Corsair Vengence, 2T SSD. TM.Warthog:joystick: :punk:, CV-1:matrix:,3x23" monitors, Tm MFD's, Saitek pro rudders wrapped up in 2 sheets of plywood:megalol:
sobek Posted July 21, 2011 Posted July 21, 2011 4 more gigs of mem won't hurt ...:thumbup::pilotfly: But probably will give him very little extra performance without any other upgrades... Good, fast, cheap. Choose any two. Come let's eat grandpa! Use punctuation, save lives!
KillaALF Posted July 21, 2011 Posted July 21, 2011 4 more gigs of mem won't hurt ... Won't help much either .... I would recommend a complete overhaul of the system. Can't afford it? Save your pennies until you can, half-measures from where you are at the moment are not advisable imo. However, if you absolutely must upgrade now I'd say get a new CPU. Of course, this also means a new motherboard, unless you want to stay with your current platform (AM2+, AM3?).
112th_Rossi Posted July 21, 2011 Posted July 21, 2011 Nothing wrong with the Phenom processors. You could just pop in a faster version of the Phenom with no problems. But im not sure its the right course of action if you want a good frame rate. That said, your 2.2 ghz CPU might have a hard job keeping up with your new GPU. Catch 22. Hey that rhymes! :D
MSBoxer Posted July 21, 2011 Author Posted July 21, 2011 Won't help much either .... I would recommend a complete overhaul of the system. Can't afford it? Save your pennies until you can, half-measures from where you are at the moment are not advisable imo. However, if you absolutely must upgrade now I'd say get a new CPU. Of course, this also means a new motherboard, unless you want to stay with your current platform (AM2+, AM3?). sorry, current board is AM2 but can upgrade to AM3 with a simple BIOS update. Was looking at either a CPU AMD HDZ970FBGMBOX Phenom II X4 970 Black Edition Processor - 3.50GHz, Socket AM3, 6MB Cache, 2000MHz (4000 MT/s) FSB or Video Card MSI R6850 Cyclone PE/OC Radeon HD 6850 Video Card - 1GB, GDDR5, PCI-Express 2.0 x16, HDMI, Dual DVI, DisplayPort, Directx 11, Dual-Slot, Overclocked My only restriction with my current MB is DDR2 memory. I know I should just build a new rig, but until my wife gets a new job I need to focus funds on feeding the kids....seems they are addicted to food!
slowhand Posted July 21, 2011 Posted July 21, 2011 going from 4 to 8 megs will smooth out the over all running of the sim and it should load faster and is the cheapest of the upgrades(if your running 64 bit),Cus as far as I no theres no games or sims out there that really uses more then 2 cores. So mem and a new video card would be your best bet.JMO:thumbup: [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC] SMOKE'M:smoke: IF YA GOT'M!:gun_rifle: H2o Cooler I7 9700k GA 390x MB Win 10 pro Evga RTX 2070 8Gig DD5 32 Gig Corsair Vengence, 2T SSD. TM.Warthog:joystick: :punk:, CV-1:matrix:,3x23" monitors, Tm MFD's, Saitek pro rudders wrapped up in 2 sheets of plywood:megalol:
stubboyo Posted July 21, 2011 Posted July 21, 2011 I would recommend upgrading the graphics card. I think it's the primary bottleneck in your system now. From this chart you can see the 3850 scores only 10000 in 3DMark 06, well below most recent cards. This card also has only 256 MB of memory, which will easily be overwhelmed by the textures in the game. I run a Radeon 5850 which handled the game quite well until I upgraded to a 30" monitor (oops). The 5850 quadruples the amount of graphics memory and more than doubles the 3850's performance. They can be had for around $150 on ebay right now
BrandonBP Posted July 21, 2011 Posted July 21, 2011 The ATI 5830 is a budget card that got great reviews in one of my computer mags last month. They're only $140 or so. Have you tried overclocking that Phenom II any? AMD is good about letting users OC their chips. Here's a good site to see if your chip is OC'able: overclockers.com I bought a Phenom II 555 for $90 and unlocked the other two cores very easily to make it a quad core. It's OC'ed to a stable 3.8ghz on just air cooling which has been very good for gaming. I'm awaiting 4gigs of RAM in the mail to see if it helps with any of my games. I figure it won't make too much difference, but it was only $30.74 including the tax and shipping. The same RAM 14 months ago cost me $120! Quality RAM is so cheap right now that I figure I better go ahead and upgrade to 8gigs.
leafer Posted July 22, 2011 Posted July 22, 2011 I'd get a bong. And some catnip. Yeap... ED have been taking my money since 1995. :P
sobek Posted July 22, 2011 Posted July 22, 2011 going from 4 to 8 megs We're way past that, aren't we? ;) will smooth out the over all running of the sim and it should load faster and is the cheapest of the upgrades(if your running 64 bit), He's complaining about low fps, not stuttering, more RAM will do nothing for him without some substantial upgrades to other parts of the system. Cus as far as I no theres no games or sims out there that really uses more then 2 cores. That is not true, but even if it was, that does not imply that a faster processor won't bring you more fps, even if only 2 cores of your previous processor were fully saturated. IMO, new GPU might bring some improvement, but that CPU is seriously slow, therefore RAM upgrade won't get him much. Good, fast, cheap. Choose any two. Come let's eat grandpa! Use punctuation, save lives!
BrandonBP Posted July 22, 2011 Posted July 22, 2011 IMO, new GPU might bring some improvement, but that CPU is seriously slow, therefore RAM upgrade won't get him much. He has a Phenom II Quad core now. Do you think he could overclock that chip easily into the 3's and get a new midrange GPU? I know the Black Edition chips are supposed to be the easiest to OC, but won't all Phenom II's OC fairly easily?
sobek Posted July 22, 2011 Posted July 22, 2011 He has a Phenom II Quad core now. Do you think he could overclock that chip easily into the 3's and get a new midrange GPU? I know the Black Edition chips are supposed to be the easiest to OC, but won't all Phenom II's OC fairly easily? I'm really not that knowledgeable about AMD CPUs to give an educated statement. When it comes to CPUs, i'm an Intel guy. Good, fast, cheap. Choose any two. Come let's eat grandpa! Use punctuation, save lives!
MSBoxer Posted July 22, 2011 Author Posted July 22, 2011 Ran some tests last night and nothing stands out as being the single issue so... I ordered the MSI video card and will see if that gives me an improvement. Played with over clocking CPU, if that does not work I will get a new processor in the next month. If I still have issues I will borrow 8 gig of faster ram (DDR2) from the office. If issues remain I will upgrade MB, and get DDR3 ram. Thanks
MSBoxer Posted July 26, 2011 Author Posted July 26, 2011 Ok new video card installed. FPS now solid in the 20-24 range with higher settings. GPU usage averages 27% so it is obvious that I need to replace CPU as well.
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