AMD Athlon II x4 640 vs FX-4300 vs FX-6300 for gaming

[yeezus]

I bought a new mobo, ram, HDD, VGA and I had an Athlon II x4 640 cpu from the previous build and i put this into my new pc. But it not perfoming as well as i excepted... Well, I know it's kinda old, but still a quad core.
This is my pc now:
Asrock 980DE3/U3S3
4gb Hyperx 1866 ram
Sapphire HD7790 oc 1GB
1TB WD HDD
AMD Athlon II x4 640 cpu.
I saw an FX-4300 for 80$ and FX-6300 for 30$ more.
Is it worth upgrading from the Athlon? I would see a big perfomance boost? Or my VGA is the weak point? But I don't think that, because I've seen videos on yt playing Far cry 41080p/high settings with decent FPS and im lagging like hell in fight, city... Even on low, the fps goes below 25. And there's not much difference between low and medium/high unless i go to crowded places/fights.
So, if I buy a new cpu it would be better, or my vga is weak anyway? I would prefer the FX-4300 coz it's 30$ cheaper and i could get more 4gb ram but idk if it's worth.

 

[gytisxp]

All the athlons cause bad fps ( personal experience ) I suggest getting an fx 6300, a cooler master 212 evo cooler and a msi 970 gaming motherboard and overclock this processor. You will get a noticable boost to your fps and the frame drops from 40 to 12 will no longer be a problem

If you have a stricter budget replace the fx 6300 with a fx 4300 but keep the cooler, not overclocked its only decent.

 

[yeezus]

I won't buy a new mobo, i just bought this and it's good enough for me.
I have an aftermaket cooler too.
It's just about those 3 CPU's now

 

[gytisxp]

I won't buy a new mobo, i just bought this and it's good enough for me.
I have an aftermaket cooler too.
It's just about those 3 CPU's now

If your not getting a new motherboard i would suggest not overclocking any of the processors that much ( you can still overclock but keep it under 400 mhz ) And if your on a strict budget then get the 4300, its single core performance is 20% better then the athlons and will help with bad fps and will eliminate frame drops.

 

[madmatt30]

The 4300 is a fairly significant upgrade over your athlon mate ,per clock performance at the same speed is 20-25% better for starters ,then take into account the 800mhz clock increase aswell.

 

[mdocod]

I suggest getting an fx 6300, a cooler master 212 evo cooler and a msi 970 gaming motherboard and overclock this processor. You will get a noticable boost to your fps and the frame drops from 40 to 12 will no longer be a problem

Actually, if he follows this advise he'll get more FPS dips to very low frame-rates than he is getting now, because overclocking on the Asrock 980DE3/U3S3 will just trigger self-preservation modes to kick in every few seconds (drop to the CPU's lowest power state). I wouldn't advise ANY overclocking on the Asrock 980DE3/U3S3

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gytis,

The Athlon II is definitely weak in gaming workloads. However, I'm concerned that placing a piledriver chip on your board with aftermarket cooling (which almost ALWAYS reduces VRM cooling), may actually introduce a new set of problems. It's possible you may run into CPU throttling induced by the motherboard...

 

[yeezus]

I suggest getting an fx 6300, a cooler master 212 evo cooler and a msi 970 gaming motherboard and overclock this processor. You will get a noticable boost to your fps and the frame drops from 40 to 12 will no longer be a problem

Actually, if he follows this advise he'll get more FPS dips to very low frame-rates than he is getting now, because overclocking on the Asrock 980DE3/U3S3 will just trigger self-preservation modes to kick in every few seconds (drop to the CPU's lowest power state). I wouldn't advise ANY overclocking on the Asrock 980DE3/U3S3

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gytis,

The Athlon II is definitely weak in gaming workloads. However, I'm concerned that placing a piledriver chip on your board with aftermarket cooling (which almost ALWAYS reduces VRM cooling), may actually introduce a new set of problems. It's possible you may run into CPU throttling induced by the motherboard...

Hey mdcod,
Sorry but I don't really know what are you talking about, what is VRM? And why an aftermarket cooler reduces that cooling? But if i buy an FX-4300 for example, and won't OC it'll work fine? I don't really want to oc anyway, maybe a bit, like 400-500mhz

 

[madmatt30]

I suggest getting an fx 6300, a cooler master 212 evo cooler and a msi 970 gaming motherboard and overclock this processor. You will get a noticable boost to your fps and the frame drops from 40 to 12 will no longer be a problem

Actually, if he follows this advise he'll get more FPS dips to very low frame-rates than he is getting now, because overclocking on the Asrock 980DE3/U3S3 will just trigger self-preservation modes to kick in every few seconds (drop to the CPU's lowest power state). I wouldn't advise ANY overclocking on the Asrock 980DE3/U3S3

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gytis,

The Athlon II is definitely weak in gaming workloads. However, I'm concerned that placing a piledriver chip on your board with aftermarket cooling (which almost ALWAYS reduces VRM cooling), may actually introduce a new set of problems. It's possible you may run into CPU throttling induced by the motherboard...

Hey mdcod,
Sorry but I don't really know what are you talking about, what is VRM? And why an aftermarket cooler reduces that cooling? But if i buy an FX-4300 for example, and won't OC it'll work fine? I don't really want to oc anyway, maybe a bit, like 400-500mhz

tower coolers remove vrm cooling (the small black square caps behind the cpu slot) as they sit higher & airflow doesnt pass over them.
the stock blower coolers blow down throught the heatsink & secondary airflow is passed over these in the process.
your board has exposed vrm's with no heatsinking (its not an overclocking board)
A simple solution is pretty simply to get a 120mm fan & your stock amd heatsink & strap the fan to the heatsink either with insulated wire or plastic cable ties ( It sounds a bodge job but it does work to great effect)
I honestly think the 4300 will do a fairly decent job for you (without overclocking) you lose 2 cores over the 6300 but at stock speeds thoe 4 cores it has are a fair bit faster.
It will certainly not bottleneck a 7790 in any way,shape or form.

 

[yeezus]

Oh.
So i can't expect any overclock with this mobo? :\ Even if i don't raise the voltage, and get low temps?

 

[mdocod]

The VRM, or "voltage regulation module" for the CPU is comprised of a control and monitoring logic IC (or several), mosfets, chokes, and capacitors, all configured into a PWM buck regulation circuit. The "module" is integrated into the motherboard and converts 12V supplied by the PSU down to ~1.3V for the CPU.

A CPU with a TDP of ~100W, that runs at 1.3V, runs ~75 AMPS. If you're familiar with electronics, then you know that in order to carry that sort of current, we need a WIDE low resistance pipeline. VRM design can vary quite a bit from board to board, but in order to meet the minimum socket specification for power delivery (voltage range, current, voltage ripple, response, and tolerances etc), all CPU voltage regulation modules on modern performance class motherboards for desktop and server applications are made-up of multiple phases of components that work together to supply the required power. Everything from ~3 - 16 phases or more can be found on modern desktop motherboards. Some use phase doubling techniques, some use traditional mosfets, some use lowRDS-on mosfets, some use multi-FET integrated packages.

Your motherboard shares it's VRM design with the 970DE3/U3S3 and 970 Pro2 boards from ASRock. It uses 5 phases, split into 2 separate power planes, 4 phases for the CPU proper, and 1 for the CPU northbridge, which run on independent power planes at different voltages. Each CPU power phase appears to leverage 2 high side and 1 low side mosfet. I do not know if they are traditional mosfets or low-RDS-on mosfets.

When dealing with such low voltage, high current loads, a PWM buck regulation circuit, even made from very low resistance parts, will wind up with ~10-20% efficiency loss. When the CPU is dissipating ~100W, the CPU VRMs are dissipating an additional ~10-20W. That power is dissipated in the form of thermal energy from the VRM components (primarily the mosfets) to their surroundings (the motherboard, and ultimately, to air). The thermals dissipated from the VRMs is not an insignificant issue. Motherboard temps in weak designs working hard can reach ~100C or higher, which has the negative consequence of causing the resistance of the VRMs to rise, which further reduces efficiency. (this can become a vicious cycle that would escalate out of control if not for self-preservation features built into the board, that force the CPU into low power states when the temperature reaches a certain threshold).

In nicer motherboard designs, the load of the CPU is split up among more components and/or better quality components with lower resistance, and then those components are attached to a heatsink to further improve the headroom of the VRM design. The VRM design on your board, combined with the lack of additional heatsinking, is not particularly well suited to the high power demands of the AM3+ socket to begin with. As madmatt explained already, using an aftermarket CPU cooler often winds up reducing the air flow over VRM's, which actually reduces the power capacity of the system.

I do not advise following madmatt's advise concerning the use of a 120mm fan attached to the stock AMD heat-sink. That will not work very well at all as the 120mm fan will actually produce less air velocity within the heatsink itself than the stock fan. With the stock heatsink and fan combo already being borderline for the FX-6300, attempting to use a 120mm fan with that heatsink would just cause CPU overheating problems. (the "exception" to this, would be if you were using a very high rpm 120mm fan, like a delta fan normally specified for use in enterprise cooling applications).

 

[yeezus]

Thanks for the explanation, my english not that good yet to understand everything, but I kinda got it. I did some research and there wasn't much difference in games between the stock and overclocked speed. But maybe those werer gpu limited tests, idk.
Is it seriously worth to OC, even if you have to buy an expensive motherboard?
Althoug in my pc, the CPU's temperature never goes above 45 °C, and the "system" whcih is the mobo I think, is about 30-34 idle and maximum 40 °C under load. I don't want to OC if I'm risking the helath of my PC, I'll be fine with less 5fps than screwing up my parts

 

[st3v30]

I came from Athlon II x4 630 to this FX 6300 and improvement was huge,especially in BF3 most performance gain on 64 player maps and in every other game.

 

[madmatt30]

Thanks for the explanation, my english not that good yet to understand everything, but I kinda got it. I did some research and there wasn't much difference in games between the stock and overclocked speed. But maybe those werer gpu limited tests, idk.
Is it seriously worth to OC, even if you have to buy an expensive motherboard?
Althoug in my pc, the CPU's temperature never goes above 45 °C, and the "system" whcih is the mobo I think, is about 30-34 idle and maximum 40 °C under load. I don't want to OC if I'm risking the helath of my PC, I'll be fine with less 5fps than screwing up my parts

no its not a necessity to overclock,even with a 4 core fx4300 the performance increase will be fairly large over what you currently have.
In essence it has a fair lead over the fx6300 on stock clock speeds,hence the same power demand on amd's specs.
with either the fx 4300 or fx 6300 you will have no reason to overclock - the gpu will become the weaker component in the system then rather than your old phenom

 

[mdocod]

If you were going to replace your motherboard, it wouldn't make any sense to stay on AM3+, as you would be better off with an i3/i5 haswell on a high value motherboard, no overclocking required there to get great results in gaming there.

Overclocking budget AMD hardware is the novelty alternative to using the best tool for the job. Gaming on AM3+ is like using vice grip pliers on a 12 point bolt head.