AMD FX upgrade: AMD or Intel?

[JOOK-D]

Firstly, my rig:
CPU: AMD FX 6200 (Bulldozer) @ 3.8 GHz (stock)
GPU: Powercolor HD 7870 (stock) w/ Aftermarket CPU cooler, Titan 'Super Quiet 22dBA Cooler'
MB: ASUS M5A97 R2.0
PSU: Corsair TX 650 (I've noticed an odd coil whine, corresponding to movement of the mouse.)
RAM: 8 GB Kingston Hyperx 1600 MHz
HDD 500 GB WD Black 7200rpm
Monitor Res: Main - 1360x768 (I prefer to play widescreen), Secondary 1600x1200

CPU Usage and GPU usage are always relatively low, never really exceeding 50%, lower on source games (TF2/GMOD) which is usually 15% of each, but lower than expected FPS regardless.

I've had the FX 6200 for a year now and it's been a massive disappointment, which has left a sour taste in my mouth with AMD. The 7870 seems quite capable, but I still get low FPS regardless of whether I'm on low or max settings (which suggests a CPU bottleneck, right?).

After deliberating and much research, I cannot come to a decision. My budget is around £200 max, I'd much prefer to spend around £150. I'm looking to upgrade this CPU either to an AMD FX 8320 or something by intel. If I were to purchase the 8320 I'd also get a Hyper 212 Evo CPU fan, which would cost me around £140 total. If I were to go intel I would have to stick with the stock fan for a while since the option is more expensive (CPU + MoBo).

Games I'm looking to play:
Team Fortress 2 (FPS is currently anywhere from 50-100, often dips below 60)
Garry's Mod (Same FPS as TF2)
Minecraft (FPS fluctuates frequently between 53-60)
Saints Row Series (only 30~ FPS on SR3, regardless of gfx settings)
GTA Series
DiRT series
Elder Scrolls series
Assorted Online FPS games 😛

I'd like to hear some suggestions whether I should go with the AMD or what options are available for Intel (Mobo + CPU) under £200 that wouldn't bottleneck my GPU, if that's possible. Thanks in advance. Any suggestions are appreciated.

 

[swifty_morgan]

FPS don't have to be high to get a good experience. if the machine is spitting and sputtering.............. is the ram running at spec? are you running 2 sticks or 1? have you tried resetting cmos? been to windows update lately? turn off other apps while gaming?

at that res and those games, everything should run fine. YOU'RE not doing something or not setting something right.

can you try another video card? or another power supply?

 

[JOOK-D]

FPS don't have to be high to get a good experience. if the machine is spitting and sputtering.............. is the ram running at spec? are you running 2 sticks or 1? have you tried resetting cmos? been to windows update lately? turn off other apps while gaming?

at that res and those games, everything should run fine. YOU'RE not doing something or not setting something right.

can you try another video card? or another power supply?

Ok thanks. How do I check if the ram is running correctly? I've got 2x4gb of RAM. I recently did a fresh windows update and driver install with no change. No other apps open. I haven't got another video card or power supply unfortunately. 🙁 From the evidence I had at hand it seemed as if the CPU was the issue, as changing graphical settings made no difference to FPS. What do you suggest I do? Thanks.

 

[JOOK-D]

Saints row the third is easy 60fps, on my laptop maxed out no aa at native res. Get an i5 4670k or i5 4570 and saints row will get easily 60fps. AMD cpus lack of memory bandwidth and poor single threaded performaance make it perform bad in games. Saints row third is easy 60fps maxed out no aa and barely uses like 30% of my cpu in the demo, got full game but yet to try it.

For gaming intel really is the only viable option right now unless you want belowpar performance. If you got any i5 ivy bridge or haswell you would be blown away by the fps improvement thats what most user reviewers and benchmarks say. Even the most ardent amd fan if they used there fx8350 then used an intel i5 4670k system in cpu limited games they would be blown away by the intel rig as intel have virtually 0ms lag and higer fps.

I don't have the funds to upgrade to haswell yet, but I know that intel is currently better for gaming. Hence why I was looking for a mobo + cpu for around £150-£200. Thanks for the reply!

 

[JOOK-D]

Do you have saints row the third demo, if so try it at 1280x720, maxed out no aa. It seems this game likes good single threaded performance. To be honest for me saints row the third is the lowest cpu requirement game I have played and its so optimised it runs 60fps easily and looks amazing. Any i5 sandy bridge ivy bridge or haswell would be sensational.

I have the full game. I've tried it at different res, maxed out, no aa, etc. with no change in FPS. Does that mean it's a CPU issue?

 

[swifty_morgan]

you could try disabling all but 1 or 2 cores for that game just for a test.

bios will tell you ram speed............... or cpu-z.

 

[JOOK-D]

http://steamcommunity.com/app/55230/discussions/0/846959998026808189/#p2

Looks like fx6100 is just rubbish at this game. The ops x4 athlon played this game better so it shows you the game is really low requirement for cpu.

Cool, thanks for that My CPU is the 6200, same architecture, just higher clock speed. That puts my mind at rest, I thought my PSU/RAM/Mobo had failed on me 😛 An intel 3570k (I see it recommended often) is £175 cheapest that I can find =/ That's 7/8 of my budget and I'd still need a mobo haha.

 

[MajinCry]

I do believe you should start a thread about your poor FPS first.

Since you have an AMD card, try getting RadeonPro and frame-capping the games to, say, 50 fps. Does it seem smoother?

Also, when a program/game is assigned more threads than it's programmed to utilize, performance can drop a tad, or drop immensely (Neverwinter Nights is a good example for the latter). For TF2/Garry's mod, try assigning the process to one core (RadeonPro can do this). For SR3, try assigning Core 0, 2 and 4.

 

[JOOK-D]

I do believe you should start a thread about your poor FPS first.

Since you have an AMD card, try getting RadeonPro and frame-capping the games to, say, 50 fps. Does it seem smoother?

Also, when a program/game is assigned more threads than it's programmed to utilize, performance can drop a tad, or drop immensely (Neverwinter Nights is a good example for the latter). For TF2/Garry's mod, try assigning the process to one core (RadeonPro can do this). For SR3, try assigning Core 0, 2 and 4.

I've had 2 previous threads about my poor FPS and Usage haha. The feedback I was given was to upgrade CPU since it was bottlenecking, or upgrade my monitor to 1080p to make both my CPU and GPU work harder. I'll try radeonpro in the source games. I've already tried unparking some of my cores as they weren't being used and it made no difference to FPS.

 

[JOOK-D]

The best thing about intel cpus is you can trust every application to worlk great on it as its so fast per core and has insane memory bandwidth.

Is there a certain CPU you can recommend? I'm also looking to futureproof a little if possible.

 

[swifty_morgan]

you never said whether or not you were having any "problems", just undesired FPS. are you experiencing any game play problems at any settings? if you aren't, I wouldn't spend any money until I had to.

 

[JOOK-D]

you never said whether or not you were having any "problems", just undesired FPS. are you experiencing any game play problems at any settings? if you aren't, I wouldn't spend any money until I had to.

Well I count the FPS as a gameplay problem haha, especially in first person shooters. The constant dip under 60 really throws off aim. Could you give some examples of gameplay problems? Thanks. I've waited a year with this problem so I'm about ready to spend if I can, but I don't want to buy something else I'd have to upgrade within the next year. Thanks for the reply.

 

[JOOK-D]

I do believe you should start a thread about your poor FPS first.

Since you have an AMD card, try getting RadeonPro and frame-capping the games to, say, 50 fps. Does it seem smoother?

Also, when a program/game is assigned more threads than it's programmed to utilize, performance can drop a tad, or drop immensely (Neverwinter Nights is a good example for the latter). For TF2/Garry's mod, try assigning the process to one core (RadeonPro can do this). For SR3, try assigning Core 0, 2 and 4.

I used RadeonPro and it made little difference. Anything under 60 FPS feels rough to me, so capping at 50 FPS on games that usually sometimes get higher was worse, IMO. SR3 had no performance difference with the frame capping or assigning cores unfortunately. I also saw no performance increase in TF2. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

[chairsgotoschool]

are you sure you have that all right, is vysnc on (often causes low fps for no reason) because from what i can tel your fps are the same as mine (just a little higher sometimes) and my rig is very very very old. nvidia 9800 1gb and a phenom 8400 2.1ghz. i have used a rig with the 6100 in it and a 550ti and it maxed all those games perfectly fine. make sure you're using updated bios, and updated version of windows (i think there is a patch for fx cpus but last i heard it wasn't needed) as for saints row i think there was a problem with ati/amd gpu's where it would run bad, i dont think it was ever fixed.

 

[JOOK-D]

are you sure you have that all right, is vysnc on (often causes low fps for no reason) because from what i can tel your fps are the same as mine (just a little higher sometimes) and my rig is very very very old. nvidia 9800 1gb and a phenom 8400 2.1ghz. i have used a rig with the 6100 in it and a 550ti and it maxed all those games perfectly fine. make sure you're using updated bios, and updated version of windows (i think there is a patch for fx cpus but last i heard it wasn't needed) as for saints row i think there was a problem with ati/amd gpu's where it would run bad, i dont think it was ever fixed.

Yup, vsync off. Recently reinstalled windows and did the updates. I used the hotfixes for FX CPUs with no luck. Much older rigs run much better than my own, hence why I'm so confused. I guess I'll update my BIOS.