Amd phenom ii x4 965 BE & GtX 1050 TI

[Andri Stefanus]

guys, i have phenom ii x4 965 BE paired with MSI GTX 5010 Ti OC, i just want to know if my CPU is bottlenecking my GPU, thx. i wanna upgrade CPU, if it's necessary. im on a budget

 

[RektSkrubz]

Yes. A Phenom which is 8 years old will bottleneck that card. There is no upgrade path with that motherboard, you would have to get a brand new motherboard and CPU.

 

[elbert]

Some yes but not enough to be a big issue. Unless your just wanting better performance stick with what you have. I have thuban 6 core with a R9 280which is about the same.

 

[exroofer]

As well, do you have any OC applied to the 965? I ran my 975BE @ 4.0/2800 NB, temps were fine on a budget air cooler. And the benchmark difference over stock was HUGE. Like 35% gain. Needs a quality mobo to do this, not something you should spend money on now.
As well, a straight up NB OC on this series of chips makes big gains, and usually takes zero extra voltage.
Something to play with while you decide if you want to upgrade and how much money you want to spend.
A jump to a Ryzen platform would give you a pretty solid bump. But you would need cpu, mobo, ram, and possibly a new Windows license. Meaning this is not "cheap" even in a budget set up.

And as noted above, the bottleneck on a 1050ti is not huge.

 

[Sam Hain]

Check your BIOS to see which version 965 you have, C2 or C3. If it shows C2 and you do contemplate doing an OC, your results are going to be very minimal and hot.

The C2 was the 1st edition and apparently had enough issues with thermals that warranted AMD to reissue the 965 in a C3 variant, which runs cooler and will OC much better.

Your BIOS will show which version you have... Am speaking from experience here, as my previous system consisted of a C2 965 on MSI 790FX motherboard and then found out about the C2/C3 SNAFU.

 

[exroofer]

Oh good call Sam Hain. I had a latest revision 975BE, in a Sabertooth 990fx before swapping it to a 8350.
Going from the budget mobo of the original build to the Sabertooth also gave me quite a bit more OC headroom.
Which is why I always mention northbridge OC as well for this series of chips, since that, while taking a little more in depth tweaking, is very nearly "free" as far as voltage and thermals.And makes a big difference.

Getting back to the OP's question, the Ryzen 3's are releasing very soon, and extrapolating their performance from current R7/R5 results is a reasonable thing to do.

Pricing rumours put the R3's at $110-$130 USD. Personally I would not recommend anything less than 4C/8T on an upgrade for any reason. which is the lower priced R5's. But the R3's will still be a viable option and extremely competitive to similar priced Intel offerings. And of course, the fact that every single Ryzen chip will fit in the same socket.

I guess we need to hear back from the OP to see what they are thinking.

* Sam Hain as a user name.. lol.. that's funny...

 

[Sam Hain]

Oh good call Sam Hain. I had a latest revision 975BE, in a Sabertooth 990fx before swapping it to a 8350.
Going from the budget mobo of the original build to the Sabertooth also gave me quite a bit more OC headroom.
Which is why I always mention northbridge OC as well for this series of chips, since that, while taking a little more in depth tweaking, is very nearly "free" as far as voltage and thermals.And makes a big difference.

Getting back to the OP's question, the Ryzen 3's are releasing very soon, and extrapolating their performance from current R7/R5 results is a reasonable thing to do.

Pricing rumours put the R3's at $110-$130 USD. Personally I would not recommend anything less than 4C/8T on an upgrade for any reason. which is the lower priced R5's. But the R3's will still be a viable option and extremely competitive to similar priced Intel offerings. And of course, the fact that every single Ryzen chip will fit in the same socket.

I guess we need to hear back from the OP to see what they are thinking.

* Sam Hain as a user name.. lol.. that's funny...

Yep, fan of the band and the holiday Good answer to OP BTW.

 

[Tyetonioushasredandgreen]

I watched a benchmark of rise of the tomb raider the other day with this set up and the cpu stayed below 90% some times at like 78% but the gpu was maxed pretty much the whole time at 99/100%

So actually (depending on the game... If its more cpu or gpu intensive) a gtx 1050ti can bottleneck the phenom ii 965

Having said this... Most AM3 boards support pci-e 2 and so are not making the most of the 1050ti which is pci-e 3 (I think) conpatable. So maybe this could be the reason for the results above, meaning that the combo of mobo and cpu are bottlenecking the gpu... so in essence yes the cpu could be... but this is all theoretical