Any possible upgrades I should consider?

[blackzr]

Hi, everyone.

My computer is built with:

GPU: SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 7950 OC 3GB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 920 @ 2.67GHz
RAM: 12GB
PSU: 500w


So far, my experience in gaming somewhat left me a doubt to my GPU ever since I bought it three months ago. Most of games like Crysis 2, Dead Space series, Skyrim, Tomb Raider, etc ran decently (with some tweaks sometimes with vsync through third party program).

But some games like Saints Row 3 and Borderlands 2 have been struggling with fps drop more than previous gpu (gtx 285). Even Condemned: Criminal Origin, a 2005 game, has been suffering fps drop as well to 30~40fps when it should be easily run into high frame as previous gpu did.

I have been doing driver sweep to completely remove any leftovers and upgraded the driver to its latest version. So I'm wondering if there is any possible upgrades I should consider for better performance?

Thanks in advance!

 

[cookybiscuit]

Your GPU is pretty near to as good as it gets, but your CPU isn't. I'd sell off your current CPU, get a 3570k (or the next series of Intel CPU's seeing as they're out soon) and overclock it.

But to put you at rest SR3 is just a terrible port, and make sure you have Physx turned off in Borderlands 2.

 

[shamsmu]

overclock your cpu to around 3.6-4ghz(depending on your cooler)

more importantly, you can easily overclock your hd7950 to 1025mhz base core clock right out of the box without even tweaking the voltage. And as cocky biscuit said, those games are just terribly optimised.

 

[blackzr]

So would it be that my current CPU is bottlenecking my HD 7950?

 

[shamsmu]

So would it be that my current CPU is bottlenecking my HD 7950?

honestly? No. Your i7 920 should be good enough to handle even a dual gtx680 configuration. However, it would not perform as good as a 4.5ghz i7 3770k/2500k. But in terms of gaming, cpu hardly makes a difference so the fps difference between a i7 920 and i7 3770k is 5-10 at best depending on the game. However, overclocking your i7 920 would eliminate even the slightest chance of bottlenecks so its worth a shot. I could overclock my i5 760 all the way to 4ghz with a cm hyper 212 cooler for only $29

 

[blackzr]

Indeed, the fps different is not big as you said.
I've searched for guide to overclock i7 and I gotta say, some guides look overwhelming to me lol

I'll have to take a look slowly later.