Do i have a CPU bottleneck?

[mikey1871]

ok so if i have the following items in my gaming desktop. do any of them create a CPU bottleneck for when i'm trying to play a game?
3.60 gigahertz AMD FX-6100 Six-Core
asus SABERTOOTH 990FX Rev 1
Nvidia GeForce 970 video card
16 GB of dimm memory
win7 64-bit OS

 

[Gam3r01]

Depends on the game, but the 6100 is a fairly weak processor. I would consider it a bottleneck in almost every game.

 

[bystander]

It depends on a lot of things. What is your resolution, what games are you playing, and at what settings? Your CPU has a FPS ceiling that is fairly low, but if your resolution is large, or you play demanding enough games at high enough settings, you may not be holding it back.

 

[AMDAlexK]

In my opinion, this is not a bottleneck. I have a FX-8320 and i just disabled 2 cores to see about this and after playing bf4 for a minute or two, i dont see any significant drop in frames. What games are you playing and at what fps and resolution?

 

[Gam3r01]

The 6100 is not the same architecture as the 6300/8320, hence why it would be a bottleneck. Bulldozer is notoriously weak, where piledirver improved upon.

 

[mikey1871]

oh, i didn't know that about the FX 6100. what would u recommend for my next upgrade? i play rts games mostly. resolution is usually at the highest my 47" LG tv can support at 60 hz. games are sose;rebellion and it's mods, star wars FOC and it's mods. HOI3 and Darkest hour and its mods.

I will be upgrading the m/b to the asus SABERTOOTH 990FX 2.0 soon. i shouldn't have to upgrade my video card for a year at least. Unless they actually start coming out with real 64 bit games.

 

[bystander]

Again, this all depends on the resolution, game, settings and FPS he is targeting. It won't be much of a bottleneck in single player BF4, but it most certainly would be one in WoW.

 

[mikey1871]

In my opinion, this is not a bottleneck. I have a FX-8320 and i just disabled 2 cores to see about this and after playing bf4 for a minute or two, i dont see any significant drop in frames. What games are you playing and at what fps and resolution?

 

[Undying89]

Just get some H97+i5 and get rid of that setup. Intel is far better if gaming is your thing.

 

[mikey1871]

i play rts games mostly. resolution is usually at the highest my 47" LG tv can support at 60 hz. games are sose;rebellion and it's mods, star wars FOC and it's mods. HOI3 and Darkest hour and its mods. i buy the older games just for the better quality mods that are out for them. I believe sose:rebellion is the newest RTS game out. at least i haven't found one better than it.

 

[Gam3r01]

It depends on your budget. Your motherboard will allow you to go straight to a 8320, which would be the cheapest option.
The other option is a 4590 +H97 or 4690k +Z97.

 

[bystander]

RTS games are typically more CPU demanding than GPU demanding, so you likely are experiencing some bottlenecking as a result. You can confirm this by using MSI afterburner to monitor the GPU usage, and CPU core usage of your system.

 

[geofelt]

Most sims, strategy and mmo type games tend to be single threaded and cpu bound.

Here is a backhanded way to prove this on your rig:

Limit your cpu, either by reducing the OC, or, in windows power management, limit the maximum cpu% to something like 70%.
Go to control panel/power options/change plan settings/change advanced power settings/processor power management/maximum processor state/
This will simulate what a lack of cpu power will do.
Conversely what a 30% improvement in core speed might do.

You could also experiment with removing one core. You can do this in the windows msconfig boot advanced options option. set the number of processors to less than you have.
This will tell you how sensitive your games are to the benefits of many cores.

If you come out of the tests and want better single core performance, Intel is the better way to go.
That can be from the $65 G3258 on up depending on your budget.

 

[mikey1871]

oh ok, thanks everyone for your suggestions. As far as i've been able to determine, all the games i play were written for just one core use. so that would mean i should switch to an intel cpu for my next one. i'll just have to pick one that will work best with the asus sabertooth 2.0 m/b. if you have any suggestions for the intel cpu to run seamlessly with the sabertooth 2.0 i'd love to here them.

thanks again for the assist

 

[AMDAlexK]

your going to have to pick up a new motherboard if you are going to go with an intel CPU, as the sockets are not compatable. If you dont want to return your motherboard or whatever, get yourself an fx 8320/ 8350/ 8370, as they are very good and will serve you well. i Have an fx 8320 in my system and i have no problems in games.

Hope this helped,
Alex

oh ok, thanks everyone for your suggestions. As far as i've been able to determine, all the games i play were written for just one core use. so that would mean i should switch to an intel cpu for my next one. i'll just have to pick one that will work best with the asus sabertooth 2.0 m/b. if you have any suggestions for the intel cpu to run seamlessly with the sabertooth 2.0 i'd love to here them.

thanks again for the assist

 

[geofelt]

I would suggest that a highly clocked i3 would be good. A i3-4160 @3.6 is $120.
The i3 cpu's have 2 full cores and two more called hyperthreads. Generally a good value cpu.
If you think you need 4 full cores, a i5-4460 @$190 is good.
If you are willing to overclock, a i5-4690K@$240 and a Z97 motherboard is currently the best gamer.
If you are really on a budget, the $65 G3258 can overclock to 4.0 and above. Only two cores though.
Unfortunately, no intel cpu will run on an amd board like the 990 sabretooth.
Any lga 1150 motherboard will run any of the cpus I mentioned.
You can buy a good value Z97 board for $65
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813135389