Should i upgrade my CPU (AMD FX 6350) so i can stream + game

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Deshaun Dwyer

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Jun 15, 2013
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I have the general idea of what i need to do, but could use some advice.

i built this PC about 2 or so years ago for gaming + streaming, i was on a budget at the time, ran into a few issues and decided to upgrade parts. But no matter how much i research i cant really find the answer to my question of what exact road i should take in terms of my CPU and potentially my MoBo.

**My PC:**

*i forgot stuff so ill add it in as it comes up to here*

- CPU: [AMD FX -6350](http://www.amazon.com/AMD-FD6350FRHKBOX-FX-6350-6-Core-Black/dp/B00CLBZAHY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1462447051&sr=8-1&keywords=AMD+FX+6350)
- MoBo: [M5A97 R2.0](http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1N83UD9914&cm_re=m5a97_r2.0-_-13-131-873-_-Product)
- Mem: DDR3 -16GB
- GPU: [Amd Radeon R9 390](http://www.amazon.com/MSI-R9-390-GAMING-8G/dp/B00ZPOAYG6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1462446911&sr=8-1&keywords=Amd+Radeon+R9+390)
- Case: [Corsair Graphite 230T](http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139027)
- Cooler - [cooler master hyper 212 evo](http://www.amazon.com/Cooler-Master-Hyper-212-RR-212E-20PK-R2/dp/B005O65JXI/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1462448683&sr=1-1&keywords=cooler+master+hyper+212+evo)

**The problems:**
If i start to stream and play somewhat intensive games i notice things like slowdown, choppyness, sometimes my computer will even bluescreen or crash if the game is on the higher end of things.

at first i bought like 3 more fans and fixed the overheating problem i was having, but then i noticed after that my CPU usage goes to around 80-90%.

i can play the games fine on their own, lower end games i can stream fine.

**Potential fixes:**
So as far as i know my MoBo can only go as high as the Amd Fx 8350, but upon doing some research some people say its worth to upgrade some people say its not, saying it will only improve framerate something like 10 FPS or so, although i dont care about framerate but rather if it can run several processes without overloading and shutting down like whats happening to me now.

- I can get a new Mobo and then get a much better Processor although i have not looked into CPU at all, i just know thats an option.

- I read something about using a capture card, and keeping the 6350 but i dont know about that.

- and i read that if you use watercooling on the fx 8350 you can overclock to up to 8ghz.

**Other stuff:**
I did overclock this card a bit, i think im at 4.4MHz using air cooling, i bought a whole bunch of fans and the temps stay at around 50-60.
Im not sure what the ultimate solution is but if i could avoid it i didnt want to be forced into having to buying a new MoBo, CPU, and Case to fit it all.

However, i want to be able to stream, and play higher end games, to the point where i dont see slowdown, or CPU overuseage, or have Blue screens or Crashes or any other annoyinug technical problems so ultimatly, if i have to, i will buy a new MoBo, case , and Processor.

**Other things i did over time:**

- First i did a mem test to see if my ram was jacked up, it wasnt.
- I bought 8 more gigs of ram to get 16 Gigs
- I upgraded my GPU
- i bought 3 more fans and put them in my case
- i replaced the 550W power supply with a 750W
- and at this point the final thing to do as far as i know is CPU upgrade.

These are my obs settings:

- [Advanced](http://puu.sh/odSIm/8ef4970704.png)
- [Encoding](http://puu.sh/odSGg/6c847cc982.png)
 
Solution
Rogue Leader
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You could sell off your mobo and CPU...then get a Z97 mobo (intel) and 4690k. That way you can overclock and still use your old DDR3 RAM. I think that will give the system the biggest boost.

A cheaper option is to sell the 6350 and get a 8320, not 8350. Why? The 8320 overclocks almost the same as the 8350 but the 8320 costs less. However, the overclocked amd cpu will still be behind a 4690k.

Choice is yours. If you can afford it, I'd switch to intel and get the Z97 (not Z170) mobo and overclocking cpu to go with it.
 
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What kind of powersupply do you have? Like the brand? Also that 8Ghz on the 8350 was probably nitrogen cooled not watercooled.

Solutions:
Buy a Haswell/Skylake i7 + the motherboard that it requires.
Or wait for AMD ZEN, or for Kaby Lake so the prices aren't so high for the prev gen.
 
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The way to troubleshoot your problem is rather easy and simple. Download AMD Overdrive, run a stress test and check the thermal margins of the CPU. Keep in mind that thermal margins work in reverse. Ideally you should get at least 10-15+ degrees under load. 10 C under load actually means about 60 C. During a stress test you should check if the CPU is down clocking itself. If this is the case, then it is most definitely a temperature related problem. It can be either the CPU is overheating or the VRMs on the motherboard. Your motherboard only has 4+2 power phase which is not recommended for a 125W 6 core CPU even though the CPU might be on the support list of the motherboard. If the CPU is down clocking then having 80%+ usage is quite normal.
 
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Umm this is the exact power supply that i have:
http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-SuperNOVA-Crossfire-Warranty-220-G2-0750-XR/dp/B00IKDETOW?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s01.

ok, i have never even used water cooling before but i know its better than air, so i just assumed that it was legit. nitrogen cooling sounds pretty extreme.
 
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Few things first off 8ghz is impossible with anything any normal person would ever use to cool their PC. Anyone who told you its possible lied to you. You literally would as suggested need to use liquid nitrogen. And even then you would be better off upgrading.

Next up, Your motherboard has a 4+2 Power Phase. While it will support both the 6350 and technically the 8350, AMD FX 125 watt processor such as those have been found to have issues with throttling under heavy loads or overclocking with weak power phase boards. Basically the processor works but should not be driven hard like you are. I would NOT buy the FX-8350 you are going to have the same exact problems but be $160 poorer.

Live streaming while gaming demands a lot from a multi core processor. A capture card could lighten the load, but in the same respect you could upgrade your system to game better and not need the card.

Another thing to keep in mind, the slowest i3 Skylake chip (the i3-6100) is faster than the fastest FX-9590. Mhz doesn't mean a thing in the grand scheme of performance.

Now what is the budget you are working with, then we can make the best suggestion?
 
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are you talking about these?:
http://www.amazon.com/MSI-Intel-Z97-Motherboard-PC/dp/B00K23BW70/ref=sr_1_13?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1462452321&sr=1-13&keywords=4690k

http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Core-i5-4690K-Processor-BX80646I54690K/dp/B00KPRWB9G/ref=pd_sim_147_2?ie=UTF8&dpID=41QkRglZntL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR160%2C160_&refRID=14HDGZJD8TT1KC2QZR8W

If so then i could possible do that, although i was trying not to spend so much, one of the options was to get a new Mobo and Processor.

and for your other suggestion how hard would i have to overclock the 8320 so that i could stream + play games, and not have things like slow down or choppiness, or crashing, is it even possible with that CPU?
my friend suggested i should just go upgrade to intel as well, but i wanted to exaust all my options before shelling out 350-500 dollars.
 
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Ok thats really informative thanks, I didnt want to spend an extreme amount but as im reading most of these comments it looks like im going to have to upgrade both my motherboard and my CPU. as Far as spending, i dont really want to give a minimum as i dont really know what is a reasonable price from what i want to accomplish.

I suppose i want to stream games like Street fighter V, and Dark souls III, The division, and also play them at decent quality, Do you think it would be possible to do that with around 300ish dollars?

If not then ya i can go higher, but so i have an idea what do you think should be a reasonable price i should be looking to spend, for the things im trying to do?

People suggest i sell parts, i would but i dont really have expierence selling PC parts, nor do i know where i should do that, i have a whole bunch of my old parts i could sell from my former computer, and the parts i plan on replacing currently so if anything, selling them could most likely raise my budget.
 
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You can sell parts on ebay or here in the classifieds section.

If you can get $370 together this will give you a brand new skylake platform, a quad core i5 which will multitask well, and new faster ram

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($193.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: MSI H170 Gaming M3 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($116.99 @ B&H)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory ($58.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $369.97
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-05-05 09:01 EDT-0400

This should work very well for you.
 
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This is also an excellent plan for even less money. I have this processor in my server, 4 cores but hyperthreaded so it can act sort of like 8 cores, which is excellent for multitasking.
 
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People can drop Intel options in to their hearts content but the fact is the majority of your issues are down to user error.

The 6350 can stream with obs , the question is what settings are you using for the recording stream , if you're running high quality , 1080p , 60fps then obs will rape any processor including the xeons , you need an i7 running in excess of 4ghz to not suffer any substantial fps drops .
How many hard drives are you using??

If it's a single drive with windows, your game & has obs recording to it to then that's going to rape your disk usage too - stutters & fps drops abound.

The blue screens, freezes , nothing to do with the 6350 not being good enough, not normal behaviour at even 100% load & plainly an absolutely unstable overclock.you need to read some 101 overclocking threads , get your system stable first , lower your obs settings, set core affinity to cores 5 & 6 only while its running & make sure you're recording & streaming to/from a completely separate drive.

 
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I posted some screens of my OBS settings, but in case all of the info isnt there, i have the resoluion filtered i believe, so its not actually 1080p, and im recording 30 fps not 60, my windows is installed on a 120GB SSD, all of my programs are on a 1 TB HDD, and all of my media files like OBS streams and music and such are located on a 500GB HDD, i recently uninstalled windows 10 and reinstalled windows 7, so a clean install, i updated my drivers, and the only times i have issues is when im running games and streaming at the same time.

friend of mune suggested i may possibly have a virus, but i cant find/detect one, I only overclocked to 4.4 did some research and had a friend walk me through it while i was doing it, so yes, it is entirely possible that i fucked up even if i was careful as i am not well versed in this, however the only reason for my overclock in the first place was because i was having similar problems before with streaming.

I was told to go intel from friends before, but decided to go the overclock route instead, which seemed to work fine until i started to try streaming more intense games, like dark souls III, Streetfighter V, or The division.

Ultimatly it is possible that the freezing issues "Could" stop if i remove the overclock, however i dont think my CPU is capable of what i want it to do without the overclock, i would like to make steps to fixing my problem starting today, and the best bet is buying some new parts and reinstalling windows, i just wanted to know what would be the cheapest solution.

i have had this CPU for about 2 years now, and it is great, but i honestly think I need to upgrade, a lot of folks are telling me intel, i just wanted to get the fx 8350, but it seems like the change would be negligable, im not to sure what you mean by making sure im only using drive 5 and six, but i think were breaching into territory that is far outside my level of understanding. I dont want to sound lazy, or anything but i would possibly rather just buy a part that has a better stock useage, and worry less about things like overclocking all together, i kinda went out of my way to first time to overclock simply because i really wanted a fix, but it seems the easiest/best/convenient fix is literally just spending more money.
 
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ok, both of these look really good, im willing go go with either of these prices, it seems like the i5 is better than the i7 here, but how much better?

are sites like CPU boss accurate?

because i would go the cheaper route if it still accomplishes the same effect, i didnt mention it but i also render videos that i edit, so as im thinking about it now do these cards have similar stats if they also have similar render speeds?

In your opinion, which of these 2 are more practical?

I believe if i go with the MoBo and the ram, i could effectively build a second PC with all my spare parts and try to sell it, although i have no idea how much for.

Edit: i forgot, would i need a new case other than the one i posted here, because that is actually pretty important to, as of now everything in my computer fits, but only just, i basically have no room for anything else.
 
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CPU Boss doesn't always tell the whole story. The Xeon 1231 is 4 cores and hyperthreaded so for what you want to do such as intensive multitasking (streaming and playing) it is the best way to go. The i5 may have a faster single core, but the benefits of the Xeon should outweigh it for your purposes.
 
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You should be fine streaming with an FX 6350. It's actually a pretty good sweet spot with 2 extra cores for compression. Watch these videos and see for yourself...

Here's some examples showing MSI AB video capture in a CPU bound game and still fluid and visually pleasing graphics settings. Shadowplay is even better with on-GPU compression and almost NO CPU overhead. AMD Crimson has a similar app for this, with similar performance. Upgrading would be a waste of money.

Some FX 6300 builds capturing 900p video on the CPU BC all I had was a 1440x900 monitor to test with. 1080p is still smooth:

[video="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5M0AAdaArIo"][/video]
[video="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpwMV32Fkfo"][/video]

FX 8350 1080p cap/stream test:

[video="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opXzfuoJkpg"][/video]


The valley demo on the playlist is actually the worst case scenario as Valley only uses 1 CPU core. Yet it still looks good and captures smoothly.

The GW2 event was huge, is a CPU bound game, and this daily event had 50+ people on the map. And again, you can see the video captured fine with little performance loss, staying close to or over 30 FPS throughout.
 
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a friend of mine recommended this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117561

with the same memory and Mobo you you recommended, because i suppose DDR3 is becoming outdated?

but essentially i guess the gist of it is that the xeon is good but the i5 performs better and will also improve Framerates and such, with the addition of better performance do you still suggest the xeon over the i5, and do you think the difference between the 6500, and the 6600 are high enough to spend an extra 50 dollars, or ultimatly are the differences in performance to slight to make me spend close to 200$ more.
 
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The difference between the 6500 and 6600 is not only the base clock, but the 6600 is unlocked so you can overclock it. You need to decide if thats worth it to you.

The Xeon 1231v3 suggestion uses DDR3 because its an older LGA1150 vs the i5 6500/6600k LGA 1151. So you select memory/motherboard based on that.

If you want to keep the price low the Xeon E3 1231v3 build is better, as it is hyperthreaded so it behaves like an 8 core CPU in many tasks. For streaming and gaming at the same time it should perform slightly better. However if you can swing it the newer i5 Skylake build is newer technology and has a decent upgrade path (to the current i7 or any newer i7's that may come out) should you want to get even more power out of it some day.

It all depends on your budget.
 
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Solution


well your vids posted look super smooth, its really nice, and i dont know what the main issue is, from what i can tell it seems that its mostly due to my overclock or something. but i can run games fine on usually the highest setting, minimal issues, but my cpu useage will be around 60% ish, when i start my stream it goes up to 80% CPU useage, and then i start seeing slowdown effects in some games.

Its fine for games like league of legends, or Overwatch, but when i try to stream Street Fighter, Or Dark souls III, the game will run at like sub 30 FPS, i have done a "lot" of testing with my stream settings, at this point there is nothing else i can think to do, my download speed is 120GB and my upload is 75GB, obviously i dont get the full 75 but generally tests show that i get around 40-50 GB upload at any given moment, which should be more than plenty when im using 2000kb, and basically 720p, at 25-30 frames.

my settings are not high, i lowered them because my computer is having issues, the graphics card is brand new, 2 of the 4 ram sticks are new, i have had to reinstall windows once already in the past 6 months, and still the issues persist, at this point the only thing of my original build that exists in my computer is the MoBo the processor, and the first 2 sticks of ram I ever bought.

By process of elimination, 1 of these is the problem, but i want this fixed, ive gone through so many minor fixes and im still not where i need to be, im going to re-install windows 10, re-install all my drivers, and undo the overclock as a last reslt, but i doubt it will work as i want it to so, my next step is to buy the new motherboard, get DDR4 Ram, and get an Intel card. it seems to be the best way to fix all my problems.
 
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Removing the overclock may fix your issue, with the poor power phase of your motherboard the VRMs are likely throttling your processor when being driven that high. THe next thing I would say would be to replace the motherboard with an 8+2 VRM board, however I would not put ANY money into an FX based system these days.
 
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Thanks a lot dude, you guys all helped me out a lot, but you kept coming back and answered all the questions i had.definitely made this decision much easier to make than if i had to attempt it on my own.
 
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