upgrade advice please

[russ807]

I am running 955 phenom be at 3.6g with 8g of ram and radeon 7850 clocked at 1150 core 1450 memory, playing mostly mmos I get large fps decrease in large scale pvp ect, my question is should I upgrade the cpu to a 8350 or the gpu to a r9 280x?
My budget only allows for this cpu or that gpu.

Thanks.

 

[herrwizo]

This depends on the game. Some games are heavily cpu dependant, while others rely mostly on the gpu. Which game exactly are you talking about, sir?

 

[moozilbee]

Give your full specs so we can give you a proper answer,
But,
Whichever of the two you upgrade, you will be bottlenecked by the other.
Personally I would say, since it happens during large scale pvp, which is when the CPU is being used most, upgrading the cpu will PROBABLY be the best option. I would say upgrade it to an fx 6350 which will still be very good and then save up for an R9 280x. But still list your full specs to get the best answer.

 

[russ807]

Gw2 and elder scrolls online mainly, I will try to list full spec later but my board won't take the fx chipssoso would be changing that also

 

[herrwizo]

Heavily cpu bound games, I have a friend with intel haswell cpu who claims that those games hog the cpu like crazy. Especially gw2. Upgrade the cpu, but it is likely that it wont help much, these games need to be optimized better.

 

[russ807]

Ok thanks for the advice, is the 8350 a noticeable step up from the phenom 955?

 

[herrwizo]

In theory and practice, yes... But conditionally, since it applies only if the game you are using takes advantage of all 8 cores. Most dont, and prefer single threaded performance, where intel excels at. I would say that this is hard to tell unless thre are people here who can confirm how these games behave on 8350 and what framerates are they getting under heavy action. Try to find some benchmarks as well, mate, this may be helpful.

 

[russ807]

ok so looked at some benchmarks would the 6300 and a good cooler be better than the 8350 for gaming seems to perform as well as the 8350 in the benchmarks I've looked at and is a fair amount cheaper, if so any ideas on a decent 970 board and cooler to push the 6300 to its limits?
Thanks again!

 

[moozilbee]

A 6300 is pretty much an 8350 with 2 less cores and at a lower clock speed.
In theory a 8350 should perform slightly faster per core due to the higher clock speed, and even faster if you're going to use all 8 cores (which you won't if you're gaming).
But the 8350 just isn't really worth the money since the difference will still be pretty small in nearly all games nowadays, the 8350 would be better if you're doing something which would benefit from the 8 cores, but again, you're not.
The 6300 is a much better option for you because it's much more suited your current graphics card, and even if you upgraded to something like an R9 280x in future, the 6300 would still be fine, you can always overclock it if you want to reach the clockspeed of the 8350.

But, again, list your FULL specs so we can give you a better answer.....

 

[russ807]

current motherboard is asus M4A77td, cpu phenom II 955 be at 3.6g, 8gig Patriot Gamer 2 Series (4 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) , gpu msi hd7850 1gb oc edition at 1150 core 1450 memory, hdd hitachi hdp725025gla830, 880w psu , windows 8.1 pro 64bit
Sorry if this is a bit basic.
Thanks again.

 

[moozilbee]

What brand and series is the PSU?

And what case?

I ask because it will allow me to get an idea of what kind of CPU cooler you're able to fit into your case.

 

[russ807]

What brand and series is the PSU?

And what case?

I ask because it will allow me to get an idea of what kind of CPU cooler you're able to fit into your case.

I will check these details when i get home although i have measured and believe i can fit the hper 212 cooler, am hearing i should go with the I5 4690k as its better for gaming than 8350... is this the case by a large margin? also how much of an improvement would either chip be on my 955 be
Thanks for you time its a tough choice!