What's the best CPU for the Radeon 7970 ghz edition?

[8350rocks]

Coolermaster Hyper 212 Evo or Noctua NH-D14...both should fit, just make sure your RAM is low profile...

 

[CrazymanWO]

If you're doing heavy rendering you'll want more like 16 GB...if it's more a hobby thing, then 8 GB is fine. Though, RAM has nothing to do with your GPU...it's really the software for rendering/modeling that needs the RAM.

Well, like the saying goes, you can't trust everything on the Internet. I read somewhere that the recommended RAM for a 780 was 12 GB. Thanks for the info my friend. What cooler should I get for the 8350? I have an Antec Advanced Gaming Case 900 (or something like that anyway.)

I just got my fx 8350, I am also using the hyper 212. all i can say is if you are thinking of overcolocking, even a few ghz spend a little more and buy an h100 or a closed water cooler. I have overclocked mine from 4.0 to 4.3, a mear .3 ghz and temps are super hot with my cooler. Im looking for a closed water cooler now. Whats worse is that i just bought the hyper 212.

 

[smeezekitty]

Are you sure it is mounted properly? I know that AMD chips are hot running but it shouldn't be "super hot"

 

[CrazymanWO]

Are you sure it is mounted properly? I know that AMD chips are hot running but it shouldn't be "super hot"

Yeah its mounted perfectly. By super hot I mean like 55 to 57c in prime95. Its not super hot but my temps rose from 45 on full load beofre overclock to 57 with a .3ghz raise, so comparing it to such a small overclock and original temps, its hot. In every fourm i have read everyone who owns this chips tends to get a closed water cooler and you can get up to a 5ghz overclock which is crazy. Might as well just invest in one. Im about to buy one.

 

[TSX-Crytek]

The i5-2500k would not bottleneck...

However, if you have the sabertooth motherboard...I would really hate to see you waste that and go to intel...you could likely get 5.0 GHz out of the FX8350 with a good setup on that board.

Wow, I am not at all thinking today. I just realized how good my motherboard is and decided to stick with AMD. I feel stupid for my last post. I also just saw that the NVIDIA gtx 780 released, so would it be worth the extra cash to get it, or should I just get the 7970?

Depends on how hardcore of a gamer you are. And in my opinion the amd 8350 which just got today to switch out my fx 6100 would not be a good pair with the 780. It would bottleneck in my opinion. And it would be better for you to pair amd with amd car, you can crosfire 2 high end amd cards and it will still be cheaper then buying the 780.

OK, my uncle owns a computer shop so he can get computer parts for cheaper, and he offered to give me this card. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150665 Since I figured I could just OC that card to match the specs of a ghz edition, I decided to go for it. I also decided to try my FX-6100 to see how good it would be for my system, but when I went to play BF3 and opened task manager, I saw that 90% of my CPU was being used. Is this normal for BF3?

 

[8350rocks]

Are you sure it is mounted properly? I know that AMD chips are hot running but it shouldn't be "super hot"

Yeah its mounted perfectly. By super hot I mean like 55 to 57c in prime95. Its not super hot but my temps rose from 45 on full load beofre overclock to 57 with a .3ghz raise, so comparing it to such a small overclock and original temps, its hot. In every fourm i have read everyone who owns this chips tends to get a closed water cooler and you can get up to a 5ghz overclock which is crazy. Might as well just invest in one. Im about to buy one.

You do know you don't raise voltage in the BIOS until you have to right? If you're running at 4.3 GHz @ 1.45Vcore...then you're not doing it right. Try backing your core voltage off to stock and increasing the multiplier to 22 and see if it doesn't boot right up and run stable at 4.4 like a champ

 

[TSX-Crytek]

The i5-2500k would not bottleneck...

However, if you have the sabertooth motherboard...I would really hate to see you waste that and go to intel...you could likely get 5.0 GHz out of the FX8350 with a good setup on that board.

Wow, I am not at all thinking today. I just realized how good my motherboard is and decided to stick with AMD. I feel stupid for my last post. I also just saw that the NVIDIA gtx 780 released, so would it be worth the extra cash to get it, or should I just get the 7970?

Depends on how hardcore of a gamer you are. And in my opinion the amd 8350 which just got today to switch out my fx 6100 would not be a good pair with the 780. It would bottleneck in my opinion. And it would be better for you to pair amd with amd car, you can crosfire 2 high end amd cards and it will still be cheaper then buying the 780.

OK, my uncle owns a computer shop so he can get computer parts for cheaper, and he offered to give me this card. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150665 Since I figured I could just OC that card to match the specs of a ghz edition, I decided to go for it. I also decided to try my FX-6100 to see how good it would be for my system, but when I went to play BF3 and opened task manager, I saw that 90% of my CPU was being used. Is this normal for BF3?

BF3 is quite cpu intensive but mainly in multiplayer. Download gpuz go on sensors and then play the game then minimise the window and see if your gpu load is 99%. Anything less is normally a cpu bottleneck or game is unoptimised in your case with high cpu usage its your cpu thats the bottleneck.

OK, so I downloaded HWINFO64 and used the sensors for a bit while playing a 64 player multiplayer match in BF3. My average CPU usage was around 67%, and my average GPU utilization was 32%. I get the same numbers even if I play on lowest settings.

 

[smeezekitty]

I think you will need to upgrade your CPU. The FX6100 was kind of meh even when it first came out.

 

[dansgas1000]

Any Ivy-Bridge/Haswell i5.

 

[TSX-Crytek]

Well your cpu is to slow for the 7970 in the first place. Secondly do you have a fast internet connection. You are currently getting 1/3 of the performance of a 7970. BF3 is a piece of cake for intel cpus but amd cpu you really need an fx8350 to even get close to running it on multiplayer with a high end gpu.

I think you will need to upgrade your CPU. The FX6100 was kind of meh even when it first came out.

I have 15 MB download speed and 2 MB upload speed. Do I really need an Intel CPU like dansgas said? I would rather not completely switch out my mobo and have to spend even more money.

 

[8350rocks]

Don't listen to these guys...check your CPU usage...your AMD CPU is absolutely fine for BF3 multiplayer.

Don't waste money...they're trying to lead you astray man.

EDIT: @ 67% your CPU is FAR from being a bottleneck...that's not the issue at all.

 

[anxiousinfusion]

BF3 multiplayer really needs an intel cpu to cope.

I've seen BF3 run 100% flawlessly on an FX-4100. Do not spread misinformation. Battlefield does not require one brand or the other for anything.

 

[smeezekitty]

I think you will need to atleast get away from bulldozer in order to perform decently.

 

[8350rocks]

Don't listen to these guys...check your CPU usage...your AMD CPU is absolutely fine for BF3 multiplayer.

Don't waste money...they're trying to lead you astray man.

EDIT: @ 67% your CPU is FAR from being a bottleneck...that's not the issue at all.

Even it was 100% cpu utilisation it will massively bottleneck. He only has 32% gpu utilisation. Most games should run at 99% otherwise its a bottleneck.

Intel current line cpus destroy the amd fx at gaming especially in battlefield 3 multiplayer unless you get the fx8350. You need an 8 core amd cpu to cope with BF3. The only cpu that matches the intel cpu on bf3 multiplayer is the fx8350. The fraps log shows the fx8350 and 3570k are neck and neck.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2EcXrgJLY0

People always seem to forget most games on intel cpus barely take any cpu load on the quads vs the fx8350 which usually has to get loaded near the maximum to compete.

I think you misunderstand bottleneck...

A bottleneck is not when one part is working harder than the other.

A bottleneck is when Usage for one is 97+% and usage for the other is below 95%.

If your usage for both is over 97%, then both parts are strained and the hardware requirements are greater than you have.

At 67% CPU usage, he is not bottlenecking at all.

Stop spreading misinformation.

 

[8350rocks]

Don't listen to these guys...check your CPU usage...your AMD CPU is absolutely fine for BF3 multiplayer.

Don't waste money...they're trying to lead you astray man.

EDIT: @ 67% your CPU is FAR from being a bottleneck...that's not the issue at all.

Even it was 100% cpu utilisation it will massively bottleneck. He only has 32% gpu utilisation. Most games should run at 99% otherwise its a bottleneck.

Intel current line cpus destroy the amd fx at gaming especially in battlefield 3 multiplayer unless you get the fx8350. You need an 8 core amd cpu to cope with BF3. The only cpu that matches the intel cpu on bf3 multiplayer is the fx8350. The fraps log shows the fx8350 and 3570k are neck and neck.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2EcXrgJLY0

People always seem to forget most games on intel cpus barely take any cpu load on the quads vs the fx8350 which usually has to get loaded near the maximum to compete.

I think you misunderstand bottleneck...

A bottleneck is not when one part is working harder than the other.

A bottleneck is when Usage for one is 97+% and usage for the other is below 95%.

If your usage for both is over 97%, then both parts are strained and the hardware requirements are greater than you have.

At 67% CPU usage, he is not bottlenecking at all.

Stop spreading misinformation.

His cpu is massively bottlenecking the gpu. 32% gpu load mean he is getting less then a third of the performance his gpu is capable of. The game could be unoptimised not to use all the cpu power in some cases but even if his cpu was at 100% his gpu would be bottlenecked in this case and the game he is playing is optimised. The cpu cannot feed the gpu, my i5 3317u is 100% in most games but has 99% gpu load in most games so it just about is not bottlenecked. 32% gpu load means huge cpu bottleneck in this case as it cannot provide enough work for the gpu.

Wrong...32% GPU usage means in that area, his GPU is only being used 32%, could be because of settings in the game, or could be that he has his windows settings to use software for 3D acceleration instead of hardware.

You do not understand the term bottleneck evidently...so don't mislead people.

For example...when I play Civ5, my CPU usage is about 90% on 2 cores (the other 6 are mostly 20% or less running background windows tasks), my GPU usage is about 50% on MAX settings, all that means is that the game is not that demanding for my GPU, and is mostly CPU bound (which Civ5 is CPU bound).

 

[TSX-Crytek]

Don't listen to these guys...check your CPU usage...your AMD CPU is absolutely fine for BF3 multiplayer.

Don't waste money...they're trying to lead you astray man.

EDIT: @ 67% your CPU is FAR from being a bottleneck...that's not the issue at all.

Even it was 100% cpu utilisation it will massively bottleneck. He only has 32% gpu utilisation. Most games should run at 99% otherwise its a bottleneck.

Intel current line cpus destroy the amd fx at gaming especially in battlefield 3 multiplayer unless you get the fx8350. You need an 8 core amd cpu to cope with BF3. The only cpu that matches the intel cpu on bf3 multiplayer is the fx8350. The fraps log shows the fx8350 and 3570k are neck and neck.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2EcXrgJLY0

People always seem to forget most games on intel cpus barely take any cpu load on the quads vs the fx8350 which usually has to get loaded near the maximum to compete.

I think you misunderstand bottleneck...

A bottleneck is not when one part is working harder than the other.

A bottleneck is when Usage for one is 97+% and usage for the other is below 95%.

If your usage for both is over 97%, then both parts are strained and the hardware requirements are greater than you have.

At 67% CPU usage, he is not bottlenecking at all.

Stop spreading misinformation.

His cpu is massively bottlenecking the gpu. 32% gpu load mean he is getting less then a third of the performance his gpu is capable of. The game could be unoptimised not to use all the cpu power in some cases but even if his cpu was at 100% his gpu would be bottlenecked in this case and the game he is playing is optimised. The cpu cannot feed the gpu, my i5 3317u is 100% in most games but has 99% gpu load in most games so it just about is not bottlenecked. 32% gpu load means huge cpu bottleneck in this case as it cannot provide enough work for the gpu.

Wrong...32% GPU usage means in that area, his GPU is only being used 32%, could be because of settings in the game, or could be that he has his windows settings to use software for 3D acceleration instead of hardware.

You do not understand the term bottleneck evidently...so don't mislead people.

For example...when I play Civ5, my CPU usage is about 90% on 2 cores (the other 6 are mostly 20% or less running background windows tasks), my GPU usage is about 50% on MAX settings, all that means is that the game is not that demanding for my GPU, and is mostly CPU bound (which Civ5 is CPU bound).

OK, so what's wrong with my setup?

 

[8350rocks]

I would recommend one of 2 things.

1.) Overclock what you have, see if that makes a difference for you, if you get to about 4.2-4.3 GHz you should see about a 25-30% improvement.

2.) If you are already overclocked and unhappy, then I would recommend going to something like the FX 6350, as the IPC improvements from bulldozer to piledriver made a 15% difference across the board. So at the same clock speeds a 6350 (though the 6350 starts with a 3.9 GHz clock) will be 15% faster than a 6100.

 

[TSX-Crytek]

I would recommend one of 2 things.

1.) Overclock what you have, see if that makes a difference for you, if you get to about 4.2-4.3 GHz you should see about a 25-30% improvement.

2.) If you are already overclocked and unhappy, then I would recommend going to something like the FX 6350, as the IPC improvements from bulldozer to piledriver made a 15% difference across the board. So at the same clock speeds a 6350 (though the 6350 starts with a 3.9 GHz clock) will be 15% faster than a 6100.

I've already tried over clocking but to no avail. I'm just going to get an 8350 which will hopefully solve all of my problems.

 

[8350rocks]

That should do it.

 

[TSX-Crytek]

That should do it.

OK, since this thread is over, how can I choose a best answer?

 

[8350rocks]

This is a discussion thread, not a question thread, so I don't think you technically can choose a best answer.

 

[TSX-Crytek]

This is a discussion thread, not a question thread, so I don't think you technically can choose a best answer.

Oh OK! Well thank you everyone for helping me make my choice and making gaming for me better!