Would you say this is a balanced system?

[DanielMCUK]

Okay, so I've been asking around on here for a while. Just recently bought a PC which I was going to use for gaming. Nothing major that can play mega graphical content, just like GTAIV, MW3 and San Andreas on high. The PC I bought come with...


AMD Bulldozer -4100 Quadcore 3.6 Ghz
AMD Radeon HD6450
500W standard PSU
4GB RAM
Gigabyte motherboard(Not sure which one)

Since then I've upgraded the GPU and OC'd the CPU.

My system spec is now as follows:

AMD Bulldozer -4100 Quadcore 4.0Ghz
Sapphire HD7750 Ultimate
500W Standard PSU
4GB RAM
Gigabyte motherboard.

Would you say my system is balanced? It's playing the games I want it to run fine but can anyone suggest any good games I could play? Thanks.

 

[socialfox]

It's pretty balanced. Anyways you should've avoided the FX-4100 like the plague, not so good. Don't think I'm hating on the FX series because I think the Piledrivers are real good such as the FX-4300 and 6300 which corrected the "imperfections" of the Bulldozers for the most part.

Some great games your computer should be able to run that I find very fun is Skyrim and Dead Island.

 

[marshal11]

yes that's a pretty decent system. you can definitely play any game on the market smoothly except for maybe GTAIV because of how horribly optimized that game is. it makes me sad seeing my GTX 680 only getting 25FPS at times when driving around with settings on high. 🙁 you might have to lower the settings to play that game smoothly. everything else will play fine though.

and i must ask, why don't you OC it even more? heat? i'm curious because it seems everyone who owns a newer AMD chip never overclocks it too much. i haven't overclocked an AMD chip in a while, so i don't know how they are at speeds like 4.5GHz. if your heat isn't an issue, i'd overclock that thing until it starts hitting about 85c while stress testing. it's not going to hit that temp any other time.

 

[DanielMCUK]

yes that's a pretty decent system. you can definitely play any game on the market smoothly except for maybe GTAIV because of how horribly optimized that game is. it makes me sad seeing my GTX 680 only getting 25FPS at times when driving around with settings on high. 🙁 you might have to lower the settings to play that game smoothly. everything else will play fine though.

and i must ask, why don't you OC it even more? heat? i'm curious because it seems everyone who owns a newer AMD chip never overclocks it too much. i haven't overclocked an AMD chip in a while, so i don't know how they perform under speeds like 4.5GHz+. if your heat isn't an issue, i'd overclock that thing until it starts hitting 85c while stress testing. it's not going to hit that temp any other time.

I'm not sure, I've seen people Overclock it to 4.6ghz but I guess I am worried about heat. I've overclocked my GPU from the core clock of 800mhz to 860 and the memory clock from 1250 to 1270 though and that's passivley cooled with no fan. I'll try overclocking my CPU more but not too much.

 

[socialfox]

I'm not sure, I've seen people Overclock it to 4.6ghz but I guess I am worried about heat. I've overclocked my GPU from the core clock of 800mhz to 860 and the memory clock from 1250 to 1270 though and that's passivley cooled with no fan. I'll try overclocking my CPU more but not too much.

You do have an aftermarket CPU cooler right?

 

[marshal11]

if you are worried about heat, just get install coretemp and prime 95. open both of them, then run the inplace large FFTs test. if the temps exceed 85c, close the program and adjust your OC. this is also a great way to test stability. if you get the bluescreen/start gettings lots of pop up errors, you don't have enough volts to support the multiplier. raise it at as low increments as possible. if your temps are a bit too high, try lowering the voltage tiny bits at a time. this will lower your temps but your CPU still might be stable. i wouldn't worry about heat to much unless it hits 80c while playing games etc. i have my 3770k overclocked to 4.5GHz at 1.29V and when running prime 95 i get to 78c. playing games, i'm usually at 55c.

also, you can raise your memory clock speeds on your GPU A LOT more than what you have now. try raising it too 1500MHz. if that's too much your game will simply crash or you MIGHT get a bluescreen. you can probably OC your core speeds to about 910MHz too. you can use MSI afterburner to do all this and monitor your temps while in game. it just pops up in the top left corner of your screen. you can also monitor many other things all of which you can choose from in the "monitoring" tab in settings. just click on what you want the click the check box beside "show in on-screen display". you can also set a custom fan speed plan if the default one is too loud/not effective enough. just go to the "fan" tab and set it. move your mouse over the diagram for instructions on how to use it.

Sorry for the long read if you already know all of this stuff. i figured it could be very useful if you didn't. long story short, go as far as you want as long as the temps aren't to bad. pushing your system to the "reasonable max" is part of the fun in having a custom built PC (even if you didn't build it).

EDIT: oh yes, like social fox said, an aftermarket will help with your temps and noise. i'd HIGHLY recommend the hyper212 evo. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103099

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been moved from the section CPU & Components to section Systems by Mousemonkey