15 replies to this topic

[Alcom Isst]

Specs:
Display: 1920x1080
CPU: AMD FX-6300
Motherboard: GA-990FXA-UD3
RAM: 16 GB (DDR3)
Graphics Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 660, not superclocked
OS: Windows 7

Performance at max settings (little difference at lower settings):
Testing Grounds: 70 fps
3v3 Match: 60 fps
12v12 Match: 30 fps

So in my time of not buying clan packages, I've piled up enough money to upgrade my AMD FX-6300 CPU to an AMD FX-9370. I am assuming that the CPU is the bottleneck here based on what I've read. I've heard bad things about the compatibility between MWO and AMD CPUs, but switching to Intel would take longer as I would also need money for a new motherboard. My power supply and CPU cooler can already handle either upgrade and aren't a concern.

Will there be any noticeable performance difference by upgrading to an AMD FX-9370? If not, I won't bother and will wait to afford the intel upgrade. Also, are there any user.cfg entries that will also enhance MWO's performance? I tried a few, but they did little.

[Batuo]

Your current motherboard won't support an FX-9370 anyway(crazy 220W cpus...). Best you can upgrade to is an FX-8350. Not sure you see enough of a difference to do that upgrade.

[Goose]

http://www.xbitlabs....70_9.html#sect0

Ilya Gavrichenkov of X-Bit Labs said:

AMD products can usually be used to build rather fast and cheap computers, but the senior Vishera-based CPUs are too expensive for that. They don’t offer anything that you don’t find in their more affordable FX series cousins except for the higher clock rates which don’t matter much in terms of practical performance. Moreover, all other FX series CPUs are Black Edition, so each of the less expensive 8-core AMD CPUs can be easily overclocked to about the same level as the FX-9370 or FX-9590.

Edited by Goose, 19 May 2014 - 04:06 PM.

[Alcom Isst]

Batuo, on 19 May 2014 - 03:49 PM, said:

Your current motherboard won't support an FX-9370 anyway(crazy 220W cpus...). Best you can upgrade to is an FX-8350. Not sure you see enough of a difference to do that upgrade.

I don't follow. The motherboard has the same CPU Socket type as the FX-9370, and I don't see any wattage concerns with the motherboard. PCPartPicker doesn't give any warnings either.

Goose, on 19 May 2014 - 04:06 PM, said:

http://www.xbitlabs....70_9.html#sect0

Oh okay. I've never overclocked a CPU though.

Edited by Alcom Isst, 19 May 2014 - 04:11 PM.

[Catamount]

It's time you learn

For a fraction of the cost of that 9370, you can get better clocks out of a decent cooler for that FX6300, and the extra cores simply won't matter for a long time. I imagine that there will be games coming along at some point for which four cores is not enough for optimal performance (though four cores should still do well 99% of the time), but I think it'll be a bit yet before six cores are not enough.

[Batuo]

Oops...didn't check the revision numbers. If you have a rev. 4 version of that motherboard, you can upgrade to a 9370. If you have rev. 1-3 you can't. It's all on the CPU support list for that mobo model on Gigabyte's website.

Still don't think it's worth it though.

[Goose]

Alcom Isst, on 19 May 2014 - 04:06 PM, said:

I don't follow. The motherboard has the same CPU Socket type as the FX-9370, and I don't see any wattage concerns with the motherboard. PCPartPicker doesn't give any warnings either.

http://www.xbitlabs....590-9370_2.html

Ilya Gavrichenkov of X-Bit labs said:

The new processors from AMD generating much more heat than any other, some users might be wary of installing them into their desktop computers. There’s nothing to worry about, actually. First of all, today’s top-end graphics cards may dissipate even more heat without any problems for the computer. And secondly, many modern mainboards and coolers are designed for overclockers and have a large safety margin. In fact, if your Socket AM3+ platform can work with regular CPUs overclocked to 5 GHz, it will also be compatible with AMD’s 220W products.

Anyway, mainboard makers have not adapted all of their products to support the FX-9370 and FX-9590. The resulting compatibility list is rather short, including eight products from three brands:

• ASRock 990FX Extreme9
  
• ASRock Fatal1ty 990FX Professional
  
• ASUS Crosshair V
  
• Formula-Z
  
• ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0
  
• ASUS M5A99FX Pro R2.0
  
• Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 Rev4.0
  
• Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5 Rev3.0
  
• Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD7 Rev3.0

However, if an overclocker-friendly mainboard lacks official support for the FX-9370 and FX-9590, it might still be compatible with them. It just won’t support Turbo Core technology with these CPUs.

It is even simpler with coolers. AMD says that the FX-9370 and FX-9590 call for water cooling and sells them without any coolers at all. However, ordinary air coolers seem to be quite enough to handle the 220W models of the FX series. For example, we tried to cool our FX-9590 with a Noctua NH-U14S, a regular single-section tower-design cooler for a 140mm fan, and had no problems at all. The CPU didn’t overheat and even had a comfortable temperature at high multithreaded loads. According to the mainboard’s sensor, the peak temperature of the CPU was 70°C.

[Alcom Isst]

Batuo, on 19 May 2014 - 04:21 PM, said:

Still don't think it's worth it though.

Catamount, on 19 May 2014 - 04:16 PM, said:

It's time you learn

For a fraction of the cost of that 9370, you can get better clocks out of a decent cooler for that FX6300, and the extra cores simply won't matter for a long time. I imagine that there will be games coming along at some point for which four cores is not enough for optimal performance (though four cores should still do well 99% of the time), but I think it'll be a bit yet before six cores are not enough.

Right. Overclocking. It's a concept I've avoided thus far because it seemed rather dangerous. I've found some neat guides involving Bulldozer or AMD OverDrive Utility, I'll try it in a few days.

Edited by Alcom Isst, 19 May 2014 - 04:48 PM.

[Goose]

Catamount, on 19 May 2014 - 04:16 PM, said:

For a fraction of the cost of that 9370, you can get better clocks out of a decent cooler for that FX6300, and the extra cores simply won't matter for a long time

…

We've just figured out that -6300 is only a triple-core for CryEngien games, which seems likely to be bad. http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__3373591

As interesting as I would find it to test that all to hell'n gone, I think the OP here is looking for results.

[Summon3r]

OC'ing isnt dangerous per-say and the fx-6300 OC's very nicely. you can easily add an extra 400mhz right off the hop with minimal to no increase in voltage, nothing will be wrecked if the OC isnt stable you will just have to up your voltage a touch try increments of .025... hit up youtube for extremely easy to follow videos on how to OC your system.

if you dont want to do that and upgrading cpu's is what you want to do then go with an i5 especially if you play mwo mainly as it loves intel cpu's.

[Catamount]

Overclocking is extremely safe. Sure, a system can become unstable if you go too far, but actually break? The only component I've ever seen OCing break is VRAM, and that's only relevant to GPU overclocking.

This is an old Intel endorsement/advertisement on the subject



If Intel says overclocking is safe, overclocking is probably safe I've OCed every desktop CPU I own, including my AMD ones.

Goose, on 19 May 2014 - 04:32 PM, said:

…

We've just figured out that -6300 is only a triple-core for CryEngien games, which seems likely to be bad. http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__3373591

As interesting as I would find it to test that all to hell'n gone, I think the OP here is looking for results.

Hmm, that is interesting, and unfortunate. That really might make an 8 module Bulldozer chip notably superior. Of course, in fairness, MWO shouldn't be requiring four cores and only four cores (runs poorly on less, cares not for more) in the first place. PGI should be getting sufficient optimization in place that having "only" 3 FPUs doesn't hinder performance, and I know they're trying. Of course, given the increasing migration of floating point stuff to GPUs in software, I think games should stop relying on CPU FPUs in the first place.

Even given the issues here, I still think an FX6300 with some OCing should give decent performance. Even a stock 6300 seems to give okay performance. Stock 6300s used to give very good performance before 12v12, as reported by numerous people.

Edited by Catamount, 20 May 2014 - 03:46 AM.

[Goose]

http://www.techreact...d-and-gulftown/

[Catamount]

Someone is sure trying to overcomplicate basic OCing :/

Yes, there are a million settings to fiddle with if you need 5ghz OCs, and aren't satisfied until you've nailed down your CPU stability to the megahert and hundredth of a volt. There are about four settings if you just want a practical performance gain, from either company's chips: multiplier, vcore, vdroop (/loadline calibration/whatever) and memory divider. I honestly don't think a single other thing is necessary to touch, maybe power saving type stuff depending on the type of CPU and method of overclock.

If you want a modest stock-voltage overclock, you can basically mess with one or two settings. I'm usually too lazy to go beyond this with CPUs these days. My C2D E8400's OC amounted to going into the BIOS and turning the FSB from 333 to 400. 3.6ghz was enough until the system was replaced. My 3570k hit 4.2 with a two second change to the turbo multiplier and a small change to loadline calibration, again, for more than enough performance gain. It wouldn't stay stable at 4.3 and I think I started at 4, so call it maybe half an hour of putting in a multiplier, restarting, and running Prime95.

Edited by Catamount, 20 May 2014 - 06:21 AM.

[Lord Letto]

If Sticking with AMD I Would go 8350 or if I were to move away from the FX Series, the Phenom II X6 1100T BE would be nice also, if switching sides to Intel, I would likely go with the I5-4670K.

Edited by Lord Letto, 20 May 2014 - 06:57 AM.

[Smokeyjedi]

I would probably push your UD3 and fx6300 to 4.5+ghz at least(4.8 is totally Achievable with minor fandangling or jimmy rigging(possible <60MM fan on VRM's for stability purposes).................with small voltage increase, load line calibration adjustment and possible ram oc.... depending on what particular stix of DDR3 you own.

My 8350 went from 4.0 to 4.8(24/7OC) to see massive massive improvements alone.......(20-25%overall performance VIA cinebench 11.5)

I went recently from 8gb DDR3 1333 CL7 that was Oc'd to 1502mhz CL8 to a 8GB set of Gskill SNIPER 2133mhz and saw an immediate improvement from just stuffing them into the slots which allowed me to up the RAM multiplier by 2 steps getting me to 2006mhz and boosting performance by almost as much as the original OC (roughly 25%), after 1333DDR3 was my bottleneck...........@ 4.0ghz.

[Odins Fist]

I would OC the CPU you have, anything past the FX-8350 is a waste of time and money, you might have to add water cooling to your current CPU (recommended) if you do anything other then a very mild overclock. The FX- 8 core series CPUs like lots of power to run them at higher clocks, and with higher power usage/clocks comes crazy heat with the FX-series 8 cores.. I'm still saving my money for an upgrade from my Phenom II x6 1100t, I decided to just skip the FX- series CPUs and switch over to intel, but that has been a while in the making, and saving the cash for what I want is the issue, just when I put together a list of things, I see something that I could save a little longer for and go with. That and unforeseen bills... I'm literally starting completely over with a build, only thing i'm saving is the Case and CPU waterblock.

Edited by Odins Fist, 20 May 2014 - 12:18 PM.