What to do?

[AceDeAce]

Hey lads.

 

So I'm in a bit of a pickle. My current rig (Phenom II 955 @ 3.8, 6850 crossfire) is getting on my nerves with the lacklustre performance/support of Crossfire. That and it seems my CPU is beginning to degrade makes for very annoying performance overall.

 

Tribes Ascend barely scales and BF3 maxes out the CPU creating a bottleneck. I should have the graphical grunt to run at 60+ FPS on high at least, bu thats not the case.

 

So.

 

Should I invest in a CPU/Mobo upgrade to get rid of the bottleneck or just sell this rig and go for a new, single GPU set up? If I sell, I would need to get my hands on a 500GB HDD and Windows 7 to sell on Trademe.

 

I would ideally like to stay AMD but its pretty stupid to do that at this point in time, so it would be a 2500K/Z68 upgrade.

 

What do you think? Which path would be better? Plus, how much do you think I could get for my current rig in NZD?

[Waco]

How do you know your CPU is the bottleneck in BF3? What resolution/settings are you running? What driver version?

[AceDeAce]

From memory, its mostly medium at 1920x1080 and 12.3/4.

[Waco]

How do you know it's a CPU bottleneck though? Generally CPUs aren't too differentiated in BF3 at higher settings and resolutions. http://www.techspot.com/review/448-battlefield-3-beta-performance/page7.html

[AceDeAce]

Im just assuming it is, since all cores sit at 95-100% at all times when I play. It didnt use to do that when I had a 5850...

[AceDeAce]

I was thinking along the lines of Crossfire being the cause for the bottleneck, and perhaps getting the more powerful 2500K could resolve it. But then the issues with Crossfire itself, and games not properly supporting it etc made me consider just upgrading everything and going for a more powerful single gpu setup.

[Waco]

I don't think you've got any real significant bottleneck due to your CPU or your GPUs being in Crossfire. BF3 is just a particularly stressful game and it drags even the best setups down when playing online.

[AceDeAce]

Really? I know the CPU is degrading - physics scores in 3DMark11 have steadily dropped - could this be having an effect like what Im getting in BF3?

[Waco]

Really? I know the CPU is degrading - physics scores in 3DMark11 have steadily dropped - could this be having an effect like what Im getting in BF3?

CPUs don't "degrade" in performance. They're either stable or they're not at a certain speed.

 

If your scores are dropping it's due to something else entirely.

[AceDeAce]

I thought they did, thats why tCase temps were important. Or does that refer to the physical degradation of the CPU and not refer to performance in anyway?

 

I'll post some scores up tonight when I get home to show you what I mean.

[Waco]

Physical degradation not performance.

[AceDeAce]

Physical degradation not performance.

 

Ah right.

 

So you dont think my CPU is bottlenecking but rather some outside cause?