Should I upgrade to AMD FX? Thoughts?

[XtremeDS]

If he does want to play BF3 and crysis 2... well, that is simply another story and I don't have much against the X4. You could use a better CPU in sake of future but it really isn't necessary.

 

However, I wouldn't go to intel since you got a board with a 990FX chipset. If I have a new board that supports at least the new coming Piledriver and probably even the next-gen CPU after piledriver, why would I go to a board 1155 that won't accept even the coming Haswel? Unless of course, you change your board every year or two in two years. Well, in this case, you would even need to change CPU.

 

I am in a VERY similar situation here. I do want to upgrade my CPU (I feel that my X2 unlcked to 3 cores at 3.7 GHz isn't enough already) this summer and definitly wouldn't go to intel since I already spent a good money in my ROG. What I am probably going to do is wait for reviews from the engineer sample from the Piledriver to make my decision between a piledriver or a FX-8150. The AMD trinity is already piledriver and has brought a difference of 10% to the bulldozer, but its a APU, not a CPU, so no big conclusions can be made.

Edited June 14, 2012 by XtremeDS

[Tjj226_Angel]

If he does want to play BF3 and crysis 2... well, that is simply another story and I don't have much against the X4. You could use a better CPU in sake of future but it really isn't necessary.

 

However, I wouldn't go to intel since you got a board with a 990FX chipset. If I have a new board that supports at least the new coming Piledriver and probably even the next-gen CPU after piledriver, why would I go to a board 1155 that won't accept even the coming Haswel? Unless of course, you change your board every year or two in two years. Well, in this case, you would even need to change CPU.

 

I am in a VERY similar situation here. I do want to upgrade my CPU (I feel that my X2 unlcked to 3 cores at 3.7 GHz isn't enough already) this summer and definitly wouldn't go to intel since I already spent a good money in my ROG. What I am probably going to do is wait for reviews from the engineer sample from the Piledriver to make my decision between a piledriver or a FX-8150. The AMD trinity is already piledriver and has brought a difference of 10% to the bulldozer, but its a APU, not a CPU, so no big conclusions can be made.

 

I never said you should go to intel, I was just remarking that intel chips were better for gaming currently. Like I said previously, your logic about the whole AM3+ motherboard and everything is great and obviously it works for you in your situation.

 

However, I don't think the OP needs a 8150 juuuuuuuuuust yet. If piledriver is actually any good, the OP might want to just to that however.

 

But Xtreme, I don't mean to burst your bubble, but you might want to sell that motherboard before it looses anymore value. One of my AMD contacts say that pile driver is just going to be a polished turd. It is basically BD except they fixed some of the calculations per clock issues they were having. While AMD is catching up to where they were supposed to be months ago, intel keeps moving forward, and the rest of the game world is too.

 

I am not going to tell you what to do or anything like that, but it might be a smart decision to save your money and go to haswell for an upgrade.

[Boinker]

Hi everyone, I am new to this site and I would like to get some opinions on upgrading to AMD's FX CPUs. I know they haven't received much praise, if any, but I am considering upgrading from an old Phenom II X4 955 that runs really hot in my NZXT H2 case. I know this will spark a fanboy war, but keep your thoughts to yourselves, I could care less about what intel fans have to say. Should I wait for AMD's next release?

 

Be more respectful. Alot of our guys that are using Intel have valid opinions. As for sparking a Fanboy war, Its you that are starting it.

 

Regards,

 

Boinker, OCC mod staff.

[XtremeDS]

If its just to play BF3, Crysis 2 and a few games, well, you don't really need a FX-8150 or a 2500k. After all, the X4 955 was actually kind of popular for gaming some time ago.

 

I have heard the same about the Piledriver about it being a simple "update" in the bulldozer. From what I read, it should be only 10 % better... but it won't be only 10% more expensive.

 

Selling my board now to get a haswel later, its a good idea but I think that don't really need that much. In fact, I would probably get an even better result in performance changeing my Sata II 320 GB HDD to a 128 GB SSD than changeing my CPU to a FX-8150.

[Shredalicious42]

I do play quite a few games, mainly BF3 and most recently Diablo 3, for a few hours at a time. I plan on changing the stock case fans to improve airflow, I notice that the front intake fans move some air, but the air doesnt seem to make it past the hard drives well, seems like the GPU is not getting enough air as well as my Antec 620 cpu cooler. I have 2 fans on the small radiator and it still has skewed temps. I will consider the 8150 perhaps next paycheck, it is down to $209.99 CAD at the moment.

[Shredalicious42]

While I understand your logic, I do not think that is the OP's best option. The truth is that the 955 x4 chip can play BF3 and crysis 2 pretty well. Since I have yet to see a more demanding game (keep in mind, I am not all that big of a gamer so please don't crucify me if I don't know what THE most demanding game is) I would say that the 955 chips should stay in his PC.

 

Aside from the OP, the i5 2500K is a better chip than the 8150 most of the time. The i5 2500K in the us I can usually find for the same price as the 8150 so given a choice (for gaming in particular), the i5 2500K is going to be a better choice since clock performance is going to be more important than cores.

 

@ the OP: Those temps are a tad higher than what they should be if you are using the antec cooler. It is not abnormal, so it is nothing to go on a massive witch hunt, but they could probably be dropped a few degrees with some minor adjustments.

 

I would go into BIOS and see what your CPU voltage is set to, then go into the OS and see what your voltage is doing in CPU-Z. If your voltage is bouncing around a lot I would try to manually set it to the stock voltage.

 

You could try to get some better TIM and use that, and I would replace the fans on the cooler you are using. The cougar fans we showed you on the other thread would be a good fit.

 

Lastly (and this is just a theory) it is possible that you are putting strain on your CPU by not running your ram in dual channel mode. The extra strain could be forcing your CPU to draw more power and as a consequence produces more heat. I do not know if that happens on AMD builds, but that was happening when I had my 1366 build and I had all sorts of weird ram crammed on there. Like I said though, it is just a theory.

 

Im going fan shopping this weekend and I will see what I can do, plan to replace the 2 front intake and the fans I am using on the CPU cooler. I'll post the results when it is done.

[Shredalicious42]

I might consider the 8150 mainly because it offers the closest comparisons to the 2500k in some instances outperforming it, and the price is around $210 at the moment. But part of me still remains hesitant...

[XtremeDS]

Have you overclocked your X4? How much Mhz is it doing right?

 

One odd thing I noticed is that in your sig, it says you have 12 GB ram... it is 3 dimms, isn't it? Since the 990FX board is double channel, and you have 3 dimms, the ram should be in single channel I think.

Edited June 15, 2012 by XtremeDS

[Waco]

I might consider the 8150 mainly because it offers the closest comparisons to the 2500k in some instances outperforming it, and the price is around $210 at the moment. But part of me still remains hesitant...

In gaming it'll be the same speed or slower than your X4...

[Shredalicious42]

While I understand your logic, I do not think that is the OP's best option. The truth is that the 955 x4 chip can play BF3 and crysis 2 pretty well. Since I have yet to see a more demanding game (keep in mind, I am not all that big of a gamer so please don't crucify me if I don't know what THE most demanding game is) I would say that the 955 chips should stay in his PC.

 

Aside from the OP, the i5 2500K is a better chip than the 8150 most of the time. The i5 2500K in the us I can usually find for the same price as the 8150 so given a choice (for gaming in particular), the i5 2500K is going to be a better choice since clock performance is going to be more important than cores.

 

@ the OP: Those temps are a tad higher than what they should be if you are using the antec cooler. It is not abnormal, so it is nothing to go on a massive witch hunt, but they could probably be dropped a few degrees with some minor adjustments.

 

I would go into BIOS and see what your CPU voltage is set to, then go into the OS and see what your voltage is doing in CPU-Z. If your voltage is bouncing around a lot I would try to manually set it to the stock voltage.

 

You could try to get some better TIM and use that, and I would replace the fans on the cooler you are using. The cougar fans we showed you on the other thread would be a good fit.

 

Lastly (and this is just a theory) it is possible that you are putting strain on your CPU by not running your ram in dual channel mode. The extra strain could be forcing your CPU to draw more power and as a consequence produces more heat. I do not know if that happens on AMD builds, but that was happening when I had my 1366 build and I had all sorts of weird ram crammed on there. Like I said though, it is just a theory.

 

Ok I checked my voltages and they line up, I did however tweak around with power settings for High Performance, it appears that the minimum processor state was set to 100%, so I moved it to 5% to allow the CPU to change its clock automatically because according to CPUID, the CPU was running at 3.2GHz all the time, it was never adjusting the clock speed to its workload. Interesting...as well the new Spectre Pro fans have helped a lot, and my system is incredibly quiet when the fan speeds are at their lowest.

[Transk53]

In gaming it'll be the same speed or slower than your X4...

 

Forgive me if I am being a little thick here, is that because of being 8 cores?

[Waco]

Forgive me if I am being a little thick here, is that because of being 8 cores?

No it's because the single-threaded performance of the FX series is a pretty big step back from the Phenom 2.