I'm rocking a new AM3+ mobo w/ a 965BE... should I upgrade?

P

Pyrex238

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 12, 2006
Messages
274
I upgraded my board to an AM3+ board in anticipation of the BD....which really let me down. Should I consider an upgrade? Will it give me any fps benefits in bf3 for instance? I have a GTX 650Ti. It would seem the bottleneck is neither my processor or video, but would I stand to gain anything moving to a 1100T, or should I stick in there for the next amd processors?
 
Pyrex238 said:
I upgraded my board to an AM3+ board in anticipation of the BD....which really let me down. Should I consider an upgrade? Will it give me any fps benefits in bf3 for instance? I have a GTX 650Ti. It would seem the bottleneck is neither my processor or video, but would I stand to gain anything moving to a 1100T, or should I stick in there for the next amd processors?
Click to expand...

If you can get a processor from the future like you did with that 650Ti I say go for it. ;)

Really though, may as well wait for Piledriver if your main goal is gaming.
 
In my opinion jump on a PII X6 BE for wicked cheap if a deal comes during this holiday season or wait for Pile Driver if you want to stay AMD. If you want better performance here and now jump ship to Intel with a 2500K.
 
I am also in need of encouragement to buy a 4module FX.

I have a sempron in a am3+ that just cant handle the stress.
 
No one here is going to encourage you to buy that. If you want to stick with AMD just get a cheap Phenom II X4 and hold out for Pile Driver.
 
You got the AMD setup of choice right now. Overclock it's nads off! :D Too many problems with BD right now and your chip is tried and true.
 
My 650Ti is a total beast. :)

Well, that's good to know. I won the 965BE at quakecon a few years ago and it's been a good chip. Seems like the national past time of AMD gaming is waiting.
 
Pyrex238 said:
I upgraded my board to an AM3+ board in anticipation of the BD....which really let me down. Should I consider an upgrade? Will it give me any fps benefits in bf3 for instance? I have a GTX 650Ti. It would seem the bottleneck is neither my processor or video, but would I stand to gain anything moving to a 1100T, or should I stick in there for the next amd processors?
Click to expand...

BD is fun if you can keep it cool in the 4.5+ GHz/1.45v range. At lower clockspeeds one of the older chips will give you better single-threaded performance.

Say what you will, I'm happy with my 8120 @ 5GHz. :)
 
DeathFromBelow said:
BD is fun if you can keep it cool in the 4.5+ GHz/1.45v range. At lower clockspeeds one of the older chips will give you better single-threaded performance.

Say what you will, I'm happy with my 8120 @ 5GHz. :)
Click to expand...

Same here, working like a champ.
 
DeathFromBelow said:
BD is fun if you can keep it cool in the 4.5+ GHz/1.45v range. At lower clockspeeds one of the older chips will give you better single-threaded performance.

Say what you will, I'm happy with my 8120 @ 5GHz. :)
Click to expand...

I am pretty happy with my 2500K at 4.8 GHz :). I still cannot believe I bought a 990X board for BD in the summer, just happy I returned it.
 
R-Type said:
If you can get a processor from the future like you did with that 650Ti I say go for it. ;)

Really though, may as well wait for Piledriver if your main goal is gaming.
Click to expand...
How did BD let you down? You couldn't run your applications on it?Or you read some one-dimensional review about benchmarks? How about evaluating it for the applications you use and will probably use in the future? How about consider changing your single-tasking methodology of running your computer. You are under-utilizing your machine, your abilities, and your brain in many cases. I am NOT being demeaning here. I am simply asking you to think independently and realize that computers are not merely gaming machines. Even there BD is fine.
 
os2wiz said:
How did BD let you down? You couldn't run your applications on it?Or you read some one-dimensional review about benchmarks? How about evaluating it for the applications you use and will probably use in the future? How about consider changing your single-tasking methodology of running your computer. You are under-utilizing your machine, your abilities, and your brain in many cases. I am NOT being demeaning here. I am simply asking you to think independently and realize that computers are not merely gaming machines. Even there BD is fine.
Click to expand...

I use a BD system as my render station and it annihilates even the i7 2600k on vray raytracing. The processor is fast, damn fast for the money. However I think the problem with the BD is AMD failed to focus on optimizing their architecture, and missed the point on what the customer is interested in. Single threaded performance is important, you shouldn't have to change the way you work to accommodate a product. That is AMD's shortcoming and it should have been addressed. They came so far but dropped the ball on something so obvious in my opinion. But, I'm not worried, I expect they will learn from their mistake.
 
I know I'm gonna get beat down for this but if I had an AM3+ board, I'd have no qualms about buying an 8120, a good cooler and then having fun overclocking the crap out of it. Yeah its not as fast as Sandy Bridge but its still pretty fast and you've already got the motherboard. If you were building from scratch I'd say no to BD but for an existing AMD setup, I don't think there is nothing wrong with picking up a FX chip.
 
Pyrex do you have another BD system or did you go get a hold of one since last night? lol
 
MacLeod said:
I know I'm gonna get beat down for this but if I had an AM3+ board, I'd have no qualms about buying an 8120, a good cooler and then having fun overclocking the crap out of it. Yeah its not as fast as Sandy Bridge but its still pretty fast and you've already got the motherboard. If you were building from scratch I'd say no to BD but for an existing AMD setup, I don't think there is nothing wrong with picking up a FX chip.
Click to expand...

I think the primary concern is you shell out the scrilla for an 8120, and then 3 months later the PD comes out and for the same price you get a hell of a lot faster chip.
 
Pyrex238 said:
I upgraded my board to an AM3+ board in anticipation of the BD....which really let me down. Should I consider an upgrade? Will it give me any fps benefits in bf3 for instance? I have a GTX 650Ti. It would seem the bottleneck is neither my processor or video, but would I stand to gain anything moving to a 1100T, or should I stick in there for the next amd processors?
Click to expand...

I like bulldozer but in this scenario it sounds like throwing $190-$220 away for an 8120. Overclock the 965 and see what you think from there.
 
os2wiz said:
How did BD let you down? You couldn't run your applications on it?Or you read some one-dimensional review about benchmarks? How about evaluating it for the applications you use and will probably use in the future? How about consider changing your single-tasking methodology of running your computer. You are under-utilizing your machine, your abilities, and your brain in many cases. I am NOT being demeaning here. I am simply asking you to think independently and realize that computers are not merely gaming machines. Even there BD is fine.
Click to expand...

After reading all of your posts I can only conclude that a. You work for amd b. You have stock in AMD. c. Both a and b.

Seriously though, you should heed your own advice, how is bd a let down?, because people compare it to the 2500k because of price and release date, 2500k takes bd out to mcdonalds, lets it order 1 thing off the dollar menu, drives bd to a secluded area, thus saving money on a cheap motel, and rear-ends bd with extreme prejudice. Youd have to HATE (or be off your rocker) intel to go the bd route when the 2500k is out there.
 
I'd hang in there I'm on AM3+ but I'm waiting for something better to turn up (might be waiting a while)
 
I'm in the same boat...my 965 @ 3.9ghz is still decent. I really hope the phenoms and vishera for AM3+ will be better than at least intels 2700K.
 
Deltief said:
After reading all of your posts I can only conclude that:
a.) You work for AMD
b.) You have stock in AMD
c.) Both a and b


Seriously though, you should heed your own advice, how is BD a let down?

Because it's been compared to the 2500k in just about every arena including price and power use. The conclusion are unanimous that the 2500k takes BD out to McDonald's, lets it order 1 thing off the dollar menu, drives BD to a secluded area thus saving money on a cheap motel, and butt fucks BD with extreme prejudice and no lube...then steals and eats the dollar menu item. You'd have to HATE intel (or be off your rocker) to go the BD route when the 2500k is out there for about the same price as the 8120 and much cheaper than the 8150.
Click to expand...

Agreed to an extent: for those that invested heavily in the AM3+ platform prior to BD's release with high hopes, BD is still a viable upgrade as long as applications are being used that will utilize it over whatever is currently parked in the motherboard socket. For those that are building a system ground-up or performing a complete upgrade (architecture/socket change if the old system is that old... like my system), then 1155 becomes a very clear choice, imo.
 
Aside from the problems that occurred with Steam games not working, BD still runs games at an acceptable frame right, doesn't it?

My thoughts are, if you're someone that has been anticipating BD, and thus took the appropriate steps to easily upgrade to a BD cpu, i.e. buying an AM3+ mobo. Just because another processor similarly priced is "technically" faster (at least in games) and arguably more cpu for your dollar (again, the dominant reason has to do with gaming speeds). If the BD cpu can run games at a stable frame rate that will allow the person to play the game the same as someone on an Intel setup only with less fps, but more than playable fps, but on the other hand be faster at some of the multi-threaded applications... Well how is that so bad? A lot of people don't care if their machine breaks records. I'm one of them. Rather than having the fastest out there, I want my PC to do what I want it to do without a problem, obviously with some future proofing to it.

The two arguments I see being made is Sandy Bridge basically beats BD at everything gaming. (Minus BF3, for the love of god I'm sick of hearing about that game and AMD together) But AMD is better at some multi-threaded applications. All in all, it doesn't sound like BD is that bad to me, at least not already having some of hardware to drop one in.

Am I missing something here? If BD doesn't play games at acceptable fps, then sure, I can see the real problem here. And please the save the bang for your buck argument, as I do agree that the i5 2500k is more bang for your buck. Unless that is the underlining reason for going Intel right now, bang for you buck?
 
Last edited:
I say why not. If youve got the money to spend on a 8120 then you might as well get one since youve already bought the AM3+ motherboard. Your 965 overclocked should be able to handle any gaming duties youll throw at it but so will the 8120 and itll probably overclock better so if you enjoy that, then you can have some fun with it. If you dont have the $200 to spare, then pass it up because it wont really make that much of a performance difference unless youre doing a lot of video encoding and such.

Yes Sandy Bridge is better. Yes BD was considered a failure because its only marginally faster than its predecessor so if you were building a new rig from scratch, go Intel. Since youve already got the AM3+, go for it. It might not be as fast as Sandy Bridge but itll still be plenty fast enough.
 
I've done a lot of benching of my 8150 @ 4.6ghz I have also been comparing it to my buddies Phenom 2 X4 965 @4.0ghz. Mine is ALWAYS faster, sometimes marginal, sometimes by a large margin. So, is it an guaranteed upgrade compared to a 965BE? Yes, if you overclock it. Can it make a big difference? Yes, depending on what you use it for. Even in a game like ARMA 2 that uses 1.5 cores I was able to pull ahead by 25% in one of the benchmarks compared to my buddies 965BE. It all depends on what games/programs you use and how the FX chip may improve your experience, do your research and find out where BD chips work well and see if it applies to what you need. If you can wait, wait.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top