Piledriver worth the upgrade from a Phenom II?

S

Silent Ricochet

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Quick PC Specs:

  • Processor: AMD Phenom II X3 720 BE, 4th Core Unlocked @3.2GHz
  • Motherboard: Gigabyte MA790X-UD4P
  • Memory: G.Skill DDR2 PC-6400 2x2GB @800MHz 4-4-4-12
  • Video Card: AMD Radeon HD6950 OC

I mostly only play Battlefield 3, and maybe the new Need for Speed game when it's released. But I have noticed that my PC is getting a little outdated, especially when exiting demanding programs. Exiting Battlefield 3 takes sometimes 15 seconds in which time my system is completely useless. I've had to install, ashamedly, an SD card for Windows ReadyBoost, which has surprisingly helped a bit. The reason I don't have better memory is that this motherboard only supports DDR2 Memory, and worst of all, the memory I currently have is PC-8500, and my motherboard doesn't play nice with it for some odd reason.

Bulldozer was extremely disappointing, but Piledriver seems a bit more promising. I've looked at benchmarks but I haven't seen many that compares Piledriver to Phenom II. I essentially have a Phenom II X4 955, would it be worth it to upgrade to a new Piledriver FX-4300? I plan on purchasing a new motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-990XA-UD3, and new set of memory: G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800), to go along with it.

Opinions? Full specs in my signature, any feedback is appreciated!

Thanks in advance,
Silent Ricochet
 
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ID go for the FX6300 because for ~15 dollars you get one extra "core"/2 threads remember tho like the bulldozer chips you need to OC the crap out of them to get your monies worth very eary benchmarks show the piledriver chips capable of 4.5GZ+ on air
that said the 8GB DDR3 and AM3+ board would probably make all the difference in the world you could always buy a FX chip later on
you are bottle-necking your Phenom II with that garbage board ;)
get the UD3 and the ram and hold off on replacing the proc for awhile
 
The problems you experience are because of low memory mostly, there is no other reason than low memory when your system is frozen for 15 sec after quitting game
 
I don't know.

If you're considering a platform upgrade, I really think it would be in your best interest to go intel at this point.

There are a number of decent Z77 boards in the $100-$125 range, RAM price would be the same, and the only part that would be significantly more expensive would be the CPU, depending on your choice. Even then, the difference in price would be more than made up for by the increase in performance.

If you already had an AM3+ board it might be a different story, but in your case, I really don't think AMD is your best option.
 
cerwinvega said:
I don't know.

If you're considering a platform upgrade, I really think it would be in your best interest to go intel at this point.

There are a number of decent Z77 boards in the $100-$125 range, RAM price would be the same, and the only part that would be significantly more expensive would be the CPU, depending on your choice. Even then, the difference in price would be more than made up for by the increase in performance.

If you already had an AM3+ board it might be a different story, but in your case, I really don't think AMD is your best option.
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Pretty much this, if you're buying an entire new core setup anyway.
 
cerwinvega said:
I don't know.

If you're considering a platform upgrade, I really think it would be in your best interest to go intel at this point.

There are a number of decent Z77 boards in the $100-$125 range, RAM price would be the same, and the only part that would be significantly more expensive would be the CPU, depending on your choice. Even then, the difference in price would be more than made up for by the increase in performance.

If you already had an AM3+ board it might be a different story, but in your case, I really don't think AMD is your best option.
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That would seem like the most logical step at this point. Being a college student, I don't exactly have a ton of cash to throw around and OneMoar's suggestion is starting to make more and more sense, especially if my CPU truly is being bottlenecked by my motherboard. I recently just turned 21, so I am sitting on a bit of birthday cash, certainly not $350 worth, but a faster mobo and Ram does sound nice.

Onemoar said:
ID go for the FX6300 because for ~15 dollars you get one extra "core"/2 threads remember tho like the bulldozer chips you need to OC the crap out of them to get your monies worth very eary benchmarks show the piledriver chips capable of 4.5GZ+ on air
that said the 8GB DDR3 and AM3+ board would probably make all the difference in the world you could always buy a FX chip later on
you are bottle-necking your Phenom II with that garbage board ;)
get the UD3 and the ram and hold off on replacing the proc for awhile
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This may be my best option as of right now. You really think my Phenom II is being bottlenecked right now?
 
My brother is running a stock 960T (4 cores @ 3.0ghz), GTX 560Ti AMP!, and 8GB of ram. We only recently upgraded the ram from 4GB. Before the upgrade he said BF3 was "lagging" every few seconds. Since the upgrade he hasn't complained about it once. Definitely get 8GBs of ram.

You could just buy the motherboard and ram then plop your current CPU in it(the Gigabyte supports it). If thats enough, great. If not you still have the option to drop a newer cpu in.
 
Silent Ricochet said:
This may be my best option as of right now. You really think my Phenom II is being bottlenecked right now?
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No, I don't think your Phenom II is being "bottlenecked", it would be the video card being "bottlenecked" by the Phenom II.

But, "bottlenecked" is too vague a term, especially when you haven't stated what games you play and more importantly, what resolution you play them at. Because I can tell you right now, the 6950 would be the bottleneck if you were to try and run 3x30" LCDs, and the Phenom II would not be the bottleneck. Of course this is on the extreme end of the spectrum for an example.

Just last week I bought a Biostar H77 motherboard for $85 and it came with 8GB free RAM. There's also this Biostar Z77 board for $88 after a $20 rebate including shipping.

Toss in your $35 choice of RAM and a used 2500k for $160, then you're far under $350.
There's zero reason to buy AMD for gaming right now. It's sad to say. Just get a used 2500k if you want to save some money. It will be some time before it decreases in value as well simply because there's no competition.
 
A Phenom II should be more then capable of running battlefield 3 at whatever settings you please but the ddr2 ram IS hurting you I know for a fact that it does matter because I was running a similar setup going from 4GB of DDR2 to 8GB of ddr3 made a HUGEEEE difference in playable also with a better board and some beefier cooling you could probably oc that phenom II to 3.8
and ignore the fanboy yes Amd is garbage compared to intel but in most gaming tests there is a differnce of about 10-15Fps if you are consistently above 70Fps it won't matter and intels low end boards are junk ....
 
J Macker said:
No, I don't think your Phenom II is being "bottlenecked", it would be the video card being "bottlenecked" by the Phenom II.

But, "bottlenecked" is too vague a term, especially when you haven't stated what games you play and more importantly, what resolution you play them at. Because I can tell you right now, the 6950 would be the bottleneck if you were to try and run 3x30" LCDs, and the Phenom II would not be the bottleneck. Of course this is on the extreme end of the spectrum for an example.

Just last week I bought a Biostar H77 motherboard for $85 and it came with 8GB free RAM. There's also this Biostar Z77 board for $88 after a $20 rebate including shipping.

Toss in your $35 choice of RAM and a used 2500k for $160, then you're far under $350.
There's zero reason to buy AMD for gaming right now. It's sad to say. Just get a used 2500k if you want to save some money. It will be some time before it decreases in value as well simply because there's no competition.
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I play Battlefield 3 in a medley of High and Ultra settings (AA, AF all enabled at 2 or 4x, cant remember), HBAO enabled, all the goodies @ 1680 x 1050 Resolution with incredibly smooth frames and loading times. It's just exiting the program that really brings this computer to it's knees for some odd reason.

I can't really justify spending more money right now for a CPU. Piledriver isn't that impressive to me, and if the performance gains are going to be minimal as evidenced by others in this thread, then why bother? If my main problem is my mainboard and memory, I'd much rather tackle that problem instead if that means I don't need to buy a new CPU. $200 for a rock solid mobo and memory combo doesn't sound that bad to me at all, and certainly sounds better than spending $250+. I just don't game like I used to. I don't sit at my computer for hours chugging Mountain Dew, screaming over ventrilo, and pumping hundreds of dollars into the gaming industry like I did in high school.

As far as I see it. My build is more than capable of handling almost anything I throw at it, but the memory issue and bottlenecking of my more than capable video card has me concerned. Besides the fact that this motherboard has it's few irritating problems that I never bothered to RMA it for like not supporting my memory's stock settings and not waking up from sleep mode.. ever. If I upgrade to a newer AMD motherboard I get all the benefits of a top generation Chipset, with the speed boost of 4 extra GB of ram (not to mention the jump from DDR2 to DDR3). Plus, brand loyalty means something to me. I've had AMD/ATI in this build since 2005 and it's never done me wrong. Intel may have the better processors, but with other things in life taking priority over 12 extra seconds in video encoding, I just can't seem to justify buying an i5, or an Intel for that matter. People buy AMD because it's the best bang for the consumer's buck. I only work as a seasonal employee at my store, inbetween semesters and breaks, so money isn't something that I can be throwing around, especially now that I'm 21 and I'm doing that enough already lol.
 
I understand what you're saying.

Brand loyalty though....heh...look at my sig. I've done my share of supporting AMD. At this point though, the gap has become large enough that remaining loyal to AMD only really results in you having a tangibly slower machine for not very much savings. I wish that were not the case, but alas.

For me it just comes down to that, if you're trying to get the most for your money, that is very rarely going to be in an AMD platform nowadays. Only in very specific usage cases can it really make any sense, and yours is not one of them. Hell, even the SB/IB dual cores with HT can be attractive for usage cases like yours, and mine for that matter. In the end it's completely your choice to make, of course, I just cannot in good faith recommend AMD without a lot of qualifiers added on, that most don't really meet.

Just my opinion.
 
cerwinvega said:
I understand what you're saying.

Brand loyalty though....heh...look at my sig. I've done my share of supporting AMD. At this point though, the gap has become large enough that remaining loyal to AMD only really results in you having a tangibly slower machine for not very much savings. I wish that were not the case, but alas.

For me it just comes down to that, if you're trying to get the most for your money, that is very rarely going to be in an AMD platform nowadays. Only in very specific usage cases can it really make any sense, and yours is not one of them. Hell, even the SB/IB dual cores with HT can be attractive for usage cases like yours, and mine for that matter. In the end it's completely your choice to make, of course, I just cannot in good faith recommend AMD without a lot of qualifiers added on, that most don't really meet.

Just my opinion.
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I see your point.. Looks like I have some shopping around to do. To be completely honest though, due to my complete dedication to AMD builds, I have no idea what I'm looking at Intel Chipset wise. CPU seems a little easier i7>i5>i3 and the model Number next to it, obviously the higher the number the better it is?
 
Get a Z77 or Z75 chipset if you want to overclock.

Otherwise check out this chart:
http://www.techspot.com/guides/519-intel-z77-panther-point-chipset/page2.html

I've been doing great with my Asrock motherboard, there's currently a Z77 on sale at newegg for $115 with 8GB RAM free:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157293

I've also been a big supporter of AMD in the past and would love to recommend them more; but it just doesn't make sense. Like I said earlier, if you want to save some money, buy used gear from a reputable [H] member.

My first build was the original Athlon 550mhz. I paid $300 and was quite happy that it was faster than the P3 600.
Next I had a 1.0Ghz AMD Thunderbird that I overclocked to 1.33Ghz.

I had a Operton 165 and a 2500 Barton in years past. I still have the Phenom II x3 that I bought 4 or 5 years ago. Sure, it works fine, but AMD cpus don't make sense for gamers currently.
 
I would get an SSD first. Your long exit times might be due to a slow hard drive, or as someone suggested, not enough RAM.
 
What if you could just drop a 8350 in your board to replace a PII 945? Do you think a 8350 be a noticeable upgrade over a PII 945 stock vs stock in gaming performance?
 
Jerm357 said:
What if you could just drop a 8350 in your board to replace a PII 945? Do you think a 8350 be a noticeable upgrade over a PII 945 stock vs stock in gaming performance?
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he can't chipset way to old and running a 8350 with ddr2 would be a terrible waste ....
 
No, there are games that are almost exclusively limited by the GPU, and it doesn't really matter how fast the CPU is (well, it does, but only up until a certain point, and a Phenom II @ 3 ghz isn't a limiting factor in most of those games). Then there are games that depend more on the CPU, and the FX-8350 will certainly speed up those games. Piledriver might have an IPC that's lower than Phenom II, but the 1 ghz difference more than makes up for it.
 
Jerm357 said:
So theres actually games out there where a 3ghz PII is faster than a 8350?
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Wait, you have a M5A97 and only do 3GHz? Get that thing overclocked.

Looking at one of the review sites I seen a Farcry 2 at 1900x1200 on a 8350 @ 4.7 only got about 10fps better than a PHII 980BE!!


I went from a M3A78-T (AM2+ 790GX) to a M5A97 Evo (AM3+ 970x). With a 960T I could run 3.9GHz on both boards. Was limited to DDR2 800 speeds with 8GB or ram on the old board. Currently using 8GB DDR3 1600 ram. I wouldn't say it did much for performance wise for me. I did get the mobo/ram for $100 so I cannot complain, got the CPU at the beginning of 2012 for $110.

Best bet is OC that 720 to 3.5 or 3.6 and be happy and save up for Hasewell. If you can find cheap 4gb DDR2 on the cheap grab it. I just seen a sale on some recently. Forget where though.
 
RogueTrip said:
Wait, you have a M5A97 and only do 3GHz? Get that thing overclocked.

Looking at one of the review sites I seen a Farcry 2 at 1900x1200 on a 8350 @ 4.7 only got about 10fps better than a PHII 980BE!!


I went from a M3A78-T (AM2+ 790GX) to a M5A97 Evo (AM3+ 970x). With a 960T I could run 3.9GHz on both boards. Was limited to DDR2 800 speeds with 8GB or ram on the old board. Currently using 8GB DDR3 1600 ram. I wouldn't say it did much for performance wise for me. I did get the mobo/ram for $100 so I cannot complain, got the CPU at the beginning of 2012 for $110.

Best bet is OC that 720 to 3.5 or 3.6 and be happy and save up for Hasewell. If you can find cheap 4gb DDR2 on the cheap grab it. I just seen a sale on some recently. Forget where though.
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He also has the option of waiting for Steamroller with that board.
 
Tsumi said:
I would get an SSD first. Your long exit times might be due to a slow hard drive, or as someone suggested, not enough RAM.
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Thats exactly what i was thinking. You have a quality motherboard, and 4gb of ram seems to be enough. Id get a 128gb SSD for your OS and favorite apps. movies, pictures, etc on the old platter driver for storage.
 
buttons said:
Thats exactly what i was thinking. You have a quality motherboard, and 4gb of ram seems to be enough. Id get a 128gb SSD for your OS and favorite apps. movies, pictures, etc on the old platter driver for storage.
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uh no
that gigabyte board is 3 generations old AND its DDR2
a SSD isn't gonna help BF3 needs a fktonn of ram on high-settings Bf3.exe will use 2GB of ram
the exit time is related to windows trying to `unpage` stuff back into ram
when windows sees that x process is approaching about 80% of physical usage it starts trimming the working set of other processes in a attempt to free up memory when said process exits windows releases some of the memory back cause the pagefile on the drive to get thrashy if there is not enough available ram todo the swapping if this makes the entire system lag like a SOB because you suddenly have a bunch of processes trying to read the page-file at the same time trying to get stuff back into main memory its also why ready boost seems to help solution = add-more ram/memory bandwidth
 
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And if it's a swapping issue, an SSD will help out until he gets more RAM, since transfers are significantly faster on an SSD than a hard drive. Heck, probably even one of the newer 1tb hard drives will be faster than his old one, hard drives haven't exactly stayed stagnant in speed either.
 
Tsumi said:
And if it's a swapping issue, an SSD will help out until he gets more RAM, since transfers are significantly faster on an SSD than a hard drive. Heck, probably even one of the newer 1tb hard drives will be faster than his old one, hard drives haven't exactly stayed stagnant in speed either.
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SSD =200 bucks
ram/motherboard 120
ssd might help hide the problem but its not gonna fix it
 
128gb SSD = $60-80 new, and can be carried over to new build
256gb SSD = $120-140 new, and can be carried over to new build
2x2gb DDR2 RAM = ~$20 used, $50 new

Try again.
 
Jumping into this discussion.. is it worth the upgrade for me?

My current system:
ASUS M5A99X EVO AM3+ AMD 990X
Phenon II X6 @3.8 ghz
AMD 6870
3 x crucial 128GB SSDs in raid 0.

The 8350 'should' work on my motherboard but not sure if its worth the upgrade. Suggestions?
 
Jumping into this discussion.. is it worth the upgrade for me?

My current system:
ASUS M5A99X EVO AM3+ AMD 990X
Phenon II X6 @3.8 ghz
AMD 6870
3 x crucial 128GB SSDs in raid 0.

The 8350 'should' work on my motherboard but not sure if its worth the upgrade. Suggestions?
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Honestly I would upgrade the video card before the processor. Yes a 8320/8350 would be a decent upgrade. Overall though you will get better game performance with a new GPU.
 
There are Z68 and even P67 boards for under $80 dlls that you can couple with a 2500k.
If you don't plan to overclock there are even cheaper alternatives.

I think you can do a respectable upgrade for say ~250 dlls.
 
Some good arguments on here, very interesting.

Here's what I've decided to do:

I found an 8gb SD card and formatted it with exFAT. Plugged it in, set it to ~8GB of dedicated "Windows ReadyBoost". Don't laugh, I thought it was a joke, but it almost completely eliminated my slow downs when exiting BF3, Windows starts a tiny bit faster too, 1-2 seconds according to my stopwatch app on my phone. For $0 I've rectified my problem. I also did some more research on my failed combination of G.Skill ram and Motherboard and took one tech's advice and decided to try something new: Overclocking (?) my memory. Remember, my memory is SUPPOSED to be running @ 1066Mhz 5-5-5-15 Timings, which doesn't work, so I've been running @800Mhz 4-4-4-12 timings instead. I decided to mess with my FSB multiplier, and overclocked my memory to run @900MHz instead with raving results. I sacrificed a .04Ghz drop in CPU clock (basically nothing) and increased my memory clock rates by 100Mhz. Slight increase in memory voltage (.1v), and a slight bump in Northbridge Voltage (another .1v). Now running, tested and stable:

-AMD Phenom II x3 720 - 4th Core unlocked @3.38GHz - Vcore 1.4v
-G.Skill F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK 2x2GB @900Mhz 4-4-4-12 2T - 1.9v
-Gigabyte MA790X-UD4P - Northbridge freq: 2025Mhz, NB Voltage 1.2v

That being said, I still would like to upgrade in the future. For now, I'll wait as my pc still seems plenty capable. Maybe wait for the Black Edition FX-Series CPUs or who knows, maybe I'll purchase my first Intel Platform.
 
See if you can push the NB frequency higher. That might make the system feel snappier.
 
Tsumi said:
See if you can push the NB frequency higher. That might make the system feel snappier.
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Just did some reading and then bumped up my NB frequency to 2475Mhz (from default 2000Mhz). Things do feel a bit snappier as you said but that could just be me. Windows definitely started faster, but the real test will be BF3, which I plan on getting around to a little later. Temps seem well within normal range, and I didn't have to bump up the voltage on anything. So far so good!

EDIT: Just tried BF3, watched a helicopter explode, hopped into a tank, a weird static noise blasted over my speakers for a second, then I pressed W to drive forward and bam! BSOD! Gonna bump up the NB voltage a little bit and see if that does the trick. Any suggestions?

EDIT 2: Still not stable with higher NB voltage. Decided to bring it back to normal for now until I can figure out what's wrong. Help?
 
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Which N.B. voltage have you modified? Was it the C.P.U.-N.B./uncore?
 
L4d said:
Which N.B. voltage have you modified? Was it the C.P.U.-N.B./uncore?
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There's a setting for Northbridge Voltage and then there's another setting for CPU-NB VID Voltage or something. I set the Northbridge to 1.3v after I crashed the first time with no luck. I also bumped up the CPU-NB VID Voltage by the smallest amount possible.

EDIT: Just did some more reading. Apparently NB Voltage shouldn't really be played with, but the CPU-NB VID is what really needs to be adjusted instead. That being said I went back in and set my settings to this:

img20121026144130.jpg


Booted just fine, temps look good, will test BF3 after class. I'm not sure though, do you think it's too high of a bump in NB Frequency? OR am I just doing this completely wrong? haha.
 
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For 2,475MHz, you will most likely need more than one uncore/C.P.U.-N.B. voltage bump.

I too have an unlocked 720 B.E. and an AM2+ Gigabyte motherboard, but my motherboard has but 3+1 phases, so it took several voltage bumps before I could call it stable enough for an 11x multiplier, which is about 2,215MHz, and I used Intel Burn Test to test it because Prime 95 would not catch the last needed bump, if I have recalled this correctly.
 
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