Advice on new Motherboard and CPU

[Kanoe]

Hi Guys

Thought I would enlist the help of the experts to help me decide on a new Mobo and CPU combo for my PC. The main thing is the budget I got approx £330 for these 2 parts (yes I am aware that i will need new RAM ala DDR3 but have kept £70 aside for that and that selection will be pretty static regardless of the CPU/Mobo combo).

A selection of details about my current system are below:

CPU: Q8200 @ 3GHz
Mobo: X48 Asus P5 Deluxe
GFX: 2x Ati 5870 in Crossfire
Sound: SB X-Fi (PCI slot card)
PSU: 950W Sapphire
Monitor: Dell 2410U 1920 x 1200

For the budget I have seen these as the main options:

AMD X6 1100 or 1090 Black editions plus an AM3+ mobo
AMD BD 8120 plus an AM3+ mobo
Intel core i5 2500k plus 1155 mobo (prolly a Z68 variety)
Intel core i7 2600k plus 1155 mobo (prolly a Z68 variety)

Only additional requirement is that mobo must have a free PCI slot free with 2x 2 slot taking GFX cards in it.

Main PC usages are for gaming (BF3 now most noteably whose performance seems to be limited by my CPU and sub system rather than GFX currently) and converting various vid files to go on my Atrix (using Handbrake currently).

Thanks in advance for the help.

Kanoe

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Hi Guys

Thought I would enlist the help of the experts to help me decide on a new Mobo and CPU combo for my PC. The main thing is the budget I got approx £330 for these 2 parts (yes I am aware that i will need new RAM ala DDR3 but have kept £70 aside for that and that selection will be pretty static regardless of the CPU/Mobo combo).

A selection of details about my current system are below:

CPU: Q8200 @ 3GHz
Mobo: X48 Asus P5 Deluxe
GFX: 2x Ati 5870 in Crossfire
Sound: SB X-Fi (PCI slot card)
PSU: 950W Sapphire
Monitor: Dell 2410U 1920 x 1200

For the budget I have seen these as the main options:

AMD X6 1100 or 1090 Black editions plus an AM3+ mobo
AMD BD 8120 plus an AM3+ mobo
Intel core i5 2500k plus 1155 mobo (prolly a Z68 variety)
Intel core i7 2600k plus 1155 mobo (prolly a Z68 variety)

Only additional requirement is that mobo must have a free PCI slot free with 2x 2 slot taking GFX cards in it.

Main PC usages are for gaming (BF3 now most noteably whose performance seems to be limited by my CPU and sub system rather than GFX currently) and converting various vid files to go on my Atrix (using Handbrake currently).

Thanks in advance for the help.

Kanoe

Have you tried overclocking your Q8300 some more? BF3 does not seem to be very CPU heavy according to many reviews.

Any of the CPUs you have mentioned will run BF3 fine even with an HD6990.

The Core i5 2500K and Phenom II X6 1090T are the two CPUs worth considering. The Core i5 2500K has better performance in lightly threaded games using legacy engines and has Quick Sync which is a good feature for lower quality encodes although the software is not free.

The Phenom II X6 1090T seems to do reasonably well in games using newer engines and is quicker than a Core i5 2500K in HandBrake:

http://forums.hexus.net/pc-hardware/...ded-power.html

In Rage which uses the new idTech 5 engine it is actually faster than a Core i5 2500K and also seems to do quite well in BF3. However,the Core i5 2500K is a safer choice overall.

I would check this thread for motherboard suggestions:
http://forums.hexus.net/search.php?searchid=4126949

[Kanoe]

Thanks for the reply. The Q8200 is a 333*7 processor which i have running at 433*7 currently but I haven't managed to get it any higher (had always felt that I had done ok with the speed I got it to). Limitation might be my RAM which is running at effective 866 (only rated to 800) that cant take it higher (divisors on the board mean i cant get it lower than 2.00 times FSB) or possibly something else.

Feeling behind CPU holding it back a little is that in Crossfire my GPU's are at 75% util each whilst the CPU is 100% maxed acrossed all 4 cores in game but with just 1 card running GPU is 100% whilst CPU is down at 80%.

You dont feel there is must to be gained by going for a say a Core i7 with cheaper mobo over the i5 with more spent on the mobo?

Given that it is going to be another 2+ years before I upgrade again is the Bulldozer not worth a punt that it will come good with some software fixes and for Windows 8 esp with some good overclocking headroom?

[shaithis]

Those numbers would lead me to conclude the same. My i7 950 @ 3.8GHz maxes at around 90-95% on all 4 cores (HT Disabled) with a slightly overclocked GTX580.

Which is all odd as I have seen more then 1 "BF3 performance analysis" that states dual core maxes it :S

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Thanks for the reply. The Q8200 is a 333*7 processor which i have running at 433*7 currently but I haven't managed to get it any higher (had always felt that I had done ok with the speed I got it to). Limitation might be my RAM which is running at effective 866 (only rated to 800) that cant take it higher (divisors on the board mean i cant get it lower than 2.00 times FSB) or possibly something else.

Feeling behind CPU holding it back a little is that in Crossfire my GPU's are at 75% util each whilst the CPU is 100% maxed acrossed all 4 cores in game but with just 1 card running GPU is 100% whilst CPU is down at 80%.

You dont feel there is must to be gained by going for a say a Core i7 with cheaper mobo over the i5 with more spent on the mobo?

Given that it is going to be another 2+ years before I upgrade again is the Bulldozer not worth a punt that it will come good with some software fixes and for Windows 8 esp with some good overclocking headroom?

The thing is are your framerates fine?? If they are then don't worry. Upgrade only when your framerates start to become rubbish and it is not down to the GPU,drivers or a RAM limitation.

The FX8150 will no doubt get better with improved software and OS support but the Phenom II X6 1090T will probably have similar performance in games in the next few years IMHO and is £70 to £80 cheaper. On top of this a newer B3 revision of the FX series is in the works and Piledriver will be released next year. The main issue with BD is the FlexFP FPU is not performing as well as many people predicted it to be. I suspect Piledriver will at least improve FPU performance which will be important for gaming.

Regarding the Core i7,at its current price it is a waste of money for gaming. Remember you can get a cheaper motherboard and the Core i5 too. It has the main advantage of faster cores over a Phenom II X6 meaning it is a safer bet and will do well in games which are based on legacy engines(the majority ATM).