upgrade phenom ii x4 955 BE to FX? or something else

[UkayJ]

Hi, I'm not happy with my pc anymore, not sure exactly why but I think it may be to do with the fact I only seem to be able to OC phenom ii x4 955BE to 3.671GHz @ 1.4375v.

I have a GTX 1050Ti OC'ed +175MHz core, 1000MHz memory in afterburner (no increase in volts)

custom cpu water loop, the inside of the cpu block has crumbled inside from the heat over the years but it's still cooling successfully, would like to replace with full copper one day.

mobo is Asrock 970M pro3 (a review on Actually Hardcore Overclocking says it pretty good, best Micro ATX board for AM3 socket anyway)

1600MHz RAM (2 very similar pairs from Corsair but timings are +/-1 of each other)

I don't have much to spend, at all, shouldn't be spending anything really, but I'm going to. Lets say my budget is £50 give or take, so I am going the second hand route.

For my budget I could get an FX series cpu online. Don't know how many cores games actually use nowadays so 4, 6 or 8 core? I know I'd like a 95W cpu as they seem to OC just the same as the 125W ones so why not.

It's purely a gaming computer.

Any positive advice welcome.

 

[orbitalwalsh]

its a shame you couldn't invest more - even entry Ryzen handles a FX 8 core chip with future room to upgrade .

kept it the same vendor as you liked ASRock - Normally pro Gigabyte but each to their own .


My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x AMD Ryzen 3 Quad Core 1200 3.40GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £89.99
• 1 x Asrock AB350M-HDV AMD B350 (Socket AM4) DDR4 Micro ATX Motherboard= £56.99
• 1 x Team Group Dark T-Force 8GB (2x4GB) DDR4 PC4-24000C16 3000MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black/Grey (TDGED48= £98.99

Total: £256.47 (includes shipping: £10.50)​

​

though im sure you should be able to pick up a good deal for FX chip/combo as a lot would have moved to Ryzen is AMD fans or coffeelake for power.

 

[UkayJ]

my first board/s were Gigabyte, then recently an Asus but I wanted to go micro ATX, this was the only one available that would fit my cpu, I too wish I had enough money to avoid Asrock as I'm not a fan but it appears to get pretty good OC results using FX cpu's.

Ryzen is a whole new socket though, if I was to keep this mobo then an FX would be a big upgrade, one day I'll be able to go for a whole new mobo/cpu/ram set up but for now it pretty much has to be one or the other (whichever will give me biggest performance boost) and I think the 9 year old phenom ii is holding everything back, I think.

First question is : how many cores do games actually use nowadays? Planetside 2 is the most demanding game I have but that's mostly due to the coding of the game from what I've read. Overwatch is the one to play at high FPS on max settings which I think the 1050Ti can do but I think an FX cpu will help, plus I would hope to OC it to what everyone else is achieving.

 

[orbitalwalsh]

my first board/s were Gigabyte, then recently an Asus but I wanted to go micro ATX, this was the only one available that would fit my cpu, I too wish I had enough money to avoid Asrock as I'm not a fan but it appears to get pretty good OC results using FX cpu's.

Ryzen is a whole new socket though, if I was to keep this mobo then an FX would be a big upgrade, one day I'll be able to go for a whole new mobo/cpu/ram set up but for now it pretty much has to be one or the other (whichever will give me biggest performance boost) and I think the 9 year old phenom ii is holding everything back, I think.

First question is : how many cores do games actually use nowadays? Planetside 2 is the most demanding game I have but that's mostly due to the coding of the game from what I've read. Overwatch is the one to play at high FPS on max settings which I think the 1050Ti can do but I think an FX cpu will help, plus I would hope to OC it to what everyone else is achieving.

its not so much core amount or speed but the quality of the chips IPC and then IMC that have the biggest impact ! ryzen caught the attention of it could match intel Kabylake in gaming , offer more cores for applications such as Video encoding and smash intel mainstream whilst being cheaper!

Gigabyte and asus for my self personally, Gigabytes rep presence on here grabs a lot of love

food for though, plenty of videos out their but basic entry budget ryzen vs almost flagship FX 8 core ship 8370. running 720p for max cpu stress

not actually sure what the going rate is of the FX 8370 is now

 

[UkayJ]

hmm great video from this guy, not seen him before but for me to go to anything except an FX series I would need a new mobo, cpu, ram and cpu block, looking at £200-£300...or for 17.6 FPS and about £50 less I could go for an FX 8 series cpu that'll just plug straight in, and his FX wasn't OC'ed so it'd close that gap right up if not surpass it.

Thanks for your input but I think it's not worth for me to save up/wait to buy a Ryzen set up, that guy even had an Overwatch benchmark that proved an FX cpu is more than capable of increasing my FPS and I think it'll lower the temps produced too.

Also when I'm overclocking it'd feel a whole lot more satisfying if I got into the 5GHz range with an Intel rather than 4GHz with an AMD cpu so when the time comes I might actually switch over to Intel for the first time in 15 years, plus I've read they're better for gaming which is all I want from my PC.

 

[EsaT]

Also when I'm overclocking it'd feel a whole lot more satisfying if I got into the 5GHz range with an Intel rather than 4GHz with an AMD cpu

You would need to get those FX Faildozers to 6+ GHz for it to match Ryzen.
And by then power consumption would be close to causing that reactorcore meltdown...
Ryzen likely has 2/3 higher instructions per clock performance that those Faildozers when it's 50% ahead of last Bulldozer derivates.

Bulldozer was literally AMD's NetBurst/Pentium 4 and per clock slower than Phenom II.