Which cpu to buy? 965, 960T, fx-4100, i3?

[under_clocked]

Longtime lurker here, but my brain is starting to fry from doing research so looking for some help. Long story short, I'm running an athlon 64 x2 2.6GHz on vista 32 w/ 4gb ram (800mhz I think) with a gtx570, which is getting bottlenecked by the cpu horribly. I'm on an MSI motherboard that can't overclock to boot. I've looked around, and have generally come to (based on articles like http://techreport.com/review/23246/inside-the-second-gaming-performance-with-today-cpus/8) deciding between

[phenom 960t] edit: scratch this, can't find for sale anywhere
phenom 965be
fx4100

all of them seem to do better oc'd vs. an i3 oc'd (correct me if I'm wrong) and an i5 is simply out of my price range, which is <$200 with mobo (preferably around $150). Also I hear the 980's are great, but I can't find them anywhere, only second-hand for $180+. I definitely plan to overclock using stock fan at first, will upgrade cooling in the future most likely.

My #1 priority is un-throttling my gtx570 so that card reaches its potential on games like Planetside 2, Skyrim, LoL, etc, which is why I'm not interested in more than 4 cores. Only other thing I'm interested is the ability to upgrade in the future, which is why I'm leaning toward am3+ mobo, but overclocking might take care of that anyway.

Any suggestions, tips or help are greatly appreciated!

 

[M33Cat]

I don't know how the FX chips are doing lately, but I'll vouch for the x4 965. They are great pII chips and they usually OC well (for if you get another MB)

and make sure you MB supports FX chips, older boards need a bios update when it's possible at all

 

[Buddywh]

....

Any suggestions, tips or help are greatly appreciated!

What is your motherboard? If it won't overclock your Athlon what's to say it will run an FX or 965BE up to potential? if at all. much less overclock... which is where an FX processor shines.

By the way... what size display are you driving with that 570GTX?

 

[Scout]

I ran a 960t and got lucky with one that unlocked and overclocked very well.

 

[under_clocked]

What is your motherboard? If it won't overclock your Athlon what's to say it will run an FX or 965BE up to potential? if at all. much less overclock... which is where an FX processor shines.

By the way... what size display are you driving with that 570GTX?

I would be buying a new motherboard as well, that is a necessity. I run it at native monitor resolution 1680x1050, running games at native resolution is one of the most important things for me as well.

Considering 965 is about $90, any ~$60 mobo suggestions for overclocking?

 

[under_clocked]

I ran a 960t and got lucky with one that unlocked and overclocked very well.

I've only read great things about the 960T but literally cannot find it ANYWHERE on the internets for a decent price (it's on ebay for $165 including the shipping, but that's a bit much).

 

[under_clocked]

Whoa actually, just found this tasty looking item, think I might just go for it unless anyone thinks I can do better?

 

[BeepBeep2]

New FX CPUs will be out in a month or less, I suggest you hold out.

 

[under_clocked]

New FX CPUs will be out in a month or less, I suggest you hold out.

A quick bit of research shows that there will probably be a $50 or so price difference for no change in GHz or overclocking capability, but 8 cores instead of 4, which I don't really need for gaming. Correct me if I'm wrong on this.

 

[BeepBeep2]

A quick bit of research shows that there will probably be a $50 or so price difference for no change in GHz or overclocking capability, but 8 cores instead of 4, which I don't really need for gaming. Correct me if I'm wrong on this.

Umm no, they will release 4 core, 6 core and 8 core versions, just like the current FX-4000 FX-6000 FX-8000 series CPUs.

All of your choices above will bottleneck a GTX 570 too, though not as bad as your Athlon 64 X2. The maximum amount of GPU I would have thrown at an Athlon 64 X2 would have been about a 540.

The max I would throw at any of those CPUs would be about a 560 Ti but to each his own, some games are more GPU biased with little change coming from CPU performance.

 

[under_clocked]

Umm no, they will release 4 core, 6 core and 8 core versions, just like the current FX-4000 FX-6000 FX-8000 series CPUs.

All of your choices above will bottleneck a GTX 570 too, though not as bad as your Athlon 64 X2. The maximum amount of GPU I would have thrown at an Athlon 64 X2 would have been about a 540.

Ah thanks for the clarification. So even an oc'd 960t or 965 are gonna bottleneck it at like ~4GHz?

 

[BeepBeep2]

Ah thanks for the clarification. So even an oc'd 960t or 965 are gonna bottleneck it at like ~4GHz?

Compared to intel solutions yes, but the i3s do not overclock well.

A 2500K @ 4.4-4.6 for example might be up to 20-30% faster in gaming than a 4 - 4.2 GHz Phenom II Quad Core or 4.4-4.6 GHz FX-4100.

 

[under_clocked]

A 2500K @ 4.4-4.6 for example might be up to 20-30% faster in gaming than a 4 - 4.2 GHz Phenom II Quad Core or 4.4-4.6 GHz FX-4100.

wow 20-30%? That must only be on very cpu-intensive games, I've done a lot of reading and have never seen a disparity that big between these cpu's. Where are you getting that info?

 

[BeepBeep2]

Many end users claim less, partly because they don't know better or don't notice a difference, sometimes because they hold more FPS than their refresh rate.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_7970_CPU_Scaling/

It isn't always the case, either, which is why I said up to. Some games are more GPU-bound while others are heavily affected by CPU performance.