Chris Mammoth

They generally dont fry anymore. Thermal Throttling means they just slow themselves down. Its actually pretty hard these days to "melt" a modern CPU. The viewer problem is valid though we talked about it on another thread. It seems poorly threaded for multi cores as my X6 had no issue but another persons X2 was being pushed hard at load.

I Just tried the Test myself using V3 on these machines Phenom II X6 @ 3.89GHZ, GTX580, 16GB RAM CPU Load was across 4 cores reasonably well, the 5th and 6th core were utilised but not efficiently. FX 4100 (Bulldozer), GTX550ti, 8GB RAM CPU Load was an utter mess on this one across the 4 modules spiking around, though thats to be expected as FX is a problem...... the issue with that though was the spiking CPU made the GPU fluctuate too. I dont think its the mesh features causing this as TPV's with mesh based on V2 and V1 dont seem to have the issue. It must be something in V3. I'm no programmer but i can't see why this happens unless its a major bug in the code. Or maybe its been optimised for quads as it seemed happy on the first 4 cores of my X6. The fact it didnt seem to like the modules (not real cores) of the FX was no major surprise but means it would be interesting to know how a i7 handles it. Either way your results show it seems your CPU is choking your GPU with V3. Now while i still think an upgrade there is a good idea, I also wonder if this is a bug in the code that will be fixed? Alot of people are using hardware older than yours to run SL and this change will hit them hard....... not a great idea by LL.

You would see an improvement i don't doubt just dropping a 560ti in there i suspect it would be bottlenecked slightly but there would still be a visual boost. On the same note you would see an improvement just dropping the CPU in there the increase in speed and cores would create a noticeable difference. Without knowing your actual budget its hard to say which would be best if you can only do one upgrade. Personally i think in your shoes i would do the CPU for the following reasons... Costs less ($125) Will give you a marked boost not only in SL Phenom II stocks are dwindling the chance to upgrade CPU and retain that mobo is shrinking. I would then save a few months for the GPU knowing that as further 600 series cards release the 500 series will dip a little more in price before they frazzle out. I have a 550ti in my second machine and in another thread a while ago i showed that it can actually get decent FPS with the eyecandy cranked up. I think it was only about 40% less than my GTX580. As the 550 is only a margin better than the 250 i think if you tweak your settings about a little you should have more joy, I also wonder if in V3 that dual core CPU is choking the GPU though it sounds unlikely it seems more likely to me than the GPU being the issue. One easy way to try and spot a bottleneck is run GPU-Z and pop open task manager performance tab. now log in to sl tp somewhere and as it all rez's pull up the GPU-Z and task manager boxes. Look at them if the GPU is pulling at 100% while the CPU is idling at something low then your GPU is the problem. If the CPU is tearing up at very high % but then GPU-z shows the GPU at a low % then your CPU is the issue. Thats not the most scientific test but its an easy way to get an indicator of whats hitting your performance.

Your Socket is AM3 you could drop a phenom II X4 or X6 on there cheaply while they are still about (960T retails in UK around £90 and US around $125). You would notice a performance rise on your current Athlon. i5 2500k is a sexy choice and considered top gaming dog right now but in SL you wont see alot of difference between a £90 Phenom upgrade or a £300 i5 2500k and z68 mobo upgrade. As the GTX680 has just released and pretty much p*ssed on every other single GPU card out there, older 500 series can now be had cheap as chips. The issue here is if you go much beyond a 550ti on that current CPU you will likely start to enter territory where you bottleneck the GPU so dont actually unleash its full potentiol. For the price of upgrading to Intel (without a new GPU) you could actually just upgrade to a Phenom II and a Nvidia GTX560ti which would be a massive boost on your current rig. 64 bit OS, unless your running over 4GB RAM its not really needed. Saying that RAM is cheap as chips right now so upgrading to 8GB is a good option. AMD Upgrade http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103995 AMD Phenom II X4 960T http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127565 MSI N560GTX-TI Twin Frozr II/OC GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 1GB Total - $344.98 Intel Upgrade http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128512 GIGABYTE GA-Z68XP-UD3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072 Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127565 MSI N560GTX-TI Twin Frozr II/OC GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 1GB Total - $579.97 Personally as you already have the AMD motherboard and the difference you will actually see and feel (not synthetic benchmark) is minimal, I don't think the extra expense of the Intel route is warranted.  

What that chart doesnt show you is the Phenom 2 can make 4GHZ easy. Mine doesnt bottleneck a GTX580 and I'll see how it handles a 680 when the initial guinea pigs iron out the problems on the 1st batch and the nice non reference designs come out. While they are still available to buy they are the best low cost option and unless you plan too SLI 4 GTX580's you wont see any bottlenecks. Staying with your socket doesn't seem a great option sure you can snag an old CPU cheap but you will hit the same issues in not too distant future. I'm assuming your in the US so looked up New Egg for these references but these are the 2 best upgrade routes i would personally recommend you. AMD- Budget AMD Phenom II X4 960T http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103995 GIGABYTE GA-990XA-UD3 AM3+ http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128510 Total - $264.98 HOWEVER - That is a well featured mobo you could get an AM3+ ASUS board for alot less and the total would be nearer $175 INTEL - Blow The Budget! Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072 GIGABYTE GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128498 Total - $369.98 Thats considered the top combo for gaming really Z68+Sandybridge Either of those would remove any bottleneck or FPS hit noticed due to CPU. Either option would keep pace for a good while. The Intel route is faster but at a hefty price tag and you probably wouldnt notice the extra speed alot. Both those routes will outperform an upgrade to a C2Q (which in my opinion is more a sidegrade than upgrade).    

Its ok for the price. The GPU is a rebadged 550M which wont set the world on fire but should keep you in decent settings a while. The CPU is good. All in all thats decent for the price.

If your CPU is the bottleneck upgrading the GPU will have little effect. I dont know what your budget is but if you are after a cheaper fix AMD Phenom II's are still around on the market and the better architecture over your old 775 CPU will offer better speed. 960T can be had for around £90 (i think in the US for around $120) you can sit that on an AM3+ board they can be had cheap as chips depending on the features you need. Problem here is there is little upgrade path as FX Bulldozer has proved a flop you would be left hoping FX Pilediver delivers in the future. However a 960T OC's to 4GHZ (and possibly unlocked to a 6 core) should last you a fair while. The Phenom II wont bottleneck that card or many cards on market. Option 2 is more expensive i5 2500k sat on a z68 board, thats currently considered the best gaming combo around. If you can afford it, it's worth it. However The sandybridge is soon to be overtaken by Ivybridge so waiting a month is best there as we may see some bargain price cuts. Avoid AMD FX at all costs the 4100 and 6100 are really bad they get beaten by older Phenom II and Intel i3. The 8 core versions are pretty rough too and cost near as much as i5 which run rings round it. You may see a tiny improvement swapping your card to Nvidia as they handle OpenGL better but i doubt much if anything as your CPU appears to be the issue here. Again though wait on GPU's for a few weeks Nvidia are ecpected to release 680 very soon so the price on 500's should drop as well as 2nd hand 500 cards should flood up ebay. I know with Tech "wait" is not the right mantra normally, but as we are about to see 2 huge and important releases within the next month, bargains should be all over the place soon.

My main advice would be unless you utterly have to get a laptop dont. That much £ could build you a desktop rig that makes peoples eyes water with jealousy (well almost but a decent desktop anyway) Ok thats failed you still want a laptop. Aim for an i5 CPU. i3 is too low and i7 has features not needed gaming so needless expense. On the GPU side of things bare MINIMUM to keep you gaming for a couple of years is Nvidia 570M (this is not equivalent to a desktop 570. This is equivalent to a desktop 550ti) or AMD Radeon 6800M. Ensure they have as much dedicated VRAM as humanly possibly, sharing regular RAM is a great way to get crap FPS. To elaborate at ultra with shadows, eye candy, some AA and a decent draw distance you can easily chew up near to 1GB of VRAM. Next is cooling this can be an issue with laptops. Nowdays when things overheat they slow themsleves down rather than melt. This leads to performance hits during prolonged use. When you buy the laptop ensure its not some ultra thin lightweight these obviously overheat alot faster. 4GB minimum RAM but aim for 8GB Of the 2 you list i would take neither they will perform average now and not be very future proof. Good gaming laptops actually cost well over your budget. This is a cheaper example it would do you well but is far from perfect. http://www.cclonline.com/product/65275/GT680-037UK/Laptops/MSI-GT680-037UK-Gaming-Notebook-PC/NOT2758/ For gaming your budget is awesome for a desktop (self build) but lacking for a laptop.... by a huge amount. *Edited for awful typing*

Your 460 should do well its probably one of the best price to performance cards released lately it punched above its weight when it released and it still keeps easy pace with the 500's. I'd struggle to recommend AMD CPU's right now. If you can grab an old phenom II before they run out then thats a good choice, they OC well and they can outperform the lower FX bulldozers (4 and 6 core). The 8 core FX is a waste because that takes you to Intel Sandybridge money and loses to them. All this said next few months Ivybridge is out which claims a 10-15% increase on Sandy, now that really will leave AMD in a pickle when it comes to the gaming market. Nyll I think the "problem" people have with Sli/crossfire is they expect to double their performance where as in reality the 2nd card adds a 30% boost at most and that can be at the expence of suffering things like microstutter. I think multi cards really are most suited to the hardcore enthusiasts who have to have the top card X4 because they can! or to people who's card is aging but see a significant saving in pairing it rather than replacing it. I think from the leaks the 680 will be the initial release and the top card but this will effect prices right down the chain. I can already see on UK sites that my 580 in the past week has dropped anywhere between 10-15% on price, 570's are the same. Some sites now there is scarcely a difference between a 570 and a 560ti 448 edition. This is before release of the 600's or to be accurate before we even have a solid official release date even. I think in the week or so following release there may be some immense bargains for people not minding a 500 series. *edit to add* Ebay will be an awesome place for 580's at bargain price when 680 comes out. Watch it flood up with them on the release week.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/hh504/wr6133/580test.png Thats the 580 making just over 84FPS http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/hh504/wr6133/550ti_001.png Thats the 550ti managing 43 for this test i reset it to stock clock speeds. The 580 data has little relevence in my opinion as its a flagship card most wont buy and all said and done most peoples monitors can only display 60FPS ayway. I wasnt sure on your test resolution so i used my native of 1920X1080(HD) I just saw the newer posts using a lower res and he is right that makes a very big difference. Would be good too know what your res was on the test Nyll. But to show my point on Nvidia if you were on 1920X1080 like i was and only got 10FPS more than me when in this http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/gaming-graphics-card-review,review-32374-7.html widely used and referenced chart your card is 2 tiers above mine. If you werent using 1920X1080 resolution but something lower i suspect the 550ti will actually beat yours. All that said though only in SL if you put these cards head to head on multiplayer BF3 you would see yours draw a much wider lead on the 550ti than 10FPS. (sidenote the FX Snoozedozer is a nickname for AMD's bulldozer CPU's....... its not an endearing name the newer FX is in my 2nd rig, my primary outperforms it with a Phenom IIX6) *edit to add* the CPU's used can make a difference or should be known before advice is given to buyers. If they are running an old athlonX2 or c2d high end cards will bottleneck so would be a waste of money. Also personally as a rule of thumb i use when making recommendations i take that Toms hardware chart and if the user only wants great SL performance i move the Nvidias up one tier as thats more like where they punch in SL performance. If we believe the leaks on kepler (600 series) though that entire chart will be blown away soon.

You complain about Nvidia fans though and let me say I'm not a blind fan. If you asked me best card to run BF3 on i would answer AMD. To me you appear one of these blind AMD fans that just wont listen to a hardware fact. Comparing a old 8600M mobile chipset to a discrete desktop 5850 is not a comparison either. Thats like me saying the the atom bomb is better than the catapult.... they are different and different generations at that.

sorry my bad there the reply was aimed at the guy above not you i hit the wrong button. My mistake and i apologose though i thought in reading it the error was clear. *Edit to add* I'll happily do your test tomorrow when i can on a system running 1605T @ 4GHZ 32GB DDR3 and a GTX 580 Then i will redo it on a system running FX Snoozedozer 4100 @ stock speed 16GB DDR3 and a 550TI (OC'd) Though the test has little basis really as the number of factors that influence it are vast. I can tell you now the 580 can max out anything thrown at it at good FPS. The 550 can max out most things in SL though suffers a FPS drop when sims get uber busy.

The Nvidia 550ti in the same bracket on that chart (and similar pricepoint) will do better in SL but if you play other games you will likely find the AMD slightly outperforms the 550 there. Or wait a few weeks for Nvidias next generation to hit the shelves and watch prices slip you may be able to get something alot better from AMD or Nvidia on your budget. Outperform is relative though we are talking a few FPS either way in most games. Maybe more in SL as Nvidia handle OpenGL better. Your monitor probably cant display more than 60FPS anyway so anything over that is also pretty irrelevent in the real world

You quote meaningless benchmarks and uncredible sites. Taking your route i can post charts that show FX Bulldozer outperforming Sandybridge...... yet anyone that has managed to engage a 2nd neuron of brainpower can know thats cr@p . You know AMD have a entire set of fanboi forums where you can read all the doctored charts you want and pretend you live in never never land. Nvidia outperform AMD in real world OpenGL performance. That is a fact due to the HARDWARE itself and libraries as was previously said in this thread. Ontop of that most OpenGL is compiled and tested on Nvidia hardware as it more forgiving to syntax errors and other little slips. This adds to the fact AMD/ATI often then suffer bugs and glitches that were not seen or worked out properly in the original testing. Thats me outta this thread I'm not arguing anymore with a fanboi it would be more productive to teach a chimp binary.

Neocrypter, seriously wait a month we will see new top shelf cards from AMD and an entire new generation from Nvidia so performance/price is due to change alot very soon. Here's a supposed leak of data on them how reliable it is we will discover soon http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/Nvidia-Kepler-GK104-GeForce-GTX-670-680,news-37748.html