Is my CPU bottlenecking my GPU/Should I upgrade?

[Crawmak]

So, I've heard a lot lately about my current CPU, an AMD FX-6300, being not-so-great. I looked through a few Google results to see if it might bottleneck my current GPU, an MSI GTX 970, but found mixed opinions and results.

 

So I'll ask here, the only forum I'm a member of that likely has people who are more familiar with computer innards than I am.

Will my air-cooled, non-overclocked AMD FX-6300 bottleneck my MSI GTX 970 on more demanding games? If so, what would the next logical upgrade for me be?

 

And before you recommend anything Intel, I'm not in the market for a new motherboard. I'd rather not go through the hassle of reactivating Windows (not to mention the ungodly lack of money I have), so unless I'm mistaken and Intel processors happen to fit an AM3+ socket, I'm restricted to AMD.

Edited February 3, 2016 by Crawfishness

[obobski]

Yes it's a bottleneck, and unless you're willing to upgrade to an Intel board, you have no upgrade path; all of the AM3 processors will have similarly bad single-threaded performance, and as you go into much higher clockspeeds (e.g. FX-9590) you move into required liquid cooling territory, and your board may not even support >200W TDP. The problem with your CPU is the relatively low single-threaded performance, which is what most games still rely on CPU-wise; in more multi-threaded applications (especially if you've got a newer operating system that can work properly with CMT) performance should be absolutely fine though, since the FX processors are well designed for multi-threading. AMD is not releasing new AM3 processors, and is moving to a new platform later this year with DDR4 - that CPU may also be a good choice (based on what's been trickling out about the new AMD CPUs it should be), but again, requires a new motherboard.

 

Easiest answer here would be an LGA 1150 board and a Core i3 or i5 - that'll address the performance issue, and not cost horribly much (maybe $300-400 US).

 

Example source:

https://techreport.com/review/28751/intel-core-i7-6700k-skylake-processor-reviewed/6 (just scroll around - it has a decent range of Intel CPUs, and the FX-8370, which is clocked slightly higher than your 6300. Notice how significantly it lags behind?

 

That said, it's not like we're generally talking the difference between playable and unplayable, but yes the FX-6300 is going to bottleneck the GTX 970. Of course, if the machine is doing everything you want, who cares if it's the absolute best - it solves your needs, so be happy. :blush:

[dragonslayer2k12]

If you live in america there is a thing called craigslist, you can sometimes find core i7 720 or 970 based desktop computers for $75 the whole thing! People don't even know what they are selling sometimes and you could get the thing and move your video card over to it and just put a better psu in there without spending lots of money.

[Crawmak]

Yes it's a bottleneck, and unless you're willing to upgrade to an Intel board, you have no upgrade path; all of the AM3 processors will have similarly bad single-threaded performance, and as you go into much higher clockspeeds (e.g. FX-9590) you move into required liquid cooling territory, and your board may not even support >200W TDP. The problem with your CPU is the relatively low single-threaded performance, which is what most games still rely on CPU-wise; in more multi-threaded applications (especially if you've got a newer operating system that can work properly with CMT) performance should be absolutely fine though, since the FX processors are well designed for multi-threading. AMD is not releasing new AM3 processors, and is moving to a new platform later this year with DDR4 - that CPU may also be a good choice (based on what's been trickling out about the new AMD CPUs it should be), but again, requires a new motherboard.

 

Easiest answer here would be an LGA 1150 board and a Core i3 or i5 - that'll address the performance issue, and not cost horribly much (maybe $300-400 US).

 

Example source:

https://techreport.com/review/28751/intel-core-i7-6700k-skylake-processor-reviewed/6 (just scroll around - it has a decent range of Intel CPUs, and the FX-8370, which is clocked slightly higher than your 6300. Notice how significantly it lags behind?

 

That said, it's not like we're generally talking the difference between playable and unplayable, but yes the FX-6300 is going to bottleneck the GTX 970. Of course, if the machine is doing everything you want, who cares if it's the absolute best - it solves your needs, so be happy. :blush:

I see. Thanks a bunch for the info! I guess I'll have to look into a massive hardware upgrade eventually.

I'm just paranoid because the last time I got a new motherboard, Windows 8 deactivated, and this was back when Win8 was still really new, so I couldn't really fork over another $100 for a new key. I had to downgrade to Windows 7. And now that I have Windows 10, I don't wanna have to go through that exact situation again.

[obobski]

 

I see. Thanks a bunch for the info! I guess I'll have to look into a massive hardware upgrade eventually.

I'm just paranoid because the last time I got a new motherboard, Windows 8 deactivated, and this was back when Win8 was still really new, so I couldn't really fork over another $100 for a new key. I had to downgrade to Windows 7. And now that I have Windows 10, I don't wanna have to go through that exact situation again.

 

 

You shouldn'tve bought a key in the first place - Windows (since XP) will run a WGA test (at every boot); if it racks up enough "points" (due to hardware changes) it will throw a WGA notice and request re-activation. That doesn't mean the key is "dead" it just means it has to re-authorize. That said, you *cannot* "recycle" a Windows installation from one motherboard to another - you must re-install Windows when moving to a different motherboard, but you can re-use a valid key (as long as it's only on one system at a time) on the new machine (if you're replacing a dead motherboard with the exact same model (e.g. via RMA) it shouldn't even "notice" the change).

 

Windows 7 isn't really a "downgrade" from Windows 8 though, and either of them is a significant upgrade over Windows 10, as they have substantially less tracking/spyware/gaping security/privacy holes (no joke, Windows 10 is sending tons of unencrypted data to undisclosed Microsoft locations on all manner of ports, and you have no choice but to accept it; same goes for forced driver updates which will happily brick your machine (already documented as a "thing")); Windows 8 (and later) depreciates a few gaming-related features (e.g. DirectDraw, and DDI8 (and lower) performance is reported to be *significantly* lower too) that Windows 7 also supports (the short version of this is: Windows 7 is easily the best choice for a gaming machine right now).

 

So if/when you switch to Intel (e.g. an LGA 1150 board with an 9-series chipset and an i5 4690k), you'll have to install Windows ("custom install" in modern Microsoft-ese) but you can re-use your legally purchased key as long as that version of Windows is compatible with the new hardware (e.g. you must have a 64-bit key to use 64-bit OS to utilitize 64-bit features, you must have a Pro/Business/Ultimate key to do 2P, etc), but it will still be a ground-up install of either 7 or 8 (as it sounds like you now own both). If the online activation doesn't work during install (it often fails due to a lack of a network driver on newer motherboards), just ignore it and continue into a working Windows environment (e.g. finish the install), and then activate it from within Windows - it may require calling Microsoft's 1-800 number (its automated and very quick).

Edited February 5, 2016 by obobski

[Crawmak]

 

 

I see. Thanks a bunch for the info! I guess I'll have to look into a massive hardware upgrade eventually.

I'm just paranoid because the last time I got a new motherboard, Windows 8 deactivated, and this was back when Win8 was still really new, so I couldn't really fork over another $100 for a new key. I had to downgrade to Windows 7. And now that I have Windows 10, I don't wanna have to go through that exact situation again.

 

 

You shouldn'tve bought a key in the first place - Windows (since XP) will run a WGA test (at every boot); if it racks up enough "points" (due to hardware changes) it will throw a WGA notice and request re-activation. That doesn't mean the key is "dead" it just means it has to re-authorize. That said, you *cannot* "recycle" a Windows installation from one motherboard to another - you must re-install Windows when moving to a different motherboard, but you can re-use a valid key (as long as it's only on one system at a time) on the new machine (if you're replacing a dead motherboard with the exact same model (e.g. via RMA) it shouldn't even "notice" the change).

 

Windows 7 isn't really a "downgrade" from Windows 8 though, and either of them is a significant upgrade over Windows 10, as they have substantially less tracking/spyware/gaping security/privacy holes (no joke, Windows 10 is sending tons of unencrypted data to undisclosed Microsoft locations on all manner of ports, and you have no choice but to accept it; same goes for forced driver updates which will happily brick your machine (already documented as a "thing")); Windows 8 (and later) depreciates a few gaming-related features (e.g. DirectDraw, and DDI8 (and lower) performance is reported to be *significantly* lower too) that Windows 7 also supports (the short version of this is: Windows 7 is easily the best choice for a gaming machine right now).

 

So if/when you switch to Intel (e.g. an LGA 1150 board with an 9-series chipset and an i5 4690k), you'll have to install Windows ("custom install" in modern Microsoft-ese) but you can re-use your legally purchased key as long as that version of Windows is compatible with the new hardware (e.g. you must have a 64-bit key to use 64-bit OS to utilitize 64-bit features, you must have a Pro/Business/Ultimate key to do 2P, etc), but it will still be a ground-up install of either 7 or 8 (as it sounds like you now own both). If the online activation doesn't work during install (it often fails due to a lack of a network driver on newer motherboards), just ignore it and continue into a working Windows environment (e.g. finish the install), and then activate it from within Windows - it may require calling Microsoft's 1-800 number (its automated and very quick).

 

Well, it didn't happen quite as simple as that.

My original copy of Win8 came preinstalled on a pre-built computer (at the time it was all I could afford, and I was more concerned with having a working computer than gaming). For some reason, it didn't come with the key written down anywhere, so I couldn't reuse the key. And my current copy of Windows 10 was from the free-upgrade thing from Windows 7, and I don't know if I'd be able to reuse the key for Windows 10 after a major hardware upgrade.

 

As far as Windows 10 as a whole, I like it more than 7 anyway. Personally I'm not too concerned about all the tracking. I've deactivated as much of it as possible, but really, what's Microsoft gonna do with my info? Targeted ads? Helping the FBI if I suddenly become a terrorist? Really, it's not a huge concern for me.

Also, maybe it's just me, but after the upgrade I've noticed a drastic improvement in general system speed and gaming performance. (I doubt it would be from the usual cleaning that a fresh OS install would bring either, I didn't have 7 for all that long, and I'm generally good at keeping my computer clean.)

As well, with Windows 10 having DX12, and the support for Windows 7 going away soon enough anyway, I see no reason not to have 10 at the moment. That's all my opinions though.

 

I have to say though, hearing about AMD being pretty crappy in the CPU department kinda makes me upset at my younger self who knew little to nothing about computer building. I actually followed advice from people on a different forum for what my first build should be, I guess it wasn't all that good advice.

[obobski]

 

Well, it didn't happen quite as simple as that.

My original copy of Win8 came preinstalled on a pre-built computer (at the time it was all I could afford, and I was more concerned with having a working computer than gaming). For some reason, it didn't come with the key written down anywhere, so I couldn't reuse the key. And my current copy of Windows 10 was from the free-upgrade thing from Windows 7, and I don't know if I'd be able to reuse the key for Windows 10 after a major hardware upgrade.

 

As far as Windows 10 as a whole, I like it more than 7 anyway. Personally I'm not too concerned about all the tracking. I've deactivated as much of it as possible, but really, what's Microsoft gonna do with my info? Targeted ads? Helping the FBI if I suddenly become a terrorist? Really, it's not a huge concern for me.

Also, maybe it's just me, but after the upgrade I've noticed a drastic improvement in general system speed and gaming performance. (I doubt it would be from the usual cleaning that a fresh OS install would bring either, I didn't have 7 for all that long, and I'm generally good at keeping my computer clean.)

As well, with Windows 10 having DX12, and the support for Windows 7 going away soon enough anyway, I see no reason not to have 10 at the moment. That's all my opinions though.

 

I have to say though, hearing about AMD being pretty crappy in the CPU department kinda makes me upset at my younger self who knew little to nothing about computer building. I actually followed advice from people on a different forum for what my first build should be, I guess it wasn't all that good advice.

 

 

My understanding from Microsoft is that the "new" Windows 10 key you have should be able to be treated like a copy purchased at retail, and isn't tied to the machine (and as far as I know isn't even tied to the previous Windows install, that is you don't have to re-install 7/8/8.1 to re-install 10) - you should be able to re-use it.

 

On the whole tracking thing, I've heard that argument before, and honestly it's a weak position - "having my rights infringed doesn't affect me because I'm not exercising those rights currently" is basically where it ends up. That's problematic. The biggest short-term issue is that the majority of its constant data collection (there is no "turn it off") is done via unencrypted channels, which means man-in-the-middle and other kinds of attacks are very easy (theoretically) to implement against Windows 10 (especially since, afaik, Microsoft has never fixed the SMB redirect issue in NT; you can fix that one yourself if you have an external router/firewall appliance); Microsoft themselves may not act malevolently, but there's plenty of people who will happily use that data to do malicious things (e.g. as has happened with basically every cloud service since the beginning of "cloud computing" - pick a company, they've been hit, and it often results in HUGE amounts of personal information being put on the open web). Currently it looks like Microsoft largely doesn't care about you, the end-user, and is more interested in trying to sell advertising or whatever else they're after; perhaps with the recent external studies showing how worthless a single end-user is (as an advertising cow) to Facebook companies will start to act rationally again though. Oh, and as far as the whole "FBI thing" - that's nothing new; ISPs and other online service providers have been cooperating (by court order and legal requirement) for ages and ages. I don't get why that piece is what everyone gets up in arms about though - it's all the non-law enforcement stuff that's more scary.

 

As far as DX12 - nothing uses it, and your GTX 970 doesn't support it, so that's not really a strong selling point imho either. Windows 7 is fully supported until 2020, but due to the underlying similarities with the rest of the NT 6.x family, it'll be interesting to see how hard of a deadline that actually is (Vista will probably be a decent litmus test, later next year).

 

As far as AMD - the FX series weren't "pretty crappy" when they were new in 2011/2012 - it's just that after ~5 years of no updates or new releases, they don't stand up to 4-5 successive generations of Intel hardware. Yes, CMT was arguably the wrong bet, but the FX series still looked competitive against the Core 2, and original Nehalem and Sandy Bridge Core processors, especially for multi-threaded applications (which, five to six years ago, everyone was convinced would be the wave of the future, even for gaming). I'd say be happy that the FX-6300 probably didn't cost too much, that you've gotten good usable life out of it, and that it's done what you wanted - eventually it'll have to be upgraded, when you encounter an application it can't run so well, but that's any computer.