Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Upgrading my processor
QUESTION 1-
Was planning on upgrading my processor to one of the new FX ones, but I am not sure if my motherboard (Asus M4A89TD USB3/PRO) can actually support the full features of the AM3+ socket
I know that the BIOS can be upgraded so that ti supports it, but I keep hearing rumors that the FX AMD cards do not work on the M4A. Even if they did, if I upgraded the Mobo, would it be able to utilize all of the full features of the new processor? I cant help but think that a feature added through a BIOS upgrade would not allow me to take full advantage of the power that the new processor has to offer.
QUESTION 2-
Would upgrading my processor (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103727) to one of the newer FX models, like (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103960), would I notice a significant upgrade in my games? I use an ATI radeon 5850, but was planning on upgrading it once the 8 series comes out.
Thanks.
-------------------------
Comments
I am a total AMD Fanboy and I think you already have a pretty descent cpu but if set on upgrading I would say wait for Piledriver. Not saying the FX are bad because I think they are pretty good cpus but you probaly wont see much of a performance increase. I currently own the FX 4100 overclocked it from 3.6 to 4.4 and loving it but with Piledriver set to come out soon you should probaly wait. You current cpu is still good enough to handle anything out right now.
Is this your board? From reading the feedback I see some are running FX with a bios update.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131655
You would see a huge upgrade in programs that scale flawlessly to eight cores, and not much in programs that don't scale past four cores--which includes nearly all games.
Why are you looking to upgrade? Is there something that doesn't run well enough on your current system?
Was planning on upgrading my video card once the Radeon 8xxx series came out, since the 7 series seemed to receive some less than steller reviews. Mostly I dont want the video card to be bottlenecked by the processor, especially since its an older processor and a relatively new video card.
Are the piledrivers using the same socket type? (AM3+)?
Also yes, thats my motherboard.
-------------------------
AMD originally intended to make Socket AM3+ processors backward compatible to Socket AM3 motherboards, but found that they just couldn't do it. I read somewhere that it was an issue of FX processors needing higher amperages at lower voltages, which a lot of the AM3 motherboards just couldn't do. If that's the only problem (and it might not be), then motherboards that went overboard on power delivery for AM3 processors (as necessary to allow robust overclocking) would likely be able to handle AM3+ processors. Asus says that your motherboard does support Zambezi processors. That would explain why higher end AM3 motherboards (such as yours) were a lot more likely to get AM3+ processor support provided by the motherboard manufacturer.
Vishera is also going to be Socket AM3+, and can largely be thought of as a fixed Zambezi. With AMD not providing backward-compatibility to AM3 motherboards, it's up to motherboard vendors whether they'll do so on their own. My guess is that it's likely but not automatic that Asus will do so for your motherboard.
I'm not sure what you think is wrong with Radeon HD 7000 series video cards. They pretty much dominate the market today apart from holes in the lineup ($70 for a Radeon HD 6670 and $170 for a GeForce GTX 560 don't have a 7000 series competitor at those price points) and the $400 GeForce GTX 670. I'm guessing that at the high end, a Radeon HD 8970/8950 or some such will be substantially better than the current Radeon HD 7970/7950, simply because Tahiti managed to be substantially less efficient (in performance per watt and performance per mm^2) than Pitcairn and Cape Verde.
The Pitcairn (Radeon HD 7870 and 7850) and Cape Verde (Radeon HD 7770 and 7750) chips are pretty much what you'd hope for them to be. Without a new process node to move to (or perhaps rather, there are other process nodes, but they're all 28 nm, so not much of an improvement, if any), new APIs to support (they already support DirectX 11.1 and AMD would presumably veto any proposed OpenGL 4.x that they can't port back to the 5000 series), yield problems, or any glaringly missing features, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see AMD rebrand Cape Verde and/or Pitcairn as 8000 series cards and continue to sell them for another year.
At the very least, it will be completely shocking if going from the 7000 series to the 8000 series is as big of an advancement as going from the 6000 series to the 7000 series was. The latter was a full node die shrink.
-------------------------
Thinking of it as the processor bottlenecking the video card or the other way around is entirely the wrong way to look at it. Your processor can deliver some frame rate. Your video card can deliver some frame rate. The frame rate that you actually see is the lesser of the two. (This is a simplification, as there will be both times when the processor is waiting for the video card and vice versa, but typically one of the components doesn't do much waiting.)
If you turn graphical settings up, this usually doesn't do very much to the amount of work that the processor has to do. There are some particular graphical options that can add a lot of work to the processor, but most don't add much. It can greatly increase the load on the video card, however. Replacing a Radeon HD 5850 by a Radeon HD 7970 wouldn't change the games that your system can handle. It would, however, mean that you can play the same games at higher graphical settings (larger monitor resolution, anti-aliasing, etc.) with the same frame rate as before.