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bivanov

FPS on a budget- AMD Phenom II x4 965?

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Hey guys, more or less a newbie here, just thought I'd ask some opinions:

I'm trying to put together a workable FSX rig, and its now time to upgrade my cpu/mobo from a 4 year old dinosaur to something I can squeeze some better performance out of. It looks like everyone is all about the i7's but I'm really on a tight budget and the Phenom ii x4 965BE looks like a steal for 90 bucks and 3.4ghz out the box. Now, I am definitely someone who believes on 'you get what you paid for', so is there anyone who uses it and can give me some specifics on the ups and downs on getting something like this?

 

I am currently using an Athlon 64x2 running at about 2.7ghz. On a PMDG NGX and running REXE, I get anywhere from 8-12fps on a good day as long as I'm not using complex scenery. Right now, I'm getting the most fps nosedives when REXE injects weather and when flying online with FSInn.

 

Now just for clarification, I want better FPS but I am by no means trying to go crazy-pro here. I am pretty much satisfied with a solid 16-18fps, as long as it's consistent and doesn't really dive below 12 when (for example) rexe decides to inject weather on short final.

 

So anyway any opinions on that CPU or other advice would be appreciated. If I missed another thread where this was already covered, just let me know. Thanks

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Welcome to Avsim bivanov.

 

is this your Athlon 64? If it is, you should expect to see almost twice the FPS with a 965BE. Question is, does your board support it? is it an AM2+ board and does it support 125W CPU's?

 

Please post your complete specs, because even if the 965BE is much faster you may stumble upon a GPU bottleneck

 

Are you an overclocker?

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Thanks for the reply. Here is my current chip. In terms of the mobo, yea mines not gonna support it so I'm looking at upgrading that too, I've had my eye on the MSI 760GM. Both together would run me around $150, which is unfortunately reaching the roof of my budget for this current upgrade.

My video card is an older geforce 8500, this one.

I'm new to overclocking. I would probably try to o/c the 965BE as far as reasonable, but I'd rather not have to upgrade my cooling system at this point. Running Windows Vista x64

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Hi, Bivanov, I am currently using a 965 on a 990FX sabertooth. I was using a 4170 but sold it to upgrade GFX card. I am currently running this chip @ 3.86 ghz with a temp of 55C.I have this chip on water cooling. Several things to point out here. 1. the 760 board will not allow a decent overclock.2.you will have to upgrade cooling solution.3.very good case. 4. good memory. For your board look for chipset boards with the 790fx or 890fx chipsets. These will allow for the best possible stable overclock of the processor. ASUS, GIGABYTE, MSI .You will probably have to look on ebay or find someone who has some old stock. One other board that comes to mind that I have owned and was replaced by my asus board in an MSI NF-980G65. this is a good gaming board with alot of excellent features for overclocking. I hope this info helps. This is just from my own personal experience with AMD.

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Hi there,

I am using a 965be overclocked @ 3.9ghz

with Noctua cooling and I am getting around 17 to 20 frames ( pretty smooth) on ground @ KLAX (fsdreamteam) and US cities Los Angeles with the ngx, rex, traffic 20%, medium to high settings in fsx.

I have also tweaked the fsx cfg. file trough Bojotes tweak tool, very reccomended!

 

 

David

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Thanks for the reply. Here is my current chip. In terms of the mobo, yea mines not gonna support it so I'm looking at upgrading that too, I've had my eye on the MSI 760GM. Both together would run me around $150, which is unfortunately reaching the roof of my budget for this current upgrade.

My video card is an older geforce 8500, this one.

I'm new to overclocking. I would probably try to o/c the 965BE as far as reasonable, but I'd rather not have to upgrade my cooling system at this point. Running Windows Vista x64

 

With that board you'll need DDR3 RAM too, I'm afraid

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With that board you'll need DDR3 RAM too, I'm afraid

yep. guess my mom's gonna get some old computer guts for christmas :biggrin:

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yep. guess my mom's gonna get some old computer guts for christmas :biggrin:

 

well, RAM is really cheap. you can get 2x2GB for some 20 bucks.

all in all, you should be very happy with the upgrade. A bit from that DDR3 RAM, a bit more from the two extra cores, the improved architecture and increased clock speed and your frame rate should be much higher, although your GPU is probably going to be bottelnecking that Phenom II x4 big time, so you may not see all the improvement from the new platform until you get a new one.

 

Something like a GT640 should be OK. Goes for some $90

You can test if your GeForce 8500 is limiting you now by monitoring your core usage in the Task Manager while FSX is running. If it's not 100% or close, you may not see any improvement until you upgrade your GPU

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I'm running the 980 stock and am very happy with it.


Regards,

 

Dave Opper

HiFi Support Manager

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My video card is an older geforce 8500

Just take a moment, sit back and think before you start buying new parts.

 

It's already been established that in order for you to put in the "new" old AMD 965BE you are needing a new CPU, mobo and RAM.

A further problem is that the 8500GT of yours was a low end GPU 5 years ago. Even with your current system I would say that it's your GPU that is the weakest link.

What resolution do you have on your monitor? It wouldn't surprise me if your 8500GT is actually holding you back at the moment.

 

So you are looking at a complete new system build including a GPU in order to see proper improvements and that's not going to be just a small $100 upgrade I'm afraid.

As you would be building a whole new system I would reccomend to work out a budget so you can build it around a Sandy or Ivy bridge i5 CPU. They will provide a lot more bang for the buck than an AMD 965BE system will do.

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I would say that it's your GPU that is the weakest link.

So if I understand you correctly, you are saying that it would be smarter for me to upgrade to a killer GPU first and then save up for a higher end CPU/mobo/etc? Do you have a recommendation for a decent GPU thats in the $100-200 range that's a good fit for FSX and would give me somewhat of a boost currently as well as complement an upgraded system further down the road?

 

 

 

Again, right now I'm just trying to make some small tweaks to squeeze out a few more FPS until I can afford to invest in a real system overhaul. Believe me, if I was able to dish out $1.5-2k for a murderous FSX system I would.

 

Also, can you recommend some tests I can run with FSX with my current system to see how much of a boost I'd get from a new GPU alone? I know dazz posted above that I can monitor my core usage; are there any more in-depth methods or tutorials for this?

 

 

Sorry if these are newb questions, I'm relatively new to system building and since I'm using my machine primarily for FSX, I'd rather get advice here than from some yahoo at micro center :P

Thanks for the help everyone

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So if I understand you correctly, you are saying that it would be smarter for me to upgrade to a killer GPU first and then save up for a higher end CPU/mobo/etc?

No, you shouldn't invest in a killer GPU like a GTX680 as it would be a waste of money as your current CPU would bottleneck it big time.

 

It's all about having a ballanced system and at the moment your system is an old one but fairly ballanced with the GPU being on the weaker side. The problem is that a GPU that is overkill for your current CPU will be on the weaker side for a modern sandy bridge system.

 

Open up task manager and set fps to unlimited within FSX (and disable any external limiter if you are using any). Fly around and have a look at the load on the first core. It should be close to 100%. Otherwise something else is holding you back, most likely your GPU. I guess you might be fine if you use a low resolution now.

 

If you find that your GPU is holding you back I would say that a GTX650 is probably a wise choice for you to upgrade to. You can get them for just over $100. I take it you have a spare 6pin PCIe power connector? It will as I say probably be overkill for your current system but will at the same time be doable for a more modern CPU.

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Again, right now I'm just trying to make some small tweaks to squeeze out a few more FPS until I can afford to invest in a real system overhaul. Believe me, if I was able to dish out $1.5-2k for a murderous FSX system I would.

I would hardly say that replacing CPU, mobo and RAM (+GPU) is a small tweak ^_^

 

As you say, the 965BE+mobo costs $150. You would have to add another $180 to get a z77 mobo + IvyBridge i5. RAM and GPU would be required on either system. So you wouldn't need 2K to get a very near top of the range system, you'd need around 200 bucks more compared to your proposed 965BE system.

 

But 200 bucks that you don't have is still too much. You would notice the improvement going to the 965BE. But you would notice the i5 IvyBridge even more

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Fly around and have a look at the load on the first core. It should be close to 100%.

SO, just flew an approach into KCLT. PMDG NGX, imaginesim KCLT, REXe Clouds. Res set to 1920x1080x32.

On windowed mode first core hovered around 77-80%, second core was maxed. On fullscreen mode both cores were pretty much maxed until I was on final and it loaded the airport scenery, at which point both cores dipped to around 85% and stayed there until touchdown.

So basically until I upgrade my CPU/mobo, a new GPU would give me a few frames more around complex scenery but not much more than that. Am I correct to infer that?

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