Am I being bottle necked?

Hello,

The main reason for this thread is to get a second opinion before I invest my money into a new CPU and Motherboard.

My father works as an IT professional so I get my computers from his workplace (The ones they no longer use). My current system is pretty solid,

It's main specs are:
Intel Xeon X3430
16gb ram @ 1333Mhz
8TB mechanical storage

I have always wanted a computer that can run games, so for xmas this year I got a EVGA GTX 750ti sc graphics card. I had done my research and knew it was compatible with my system and was very exited as I had heard from many trusted reviewers like Jayz two cents, tech of tomorrow and Austin Evans just to name a few, that this card could run most games at 1080p medium to high quality settings with filters turned off at solid frame rates in the 50s, this was supported by their benchmarks.

However with my experience I can barley keep above 30fps at a sub HD resolution with low settings on Battlefield 3, with planetside 2 being even more of a nightmare to get running smoothly.

After checking again that my power supply met recommended wattage for the components I was running (which it did) I ruled out the possibility that the card itself was the bottleneck because it could not get enough volts through it.

I then looked into the CPU and compared it on cpubenchmark.net against a couple of processors I may invest in if i determine to CPU is the bottleneck. Here is what I found:

My Intel xeon-
Clock speed, 2.4Ghz
Cores, 4
Single threaded score, 942
Benchmark score, 3319

AMD Athlon x4 860k-
Clock speed, 3.7Ghz w/ 4.0Ghz boost
Cores, 4
Single threaded score, 1575
Benchmark score, 5673

AMD FX 6300-
Clock speed, 3.5Ghz w/ 4.1Ghz boost
Cores, 6
Single threaded score, 1413
Benchmark score, 6359

Basically what I am asking is,
1) Do you think my CPU is the bottleneck?
2) If so do you think getting either of the other two CPUs remove the bottle neck?
3) Do you have any other suggestions or things for me to consider I may have missed?

Thank you for your replies and your time,

Ben - Limitless

Your cpu is the equivalent of a first generation i5 CPU, its true that you would lose some fps in cpu intensive games like planetside 2, but you fps should be still be o.k. and you should still be getting good fps in the bf3 single player.

Install the newest gpu drivers for your 750ti and then monitor your cpu usage/clockspeed and gpu usage/clockspeed in and out of game and your fps in game. Do your fps not change if you increase/decrease your resolution or turn msaa off/on?

Thank you for the reply,

In single play bf3 i do get some solid fps at 720p

And yes my fps is most influences by AA and the resolution

all drivers are up to date and i will be sure to monster my usages when i am next playing (is it best just to do this through the task manager?)
if my CPU is being stressed, how beneficial would a new one be or is it possible to oc my intel chip?

Hi,

You can overclock your CPU if the base clock is not locked down on your mobo and you have a good enough cooler. Overclocking is a little bit more limited because of the small multiplier on xeon cpus, but another ghz or more shouldnt be too hard (if youre lucky you could go up to around 4 ghz). 

If your fps are mostly influenced by resolution and msaa that usually means that you are gpu limited, 

the easiest way to monitor would probably be to download and run msi afterburner, check all the boxes in monitoring tab, set the interval to something higher like 5000ms and then just check everything/make a screenshot of the graphs after having played for a while.

Ive had a look in the BIOS and there seems to be no way to change voltages or core clocks, it seems pretty restrictive:/
I will do more research to see if there is some way to overclock as it seems the most immediate solution to test,

However if i cant and msi after burner shows me that my cpu is reaching its maximum potential and is running hot, is there any cpu you could recommend that would complement the 750ti

P.S I am not expecting amazing results from this card, from what i saw of benchmark don online i was expecting to be able to play games in HD at like medium setting with filters off, but i cant even seem to get close to this, this is my first delve into Installing gaming components and pc gaming and i just found my results weird and confusing which is why i came to the forums, and im sure you've had the worrying feeling before that you've might of made a bad investment, but im probably just fretting, thank you for all your help:)

Yea, CPU will be bottlenecking. Your system is similar in performance to my old one with a Q9550 Quad core and GTX 560. I saw a bottleneck with that system so its not surprising you are two. CPU intensive games like BF3 will be the worst. Interesting enough on my old system, I was running a heavy overclock. At High settings CPU was at 90-95% usage, Max settings I was just tapping 100% and seeing stuttering.

Hi,

if you want a cpu that is good enough for games at a low price you can grab a fx 6300 with an o.k. motherboard and overclock it slightly (the fx6350 for example costs 20$ more with the only difference beeing that it is clocked 500mhz higher out of the box). A budged cooler like a hyper 212 would be a good choice with that. expect to pay an additional 100$ or so if you sell 8 gb ram, your cpu and your mobo on ebay.

If you want the go to solution for a gaming pc without wasting money the highest you should go would be a 4690k with a z97 motherboard and a capable cooler. With a bit of overclocking that would be pretty much the best cpu you can get for gaming today(even a 1000$ extreme edition cpu wouldnt really be better). If you sell the aforementioned stuff expect to pay around an additional 250$ or so.

You should keep in mind that most benchmarks are done with high end rigs to limit any bottlenecks, but your pc should still give you around 60 average fps in bf3 medium with fxaa 1080p.

Thanks for the input:)
I was thinking it was the cpu too as the difference in framrate when i switch between 24 and 64 player servers is severe
Any CPUs you recommend?

@ Rolling Potatoe

Thanks for everything mate, that has cleared lots up for me thanks!:)

get an i5. locked or unlocked it will be more then enough for that gpu.