CPU bottleneck help

Hardware Hub CPU
1

Hello all,

I have recently added a 7870 to my PC (old GPU was a 9800GT), but in games such as Bad Company 2, Team Fortress 2, and Killing Floor, I have noticed quite a CPU bottleneck, with TF2 and Killing Floor dipping from ~150FPS to around 35 with lots of enemies on screen. This is quite troubling, but I kind of expected a bottleneck to manifest itself. I have verified that it's the CPU by trying BC2 at a much lower resolution, with its frames per second staying the same at around 45 FPS.

Here are my current specs:

CPU: AMD Phenom II X2 550BE @3.6 GHz, might OC it harder at some point

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA785G-UD3H

RAM: 4GB OCZ Gold DDR2 memory (5-5-5-18, trc: 24)

GPU: XFX Radeon 7870 @stock clocks

I've been poking around the web, and I've been thinking about buying a Deneb online, and making use of that, since it seems my issue is more about the lack of availably threads. I really don't want to have to save up 400 bucks to go to an i5-3570k (or the AMD alternative,) since the alternative is getting a >$120 CPU and being able to roll games at >60FPS with that.

 

Should I upgrade everything, or can I save $300 and just get a quad core CPU? Thanks!

2

so what exactly is your question

 

3

I edited my OP, I should have read that again :S

4

i would skip deneb and go to vishera, a FX-4300 and 8GB of ram is your best choice

5

If you're near a microcenter, the i5 3570k is only $189.99 , or the i7 3770k is $229.99 right now, so if you want a ridiculous cpu they're both on sale at the moment.

6

Yeah, I have decided that putting a Deneb in here would be delaying the inevitable. I'm looking at the 3570K or the 3770K, hopefully they will go down in price once Haswell hits.

 

Thanks guys!

7

I wouldn't count on it man. Sandy Bridge didn't really drop when Ivy came out :/