I feel like my CPU must be holding back my system a lot, and in recent light of the Fx - 8350, I'm really thinking about upgrading, even going and getting a custom wter cooler, I just don't know if it's worth it
My current specs are
CPU: AMD FX-6100 3.3GHz 6-Core Processor
Mobo: MSI 990FXA-GD65V2 ATX AM3+ Motherboard
GPU: Gigabyte Radeon HD 7870 2GB Video Card
RAM: 2x8GB @ 1866 of G.Skill Sniper
Stock cooler, no OCing
I've just been playing the Crysis 3 beta on a mix of medium and high, it's doing ok, haven't actually tested the FPS, but it certainly doesn't feel like 60, and it seems to stutter a bit.
So if I go out and buy an 8350 will I see a very noticable boost in FPS and be able to raise all the settings to at least high? If so, I will definatly be picking one up soon.
Overclocking will likely provide more of a performance boost over a stock 8350. Also, Crysis 3 is in BETA, so I fully expect some performance bugs. Grab yourself a Hyper 212, ramp up the speeds to 4.6GHz (or more), and you should be golden.
Buy FX 6300, its an piledriver(second gen bulldozer)... Give away your 6100 to someone that is poor or something... Or just sell it to someone for like 50$ so that you can sell it fast and buy a new decent cooler... 6300 is less power hungry and 15% better.
You realize only ~7% of Vishera's speed increase over Zambezi comes from IPC; the rest comes from higher stock clock speed. Piledriver is more efficient though. Since a good chunk of Vishera's speed boost comes from higher stock clocks, overclocking the 6100 makes a lot more sense over replacing it.
Well I would also say that you just buy an okay cooler like the Hyper 212 Evo, or the NZXT Respire T20 or the T40, and then overclock your 6100. It must be your CPU holding you back in Crysis since I play it at 60 fps constant on medium on my 2500k OC'ed to 4.5 GHz with a MSI HD7870 (OC'ed to 1050 MHz) with 8 GB's of 1333 MHz RAM.
If you don't know how to overclock I can see that your motherboard has a thing Called OC Genie that automatically overclocks your cpu, but I would strongly recommend that you read about it and do it yourself.
Thanks for the advice, I'll definatly be picking up a cooler and it seems like the 212 Evo is the go to air cooler for most. I'm not exactly short on cash either so I'll definatly keep my eyes peeled for a good water cooler on sale