New processor boosts FPS, who knew!?

[Rogerbee]

I got a pleasant surprise earlier,

The other day, my niece and I were discussing building her a new PC. I was looking at CPU's for her and I spotted that the range topping model of the type that we'd both need was at a knock down price. So, I treated myself to one, which meant that she could have the old one.

The new one is an FX8350 and it replaced an FX6300. I expected some boost in performance, but was mainly expecting it to be just loading times. I was very surprised to learn that it also boosted my FPS. I now get 67fps average for the Spa benchmark where I'd only just get 61 before. I'll probably never race with a full grid anyway, just six will do me, so I should now get some nice performance.

It'll do me till I ever decide to build another rig, not that sure I want to now though. I'm getting way better than I ever expected with what I've got now.

 

[Ryno917]

Yea, AC is a CPU intensive game, especially with AI. Unlike most (all?) other sims, the AI uses the same physics model as the player; other sims use a simplified model for the AI for performance reasons.

Shadows, mirrors, reflections and I think particles also hit the CPU.

 

[Rogerbee]

The load is slightly down as I now have 8 cores where I used to have 6. Spotted a 980ti on eBay, sorely tempted, if it will fit in my case, it's a 3 fan job. Might not be much room.

 

[Ryno917]

The load is slightly down as I now have 8 cores where I used to have 6. Spotted a 980ti on eBay, sorely tempted, if it will fit in my case, it's a 3 fan job. Might not be much room.

AFAIK AC does all of its physics calculations on one core, so more cores/threads doesn't help with it unfortunately. With AC, single core speed is king.

 

[Kek700]

i'm not sure if this is common knowledge, but increasing your ram speed is also
a FPS booster in AC.
I increased ram speed from 2600 which is pretty fast anyway to 3700 and gained
about ( if i can remember ) 15 FPS, maybe a bit less.
i did this to a struggling i5 6600k. it still struggles, but at a higher frame rate. by 15 FPS.
come to think of it i got a good boost in ACC too.
i am driving a 3440x1440 monitor?

 

[jlnprssnr]

Please don't use an AMD FX CPU when building a pc for your niece in 2019.

 

[Miguel Batista]

Please don't use an AMD FX CPU when building a pc for your niece in 2019.

Oh shush. Sure they are not ideal but they will work and are dirt cheap. Built a rig last year with an fx6300 and a 1050 for a friend of mine. The cpu+mobo combo was like 60 euros. Sure the mobo doesn't have UEFI and maximum ram clock speed is about 1600 MHz ( anymore and the system won't start) but it runs most games decently at 1080p and it is fine. He will upgrade cpu and mobo next year or so. I am keeping an eye out for some Haswell CPUs so he cn still use his ddr3 ram and get a sizeable upgrade.

 

[Prof.H]

Please don't use an AMD FX CPU when building a pc for your niece in 2019.

FX8350 @ 4.6Ghz for last 5 years, paired with a 1080ti for last 6 months, on an LG 34" curved 1440p and never had an issue, locked @ 75Hz via adaptive sync/G-sync.

 

[Daniel oliver]

FX8350 @ 4.6Ghz for last 5 years, paired with a 1080ti for last 6 months, on an LG 34" curved 1440p and never had an issue, locked @ 75Hz via adaptive sync/G-sync.

With such an old processor it will be your minimum fps that will suffer. Max fps will also hit a ceiling. If you run a monitoring app i bet your cpu will be at 100% usage and your gfx card will be 50-60%. I went amd fx to intel 5820k and my minimums doubled.

 

[Prof.H]

With such an old processor it will be your minimum fps that will suffer. Max fps will also hit a ceiling. If you run a monitoring app i bet your cpu will be at 100% usage and your gfx card will be 50-60%. I went amd fx to intel 5820k and my minimums doubled.

My minimums never drop below 74fps in any game (driving sims and FIFA), especially since the implementation of G-Sync compatibility. CPU utilisation averages 65% single core and 30% multi core. Gfx usage never below 95%. Only ACC drops below 60fps. Nvidia Control Panel and sometimes Nvidia Inspector ensure max performance without having to turn anything down, so all games are maxxed out.
Waiting to see what Ryzen 3000 brings to the table before I upgrade, Intel way too expensive for my liking when taking motherboards et all to the equation, especially when funds are limited.

 

[Rogerbee]

She has a tight budget and most of what she's getting is leftovers from me upgrading this rig. Only the RAM is brand new. Also, she is a diehard retro gamer and doesn't need the latest and greatest to play the games she wants to. Anyway, Assetto Corsa is hardly a brand new game and as such shouldn't need brand new tech to run it on. Had the 8350 not been such a bargain I could quite happily have stuck with the 6300.

I found a 980ti at a good price last night and treated myself. It came out round about when AC did and was considered a fine piece of kit at the time, and still is. It's comparable to a 1070 and that is no slouch.

I'm sure Assetto will be great on it.

 

[Rogerbee]

Oh shush. Sure they are not ideal but they will work and are dirt cheap. Built a rig last year with an fx6300 and a 1050 for a friend of mine. The cpu+mobo combo was like 60 euros. Sure the mobo doesn't have UEFI and maximum ram clock speed is about 1600 MHz ( anymore and the system won't start) but it runs most games decently at 1080p and it is fine. He will upgrade cpu and mobo next year or so. I am keeping an eye out for some Haswell CPUs so he cn still use his ddr3 ram and get a sizeable upgrade.

FX8350 @ 4.6Ghz for last 5 years, paired with a 1080ti for last 6 months, on an LG 34" curved 1440p and never had an issue, locked @ 75Hz via adaptive sync/G-sync.

Exactly, well said. There have been some nice games over the years and most that interest me will run just fine on this rig. Just because the marketing team want you to buy their shiny new tech every year, it doesn't necessarily mean you should. However, what it does mean is that, when they start phasing stuff out, you can get some seriously nice nearly new tech in brand new condition at knock down prices. Now that you can recommend!

 

[Mr Deap]

I had a core i7 920, so whatever equivalent & change to a current gen CPU within the same amount of cores & clock speed... You will definitely get a boost of performance.

 

[Bruno Iwanczuk]

I changed my cpu from Phenom II x6 1055t to a Fx8350. In AC i noticed only a small fps boost, but in other games such as Batman it went from 30-40 to 60 constant fps.

 

[Terry Rock]

Please don't use an AMD FX CPU when building a pc for your niece in 2019.

"Don't be that guy."
Neither of us understand his circumstance.

 

[Miguel Batista]

"Don't be that guy."
Neither of us understand his circumstance.

And as I said, they are cheap and competent. Will an intel i3 8th gen see better gaming (keyword) performance? Yup. It also costs over 4x the price of an fx + mobo combo soooo yeah...

 

[Rogerbee]

I'm looking forward to seeing what tweaks I can make when my 980ti arrives. Currently my AA is only on 4x, may see if I can get that to 8x. Whatever, I'll report my findings in due course.

 

[Miguel Batista]

I'm looking forward to seeing what tweaks I can make when my 980ti arrives. Currently my AA is only on 4x, may see if I can get that to 8x. Whatever, I'll report my findings in due course.

You can.

 

[Rogerbee]

And as I said, they are cheap and competent. Will an intel i3 8th gen see better gaming (keyword) performance? Yup. It also costs over 4x the price of an fx + mobo combo soooo yeah...

I know, the prices of intel stuff were eye watering!

Let me give you a bit of background:

I began building this rig in 2014. I was inspired by an article in 3D World magazine published in the February of that year. At that time, I wasn't even interested in PC gaming, my primary hobby was 3D art in Daz Studio. The 3D World article showed you step by step what to do and what they recommended for each part. Back then, I couldn't afford any of the parts they used so I chose what I could afford from the same manufacturers.

On the budget I had then, it took me till June to even get all the parts I needed. I didn't even have a GeForce for a year or two and only upgraded when Daz made a wholesale move to the iRay render engine, which required an NVidia card. It's only since last year that I've really been doing any serious gaming and only in these past few months that I've made upgrades to enhance gaming.

Most modern games don't really interest me and I don't have fast enough broadband right now to do any online gaming. I just want to catch up with titles that did interest me, like Alien Isolation.

 

[Miguel Batista]

I know, the prices of intel stuff were eye watering!

Let me give you a bit of background:

I began building this rig in 2014. I was inspired by an article in 3D World magazine published in the February of that year. At that time, I wasn't even interested in PC gaming, my primary hobby was 3D art in Daz Studio. The 3D World article showed you step by step what to do and what they recommended for each part. Back then, I couldn't afford any of the parts they used so I chose what I could afford from the same manufacturers.

On the budget I had then, it took me till June to even get all the parts I needed. I didn't even have a GeForce for a year or two and only upgraded when Daz made a wholesale move to the iRay render engine, which required an NVidia card. It's only since last year that I've really been doing any serious gaming and only in these past few months that I've made upgrades to enhance gaming.

Most modern games don't really interest me and I don't have fast enough broadband right now to do any online gaming. I just want to catch up with titles that did interest me, like Alien Isolation.

The FX processors are excellent productivity chips and competent at gaming. Nothing wrong with them. I would keep an eye out on their APUs if you ever need to get a budget build for a niece or nephew. And look at their ryzen line if you ever need an upgrade (or a second hand 5920k or 5930x) they will boost productivity even further.