[GarbageJuicer]

So last week my faithful 4870x2 finally bit the dust. I've been playing Hawken quite a bit on this box (secondary) and I think that's what killed it. The performance I was getting was actually impressive given its age and components- Phenom II 940, 4870X2+4870 Trifire.

I acquired a 7790 in a trade, and bought another because for some crazy reason I like crossfire. Performance is noticeably better, but I can't help but wonder if I've got a massive bottleneck. Now I am thinking about upgrading the CPU/Mobo to something more current.

The issue I'm having is it looks to me that for what I'd go for (Athlon X4 750k+A85X Mobo) it wouldn't be that much of a difference. My price range would be hopefully less than 300 for CPU/Mobo/RAM. I have to have a dual PCIe board with at least x8/x8 as well.

If anyone else has gone down a similar upgrade path, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. I definitely prefer AMD, but would go Intel if it made sense.

Here is my 3dmark 11 score for this box http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/7066540

 

[jsc1973]

If you're running an X4 940 at stock on 7790CF, you will have a bottleneck. If you could get to 3.5-3.6 GHz on that 940, it wouldn't totally remove it, but it would help a lot. Of course, that motherboard you have would blow up if you tried that, though.

If you're going to spend the money, start out with an AM3+ board and some DDR3, put the 940 on it, and see how far you can go. That might solve your problem to your satisfaction. If not, then an FX-4300 certainly will. Remember that you can flip that old DDR2 from the current rig, and the 940 if you replace that, and recoup a few bucks.

 

[GarbageJuicer]

Thanks for the reply-

Yeah I run the 940 at 3.5, anything over that I get DCOM process failures and other nonsense. I've never been able to get my RAM to run at 800 either, so I know the board is crap.

I've got an 8350 for my main box, so I was thinking of going FM2 to make things interesting.