Upgrade advice

D

DiceAir

New member
Hi there.

I need some help. I want to know should I upgrade my cpu or check if something is wrong. First my specs

2x R9-280x crossfire
MSI z77a-g45 Thunderbolt
Corsair H100i
i5-2500k @ 4.7GHz
16GB Corsair vengance 1600MHz RAM
Qnix qx2710 2560x1440 @ 120Hz
Windows 8.1
Sound Blaster z Sound Card

So my problem is that in battlefield 4 I see almost 100% CPU usage most of the time but low GPU usage. I tried the following.

Unpark cores
Timer resolution
Closing browser when joined server
Disabling all services excluding Microsoft services
Revert to stock clocks
Running 1 card ( works fine then just that my FPS is low due to 1 card not being strong enough)
Different drivers (including 13.12 and 14.1)
Running game in mantle mode but that doesn't work cause not fully supported yet
Setting game priority to high and low


So all of these options don't work so I was thinking maybe I should get one of the following options.

Getting a 3770K and save money by not having to buy a Motherboard.
Getting a 4770K ultracooled with motherboard.

Maybe I should get a second hand 3770K or maybe even a 2600K but I fear the CPU might be damaged or overclocked to death or even a bad overclocker (I know new cpu can also be a bad overclocker but seller might say bad overclocker and then sell it) I would rather want to fix this as a new setup would cost me about R4.5K - R7K-R7.5K and that's just to much to pay now. So what should I do?


EDIT: Ok i got my CPU on 4.9GHz now max temps under 70C and max volts in bios set to 1.39V. So pretty good overclock and still under specs.
 
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Getting a 4770K ultracooled with motherboard.

This is what I have, bar the supercooling - This CPU runs cool as is so going overkill is not necessary. I play BF4 on full spec with a 150% pixel rate and my CPU never goes over 50%.
 
All I can say is well done for spelling advice correctly. So sick of seeing advise. I will advise you, but only because you asked for advice. :)
 
Inn3rs3lf said:
All I can say is well done for spelling advice correctly. So sick of seeing advise. I will advise you, but only because you asked for advice. :)
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All I can say is your post is pointless, glad you spelled 'can' correctly because I know you can^

When you can go over to a new socket do that rather than just upgrading cpu. Keeping the same socket just prolongs the inevitable upgrade you will need to do. Be warned though, changing socket normally means you will need to format.
 
Stunt said:
Getting a 4770K ultracooled with motherboard.

This is what I have, bar the supercooling - This CPU runs cool as is so going overkill is not necessary. I play BF4 on full spec with a 150% pixel rate and my CPU never goes over 50%.
Click to expand...

I just can't decide. The more I read abut the 4770k and high temps the scarier it is to upgrade my cpu. I don't want to go pay almost 7K on cpu and motherboard and thermal paste and then I sit with minimal performance increase for what I payed for, that's the sole reason why I was thinking of getting a 3770K cause that will allow me more threads and as we all know more and more games will start making use of 8 cores due to next gen consoles. The other thing is i can wait for mantle to come but seeing as how that goes it might take a while. Maybe I must just accept my performance for now and wait for mantle to come. BF4 also has it's own share of issues right now and might be the reason why I get high cpu and low gpu usage.

- - - - - - - - - - Double Post Merged - - - - - - - - - -

simon said:
All I can say is your post is pointless, glad you spelled 'can' correctly because I know you can^

When you can go over to a new socket do that rather than just upgrading cpu. Keeping the same socket just prolongs the inevitable upgrade you will need to do. Be warned though, changing socket normally means you will need to format.
Click to expand...

You see i've asked on overclock.net as well and I get mxed matched results. Some say go 4770K and some say no wait for mantle and some say the 4770k is overheating and and others say i should get 4.4GHz but is 4.4GHz enough to beat an i5 @ 4.7GHz. i think so due to the extra cores.
 
DiceAir said:
I just can't decide. The more I read abut the 4770k and high temps the scarier it is to upgrade my cpu. I don't want to go pay almost 7K on cpu and motherboard and thermal paste and then I sit with minimal performance increase for what I payed for, that's the sole reason why I was thinking of getting a 3770K cause that will allow me more threads and as we all know more and more games will start making use of 8 cores due to next gen consoles. The other thing is i can wait for mantle to come but seeing as how that goes it might take a while. Maybe I must just accept my performance for now and wait for mantle to come. BF4 also has it's own share of issues right now and might be the reason why I get high cpu and low gpu usage.
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Firstly, would you kindly use paragraphs? I'm a little dyslexic and reading word walls take me hours :p

Secondly, what are your sources?

CPU World have the following to say about your 3770K vs 4770K woes:

3770K Pro's:
  • Power consumption of the processor is lower.
  • Based on current official prices, the Intel Core i7-3770K is 2% less expensive than the Intel Core i7-4770K microprocessor.

4770K Pro's:
  • Single-threaded performance of the Intel i7-4770K is higher.
  • In multi-threaded applications, the Intel Core i7-4770K processor has 7% better performance.
  • The i7-4770K is 2% faster when running memory-intensive tasks.
  • The microprocessor includes AVX2 and FMA3 instructions, that were introduced in the recent past. These extensions are not widely used in programs yet, however their support should improve in future applications.
  • This CPU has 2% better price/performance ratio.

Here's the full review: Intel Core i7-3770K vs i7-4770K

And here's CPU Boss Ranking it higher that the 3770 as well:Intel Core i7 4770K vs 3770K
 
Thanks for the reply. Still unclear if I should upgrade. I think I'm just looking for proof. Also 1 thing is that the cpu benchmarks I saw for battlefield 4 is only in single player and with weak graphics cards like 1x hd7770 that won't even have to use my cpu at stock clocks. So like I said I'm still unclear as to what I should upgrade to. If I decide to upgrade will arctic silver 5 be enough for my h100i and a overclock to about 4.2-4.5GHz?

So the my current cpu and motherboard I can already sell of like R2000 or so so that wold make the upgrade a little bit easier.
 
Like I told you last time bud, remember that board your running does PCI E 2.0 8, 4 in cf, that alone your dropping 15-20% performance. So a Ivy cpu will already make a difference because then the board runs PCI E 3.0 8, 8 in cf. However investing into a dead socket isn't always the best idea. I'll drop you a pm later so we can chat a bit more in detail.
 
So I finally decided to just go for the following.

i7-4770K
Asus z87-a

And to replace my thermal paste I'm going to use Cooler Master Extreme Fusion X1 Thermal Compound cause according to the following link it's better than arctic sliver and there is no break in period

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/thermal-paste-performance-benchmark,3616-17.html

So I hope I will be happy with my setup and I'm not looking for a ground breaking overclock I'm sure even on 4.2GHz it should be better than my i5-2500k due to the hyper threading. to apply I use the pea method as seen in this video



Also seeing as our suppliers just got stock so I assume it should be one of the latest steppings so it should run cooler than the newer chips.
 
I learn't from my experience that it is almost never the CPU (last thing I look at). And if you are anything like me (try and save some dosh), I would try to fix the problem before replacing. I would suggest playing around with your crossfire setup first, sounds to me that maybe the GPU's aren't handling the physics or handing over processing to the CPU. Also set you CPU back to default clocks if overclocking.

I mean I too have an i5 2500k, mine is even missing a resistor underneath and still performs like a dream. Granted this hampers me from overclocking, but I still get great performance out of it.

just my 2c
 
BeoTeK said:
I learn't from my experience that it is almost never the CPU (last thing I look at). And if you are anything like me (try and save some dosh), I would try to fix the problem before replacing. I would suggest playing around with your crossfire setup first, sounds to me that maybe the GPU's aren't handling the physics or handing over processing to the CPU. Also set you CPU back to default clocks if overclocking.

I mean I too have an i5 2500k, mine is even missing a resistor underneath and still performs like a dream. Granted this hampers me from overclocking, but I still get great performance out of it.

just my 2c
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Ok but send me your pc specs cause I can tell you not running the high end system than me. i tried stock clocks even everything stock in bios and that's even worse. So please tell me what i can do to see if i can fix this issue cause I would love to fix this but please please please tell me your systemspecs including monitor resolution and refresh rate
 
XbatousaiX said:
I thought mantle was supposed to help with cpu utilization?
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mantle doesn't fully support my cpu yet. I will try uninstalling my driver then use the DDU tool cause i forgot to use that before I uninstalled the 14.1 driver last time. I have 3 days to pay for my cpu and motherboard so will do everything to test out my system tonight. I'm now willing to do anything to see if i can get this solved and don't have to upgrade but if i can't do this in 2 days i will upgrade then.

So please give me suggestions and no mantle is not an option right now. BTW there might be a new AMD driver tomorrow that supports crossfire and let's just hope it will make mantle better. if it does then I will be a happy gamer.
 
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