GTX 950 for an old Phenom ii x3?

Discussion in 'Videocards - NVIDIA GeForce' started by iRkuN, Sep 22, 2016.

  1. iRkuN

    iRkuN Guest

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    I am looking for an upgrade for my old and trusty rig.
    GTX 950 appeals to me because it is around my budget, it is 2-3 times faster the 4850, and it has fairly low TDP.
    I am more of a casual player and the most demanding game i consider to play in the future is perhaps Witcher 3 and GTA V.
    The question is if my CPU can "feed" in an acceptable rate the new GPU or it will create some sort of major bottleneck. I know that newer games are more GPU and less CPU oriented but i have my concerns.
    And another question is if the PCIe 2.0 of my mobo will have any negative effect in performance of a PCIe 3.0 card.
    Thanks and sorry for my English.
     
    Last edited: Sep 22, 2016
  2. Agent-A01

    Agent-A01 Ancient Guru

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    PCIe 2.0 won't make a difference but CPU will probably hold it back.

    But should be a sizeable performance increase. Wait for 1050 though, next month.
     
  3. iRkuN

    iRkuN Guest

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    Very good idea about the 1050!:)
    I didn't know it was near the corner. And according to the leaked specs it looks scary close to the GTX 970 in performance at only 75 watts!
    Probably i will wait for it, and hope that the bottleneck will not be major.
     
  4. Monchis

    Monchis Guest

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    Those games can be very cpu demanding, most likely you are gonna see flat 20fps at times, donĀ“t matter the card.
     

  5. CrazY_Milojko

    CrazY_Milojko Ancient Guru

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    3-core Phenom II is going to bottleneck GTX 950 quite a lot, probably even more bottleneck on upcoming GTX 1050. IPC of old PII architecture is the most limiting factor here.

    PCIe 2.0 won't be a problem.

    Wait... 3-core Phenom II X3 B50... Guess your PII X3 B50 is somewhat unlocked 3-core Athlon II X3 or Phenom II X2 unlocked to 3-core PII. iirc backthen when I've done more than few unlocks from 3-core AII and 2-core PII to 4-core PII they were "renamed" to B50 and B55 but all of them were 4-core. How come yours PII X3 is called B50 but it's not X4? Faulty 4th core or...? Did you tried to unlock 4th core either with additional Vcore bump or by reducing CPU frequency (multiplier) by 100 or 200MHz to get that CPU stable with 4th core unlocked?

    Don't know what's your budget (to stretch a bit for new CPU & mobo) but either you decide to buy GTX 950 or as Agent-A01 just said (I agree) to wait a bit and and buy GTX 1050 if you decide to stay for a while with your curent CPU/mobo then try to unlock 4th core + OC PII somewhere between 3.5 and 4GHz, or of 4th core unlock is not possible then just OC as much as you can. Both 4th core and OC will help to reduce bottleneck on GTX 950 or GTX 1050, nothing spectacular is gonna happen but every frame counts.
     
    Last edited: Sep 23, 2016
  6. iRkuN

    iRkuN Guest

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    You are spot on!
    The CPU from factory is a Phenom II x2 550 BE (c2) Calisto core. As almost all PII it was based on a 4core Deneb core. I unlocked the extra two cores back then do some testing but was unstable after few hours of prime95. I remember that i bumped the vcore at about 1.38 seemed stable but temperatures was very high around 70 (stress testing) even with aftermarket cooler. So decided to lock the forth core and use it from then as a 3 core. Temps are fine, never exceed 55 and the system is stable. Never tried OC.
    Do you think that if i try underclocking (lets say from 15,5 to 15 multiplier or less) will have a positive effect in system stability with 4c enabled? I prefer not to touch Vcore for reasons mentioned above.
    As for my budget i don't plan to spend more than 150 euros (200us$) for now that's why target the was GTX 950. :)
     
    Last edited: Sep 24, 2016
  7. Cyberdyne

    Cyberdyne Guest

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    I would just use the settings you were using before. 70 c while stress testing is fine.
     
  8. airbud7

    airbud7 Guest

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    Can you could find a used 1100T for cheap...?
     
  9. iRkuN

    iRkuN Guest

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    Its difficult to find a used bargain 100T and new are out of stock for a long time.
    Anyway i will unlock the 4th core and test again for stability, and perhaps get a 1050 when is released.
     

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