AM3 board with AM3+ CPU

[melkiik]

Hi techspotters,

it has come time to modify my old rig.

I'm planning to upgrade the cpu without changing my motherboard, but there is a slight risk involved that the purchase I am going to make is faul. So back to basics:

My current MB: M4A89TD PRO/USB3 - link
Current CPU: Phenom t1100, oc running @ 3,867ghz
Current RAM: EVOleggera 1600 4x4, running underclocked @ 1596mhz

the one to upgrade to: AMD FX8350
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So this is a basic operation, a cpu swap, but few questions popped up on the research phase

M4A89TD is a AM3 board which apparently after some searching supports some of the FX series cpus that are AM3+. I have also found the corresponding BIOS that I need to flash myself to, to make it work properly and be recognized by the MB. link

Q&A

1. FX8350 is known to support 1866mhz RAM speeds, my existing RAM runs max at 1600 without overclock, and is placed 4x4, which occupies all 4 slots, and might confuse the FX8350 which supports dualchannel as usual. Meaning I will need to leave my RAM running at 1600mhz, how big will the reduce be in the performance of the CPU- 1600mhz vs 1866?

2. When setting up the proceccor I will need to disable the Turbocore to make it stable on the older AM3 board, which only supports cpu speeds up to 4,0ghz and the fx8350 on turbo bumps to 4,2ghz. After disabling turbo, all cores are set to run at 4,0, which by research is the most stable option on my existing MB. Will FX 8350 bottleneck gtx970 or gtx 980, and how bad it is going to be?

3. Upgrading hardware is always nice, but am I making 200€ bold move by upgrading a 4 year old cpu to almost as old one? And if someone with more knowledge can state me that there is no performance gain to be maid, I just might stick with my old as long as its still breathing and calculating.

Thanks in advance for replys

And no, changing an motherboard is not an option So fond of my old rig.

best regards,

m

 

[chronicintel]

Looking at the CPU support page, it looks like only the Bulldozer (FX-x100) series is supported through a beta BIOS update. The 8350 may work, but it may cause problems.

For what it's worth, I still have a Phenom II 1055T OC'ed to 3.5GHz on an Asus M4N75TD from 2011, and it's chugging along fine with an R9 290. The Phenom II are about the same performance as the Bulldozers, and Vishera is about a 15% increase. It doesn't seem like a huge performance increase for the money and hassle for a new motherboard. If you're going to do that, you might as well go Intel.

So far, there aren't too many games that are really limited by CPU power. Dying Light and Wolfenstein run smooth, even though they list an 8300 CPU as a minimum requirement. Check out the performance reviews on Techspot and look at the CPU benchmarks for the latest releases. They typically test a 980 GTX with a variety of CPU options, so you should have a good idea how your rig will perform.

Hope this helps.

EDIT: Here is a good chart from Toms Hardware that explains whether upgrading a CPU is worth it:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-hierarchy,4312.html