Upgrading CPU

[Moose]

Let us know results.

[Drowsy Emperor]

I just installed it, the whole process went fine. I don't have time to play with it now. MSI Afterburner says its running at 31-33c idle  which is a couple of degrees above room temperature.

Edited June 28, 2013 by Drowsy Emperor

[Drowsy Emperor]

60c under full load with Shogun II on ultra settings. There's a definite performance increase, but at times its obvious that the CPU is a bottleneck. 

I'm getting faint screen flickering in games that's particularly visible on dark backgrounds. It mostly goes away when VSYNC is turned on, but not fully. Faint horizontal lines on the lower half of the screen that fade in and out quickly (flicker). Its very annoying.

 

I googled it and apparently the whole 7850 line has that "problem". Its something about 2D and 3D clocks. Apparently you have to manually adjust the clocks and then it goes away. I'll look into it when I have more time.

[Humanoid]

Interesting, not something I've seen or heard of before. I assume you got the latest drivers from the AMD site instead of the ones supplied with the card - I wonder if it's an analogue-connection only issue. I did have an issue when connecting via HDMI in that the driver would "guess" that the connected display was a TV and not a monitor, and apply the incorrect default settings, that being over/underscan and pixel format in the Catalyst control centre. But it's a long shot that any such issue would apply with any other connection method.

 

There's also been a bug with Adobe Flash in some versions, where having a Flash video in the background while gaming would cause the clock speeds to be set at reduced "I'm playing a video" level instead of max. The workaround for that was to disable hardware acceleration for Flash content (right-click a Youtube video or somesuch and select Settings->first tab)

[Drowsy Emperor]

Update:

 

The screen flickering is driving me crazy. Apparently the reason is the monitor VGA connection. Users are reporting that using a DVI cable solves the issue. Sadly, my monitor only has VGA, so I'm ****ed until I get a new one.

 

Who knows when I'll have the cash to buy a new monitor....

 

Can anyone here suggest a "best buy" 22 or more inch monitor that has pivot capability?

[syn2083]

Turns out its actually somewhat difficult to find a pivot monitor these days that isnt insanely expensive.

 

That said, on the 'cheaper' side of those is this guy (not sure what country your in, but at the least to see the monitor): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001807

 

SAMSUNG S24C750P

 

I love samsung screens myself, they are one of the top display makers out there, some of their post proc/engine work is not as good as sony, but pure display is hard to beat. I have a 27" 1080p syncmaster as my secondary and the picture quality is excellent +.

 

If you can live without the pivot there are a lot more options well bellow the 280-350$ range, my best monitors have been samsung or asus, though acer makes a decent unit (lately there seem to be more quality complaints however).

 

A somewhat cheaper pivot: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824176232

 

This one from HP, I generally like their monitors but find them to be somehow on the soft/blurred side (not blurry per se, but just blurred) so if you prefer that it could be an option. They tend to be more utilitarian due to the normal demographic.

 

A really good samsung non pivot for ~160: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001546

 

Just some potential things/starting points.

[Drowsy Emperor]

Weird, I didn't think the ability to pivot would drive the price up so much, I thought it was a pretty mundane thing at this point.

[syn2083]

Thinking back I haven't owned a pivot capable monitor in a long time, and now seeing the price difference in the ones that do include it I can see why. Though that is no reason for them to be expensive its an odd parity. Didn't much expect that.

[Drowsy Emperor]

One thing is making me uneasy though. I don't know what kind of viewing angles are necessary to really make a pivot monitor pleasant to use. I assume that not just anything will do because some parts of the screen might be discolored towards the top and bottom.