Asus r9 270 - core 2 duo - performance/upgrade path decision

With the AC final version approaching, i decided to try and upgrade my PC just for it.
I have a Intel E8500 dual core 3.17 ghz and the GPU is ATI 5770 + 6gb DDR2.I want to change the PC but unfurtunately i cant do it all in one step.So i figured i would buy a new GPU first and i did spend every single penny on the GPU.I got an Asus ATI R9 270 and i`m verry happy that with some effort i managed to grab this card.Hopefully i can change the CPU, Motherboard and the RAM ( to ddr3 since i have ddr2) by Christmass and then i can finally say i have a new PC.I also have a 120gb Seagate SSD(Sata 3) that i use curently on Sata 2..since i have an old motherboard.

Here starts my story : with the E 8500 and the Hd 5770 i could get 50-70 fps while hotlaping.Pretty awesome.The thing is when i played in multiplayer with 20 other cars FPS would drop to 20-25.Now there was the challenge to find what bottlenecks my FPS..is it the HD 5770 or the Intel processor.I tought that maybe since there are 20 other cars on the track my GPU would have issues to render all of this + textures and so on, so it may be the bottleneck..but i always felt that AC is alot more CPU heavy than GPU heavy.It may have to do with the physics of other cars, that is my guess.Stay tunned for the conclusion.
Today the R9 arrived.Interesting to see the results.While hotlaping alone with the same settings used as when i had the HD 5770 the fps went up from 50-70 as i said earlyer to about 150-170.WOOOAH ! REMEBER all this is when HOTLAPING alone.Time to test the Multiplayer ( i dont play vs A.I. but i guess the effects would be even worse if the CPU is the one causing the bottleneck - answer soon).I went on a server with 20 + cars and the results are from the previous 20-25 fps and increase to 25-35 FPS.Here it is the answer, it`s the CPU.Dual cores of the old generation (socket LGa 775) also know as core 2 duo are not enough to enjoy the full multiplayer experience, only up to 10 cars it runs fine.I would love to see a BIT more optimization on the physics engine or whatever it`s causing this major loss of performance, maybe after 1.0, who knows .Im jsut tying to say the gap in performance from when you are playing alone and when there are other players around you it`s kind of huge

This post is meant to be somewhat "informative", maybe you are confused and dont know what to upgrade first to enjoy AC at it`s finnest, maybe my experience with AC can help you.I`m pretty sure this can help some users decide on wich direction to go.
Also this may be somewhat usefull to DEVS also, after all, part of joining early acces means givving your feedback, even if 1.0 is near they have made it clear AC will continue to evolve, maybe better optimization for low end users, new content, or who knows it`s just great that this is only the begining .

I was pretty sure that buying a new CPU + moterboard + ram and keeping the old 5770 would benefit me more but it would have also been more expensive than the R9 270, and i must admit that AC is so good that i dont mind Hotlaping alone for a period of time but this time at near maximum detail settings, hehe.

 

I have 2 R9 270's and they are great cards in terms of price - performance I'm really happy with them. My specs are in my signature and with 1 R9 270, the game runs absolutely fine with no slowdown, but when I enable Crossfire the CPU is the obvious bottleneck unfortunately I did order a GTX 970 yesterday but now I'm very tempted to cancel that and get a Z97 mobo and 4960K, which would set me back literally £20 more... Or do I wait for a bit more optimisation and spend nothing lol? decisions decisions

In the meantime, it would be handy to know which settings in AC are CPU intensive and which are GPU intensive so we can find a balance; the only guide I've seen is a really old one unfortunately

Is it the R9 270 Direct CU II OC you got?

 

CPU and GPU are bottlenecking ^^
I have nearly the same Setup, just i5 560 Dualcore and 5750. So i know your problem well

a 270 can be OC'ed up to the 270x reference level

 

I upgraded the 5770 in my Q6600 machine to a GTX460 Sonic Platinum OC Edition (picked up two for £50) and got similar results to you, much higher FPS in hotlap but hardly any gain whilst racing AI/multiplayer, it was only when I upgraded my mobo, RAM and CPU that I saw a huge increase in FPS with other cars on the track.

Hate to say it but I think you have done your upgrade back to front, should have upgraded your CPU first I think

 

Dont know how you can request more optimisation when you are running a CPU that is 5 generations old.... Some further optimisation is needed on the CPU side with AI. Online i havent noticed it at all having an impact on CPU usage.
Hopefully when you get a chance to upgrade your CPU youll get nice performance in all situations. Id recommend a Sandy Brige setup if you can get it cheap, something like an i5 2500k/i7 2600k with an overclock. For DDR3 a 2x4GB 1600Mhz CL 9 kit will do you fine.

 

I'd advise changing the CPU before anything, mine is even worse than yours and I can only drive with 6-8 AI and even less in multiplayer.

 

@yate loon Yes, it is the Asus R9 270 Direct CU II OC .
@jasjeet Thanks for the sugestions .Only one thing i want to make clear, i do not request any optimization as i feel i`m not entitled to do so, especialy when i have such an old CPU.I just expressed my opinion that i think it`s a bit heavy on the cpu side that`s all but this thread it`s not about this really.Just wanted to share some info with you guys.
@Gonad It`s funny because i kind of new that, when i slightly overcloked the 5770 i saw there was little to no gain in performance so i knew it was the CPU..but..but just look how beautifull this GPU is..how could i have resisted ?!
Link

 

Ha yeah they certainly look much better than sticks of RAM and CPU's don't they, friend of mine brought his ASUS ROG Matrix 280X round for some testing when he first got it, the card and the box it came in looked awesome! I was expecting my EVGA 780 to look equally as badass but it's well boring

 

You may still have some life in your old hardware if you can fit an old xeon in it.
http://www.delidded.com/lga-771-to-775-adapter/3/
http://www.overclock.net/t/1431723/mod-lga775-support-for-lga771-xeon-cpus
I went from intel e5200 to xeon e5450 (same chip as q9650) and cost was only 35€. Multiplayer isn't perfectly smooth but it is playable.

 

I almost went for that one too but decided on my XFX's as they were a couple of quid cheaper and came with Battlefield 4 at the time The Direct CU II cooling is pretty awesome anyway so you shouldn't have any problem whatsoever if you're planning to overclock a little to get it on par with a 270X. I honestly think ASUS and MSI do the sexiest versions of the R9 270 by far!

 

In the last year my "pc" damaged 1 hard disk and 1 ssd..i changed to a new ssd and things are fine for the moment,although this morning after i instaled the gpu the pc failed to detected my ssd 3 times in a row..never happend before, except with the old ssd that went bust.. but i`m suspecting a bad psu ?! I have a ****ty deluxe PSU..2-3 years old and absolutely no money to change it..and i`m kind of affraid since i now installed the new GPU..software readings of PSU looks like the + 12v is within 5% , 3,3 V its also ok but the 5V it`s usually at 4.5V wich exceds the limits.Furthermore i insalted some software prgoram that showed me and aditional -12 V (minus) value and it was rated at -17V wich totally got me paranoid..i searched on the internet and found that the -12V isn`t actually used in modern PCs..i`m confused as F*** .
I can hopefully get a new PSU but it will be a Deluxe 500W...i dont plan to keep it more than 1 year until i change to something decent, what do you guys think, will it be ok for 1 year use ? I just want to see this old PSU gone..also at first when the first hdd failed and the first ssd failed also after a few months i suspected the motherboard, but from my research it`s quite unlikely that a MB can damage a hdd/ssd so that`s why i`m thinknig maybe it was the PSU all along.In fact i`m so scared that i`m not really playing anything so i dont put the video card under load so it draws more power, althought the +12 V reading looks fine, even in BIOS.

If anyone has any sugestions as i see here are some more experienced users than me, i would be so thankfull.
@yate loon I can`t even enjoy the Direct CU II cooling because my thermal paste on the cpu is almost gone and it`s runing hot and the damn CPU FAN makes 80% of the noise..so i`m in this situation with no money left and i have to somehow fix this, lol.

 

I thought i was the only person still using anE8500,lol.This is coupled with 4g ram and a 6870.Obviously i have some things turned down a little,but usually run at about 70fps hotlapping.Multi with 7-8 players doesn't seem to bother it much.I also have Iracing,Pcars and rf2.Iracing is usually around 120,pcars has always been unplayable and rf2 just looks terrible.Just waiting to sell the house and i will be upgrading.

 

I know getting a brand new GPU is more exciting, but it wasn't a good step.
You should have buy a new PSU first, it's the most important part of PC (IMO). Never go with cheap Chinese crappy PSU's - been there, done that - never again.
Also it's important to get one with more power than you need for two reasons:
- it won't be heavy loaded so it will work quieter and it should last longer
- if you would want to change GPU to a more powerful one, you don't have to change PSU.

You need only one 12v line, this is the one that CPU and GPU(s) are using. And it's better to have one more powerful line than two equally powerful, e.g. if you have 2 lines with 250W each then one line is for CPU and second for GPU. While your CPU maybe will use half of that (depends on the CPU), the more powerful GPU's will have problems with it because the lack of power. If you have 1 line with 500W then both CPU and GPU are using it and you are safe to use a more powerful GPU.

Don't know what advice I can give you except try to get some money and buy a new PSU ASAP. I'd even consider removing your new GPU till the time you will have a proper PSU.
I'm not up to date what is going on "in the business" anymore, but generally speaking get PSU from any of these brands:

Spoiler

Antec
be quiet! (rather expensive compared to the others and considering the fact that you are low on money)
Cooler Master
Corsair
OCZ
Seasonic
Thermaltake
XFX

And don't get any of these:

Spoiler

Achieve, Akyga, Altis, Aspire, Atlas, Aton, Bandit, Bestec, Carbon, Coba, Codegen, ColorSit, COMPAQ, Computer, Cube Max, Deer, Delux, Eurocase, Everpower, Feel, Fever, Four Star, Gembird, Gigabajt, GoodWatt, Hawk, Hec (old rev.), Impet, Incore, Intex-Action, i-box, I-TEC, KingStar, Levicom, Likeenergy, Linkword, L&C, Logic, LOGISYS, Macron, Megabajt, Mercury, Metropilis, Modecom Feel, Mustang, Newton Power, Pangu, Platin Power, Power, Power Color (old rev.), Power comp, Powerfox, Power Man, Procase, Procomp, Octigen, Opengate, Qoltec, QTECHNOLOGY, Q-tec, RAIDMAX, Rubikon, Ropla, Sansun, SilenX, Sun Pro, Suntek, Take Me, Task, TE, Tracer, Tronje, Ultra Media, V Power, Whitenergy, Win, Xilence, XION ( old rev.), X-Power, 2N

 

Oh wow, that's scared me a little I have a semi-decent PSU already but it's running at +80% capacity for hours everyday and is 3 years old. Personally I would never go with a generic PSU, even if it is only a stop gap and 500w PSU's can be had for pretty cheap (I just had a look and found some Cooler Master, EVGA, SeaSonic and Zalman branded PSU's for around 30 quid). I would ask around on some tech forums if I were you, they will no doubt advise you to get a new PSU but can also help you figure out if it is your PSU causing your problems and then you can decide your upgrade route from there.

 

Ok this thread has turned to just about everything else except AC and i apologise for that lol .
I really appreciate your help guys and i`m thinking maybe, return the gpu (/cry), try and find some little extra money and buy a new processor + mb + ram + psu.Verry important for me i would choose one of the new processor with integrated graphics so i can at least use the computer for basic tasks for a few months, maybe even play AC on low.
Any opinions on that ? I`m almost convienced to return the gpu and get a refund.Thanks !

 

It's still about AC right? You're upgrading so you can play some AC!?

Don't you still have your HD 5770? It's still a decent card @ 720p (not being too far behind the R7 260X even now despite being 3 generations behind ). I honestly think returning that GPU if allowed is the best option unfortunately One of those hyperthreaded i3's would be awesome! (but it's always easy to spend someone elses money lol).

 

Haha its always about ac, my body is ready for 1.0, sadly m pc isn`t lol.I`m going to discuss with the shop about returning it right now.I am considering even an amd cpu for a budget pc, even tho i know the intel is the king, i feel amd has pretty good bang for your buck..and money is a problem for me..i would want an i5 but it isnt going to happen so i`l have to choose between an i3 wich ifs sadly only dual core but 4 threads if im corect or an amd cpu with lots of cores.

 

I'd say go for the used 2nd or 3rd gen of i5 like I did, 1,5 year ago I get it for the price of the new i3. I think used i5 has the best bang for buck and it has real 4 cores unlike i3.
Also MOBO that I bought was one of the cheapest at the time (50€) while still having all I need (I don't need much as you can see).
Get 4GB of the cheapest 1333MHz CL9 RAM and after some time get another 4GB and it should be enough. Oh and don't go with AMD CPU, even if you will decide to go with i3 you can later change it for i5 or i7.

 

AMD CPU's might get interesting in the year 2016 (hopefully yes).
I think some Xeon CPU's are more interesting and cheaper than any i5/i7 IMO.

 

A friend of mine is using the same processor as you and his motherboard was frying hard drives, we thought it was his power supply but I swapped it for a brand new corsair 600W and it still kept ruining drives.

I would highly advise getting a PSU from EVGA, Corsair, Superflower or Seasonic, I recently got an EVGA Supernova 850G2 for £94 after my Corsair HX1050 started getting very noisy, the thing screams quality and has a 10 year warranty! It's a Leadex platform PSU from Superflower, they're one of the best OEMs at the minute from what I hear. NEVER buy a cheap PSU, it is the heart of your machine.

If the shop agrees to refund you for the GPU post up here what your budget is and we might be able to pick some parts for you

I've just seen some used FX8350's on amazon for £100, seem to be cheaper than used i5 3570's, I've used both of these CPU's so I know they're both good for Assetto Corsa.