I looked around though a few other threads but didn't find exactly what i was looking for, or maybe im just blind heh. I currently run at Ultra with high shadows and run a couple texture and graphics mods as well as driver tweaks and stay around 30 fps which is fine, but obviously i would like to improve this for future modding etc. My build right now is


Win Vista x32 bit
AMD 6000+ x64 dual core 3.0
ASUS 460 GTX-OC 700mhz 768mb
4g Patriot Viper low latency 800mhz DDR2 ram
Western Digital 454g Hd (had it about 4 years now don't know its speed)
MSI K9N6PGM2-V2 95w am2 / am2+ / am3 mobo
SB X-Fi Champ Edition Sound card
Coolmax 600w PSU


I have been looking into getting a quad core to replace my old dual and the best i have seen that are 95w am3 like my mobo is the Phenom II x4 960 Black edition 3.0 Quad Core as all the higher ghz amd CPU's need a 125w Mobo and the only 95w 3.6ghz cpu i seen was am3+ so not sure as my old mobo doesn't list am3+.

Getting a new MoBo than can use a 125w 3.6 quad core with my current setup would basically consist of building a new Pc and i have been thinking of this also, so can and may just build this


Win 7 x64 bit
EVGA 560TI GTX 2G
ASUS Sabertooth p67 Mobo
intel core i5 2500k
8g Corair Vengeance DDR3 1600 ram
WD Caviar Black 500g 7200rpg Sata 6gb
Corsair Enthusiast Series 750w PSU
SB X-Fi Champ Edition Sound card

Obviously every part of the new build would be much better than the old one and i know it would run any game like a champ im sure BUT... lets say maybe i plan to stick with my current build for a while longer, ( up to a year longer) the main question is would i notice any improved performance with a 3.0 quad core over a 3.0 dual core in Skyrim ? (note i also play many other high end game, including Saints row 3 which is very Cpu intense maybe even more than skyrim)


P.s also how much is my OS / possibly slow HDD and 800mhz ram holding me back as far as gaming performance? Would the increased performance of the new build be so huge that i would be crazy not to go for it or would my current build with a 3.0 quad core put in be enough for a while to come.

EDIT - edited new PC build specs to reflect feedback .

Tom's Hardware or one of the other tech sites had an article that showed CPU scaling using nearly identical parts as your 1st rig compared against faster CPUs. In summary, you're definitely going to be CPU limited in a lot of games even with a single GTX 460 768MB (they used the same GPU). They generally conclude 3 cores is the sweet spot right now for most games with less scaling on that 4th core. So you will see the biggest gains with up to 3 fast cores.

Personally, if you're considering a new build and have a Micro Center near you, I think it'd be worth it to take a look at Intel. They're just faster chips, especially for gaming, and once you factor in overclocking its not even close. Just something to consider if you're willing to spend a bit more.

If you are getting a consistent 30 fps with your current rig, and those settings, and texture mods, then I think you are getting the most out of it (assuming you are also using Skyboost) that you can get with that setup.

You didn't mention PSU...don't forget this very important component with any upgrade...people often neglect it.

Re just cpu upgrade to quad - ya, you'd see some minor difference, but I think what you have are multiple 'maxed' components that if you upgrade any one of them, the others will mostly just hold you back. RAM speed and amount, PSU (maybe), HDD speed, cpu, gpu...right now, IMHO, money spent on any 1 component is pretty much a waste in your case, especially if you are eventually doing an overhaul.

Personally, I'd leave it be and not upgrade any components. Then, when the time is right, overhaul it all.

Vista x32 is currently holding back your cpu, upgrading to Win 7 x64 now would be a boost on its own.

Hmm i knew it was holding back my ram but didn't think it would hold back my CPU.

This is true, but to what extent? In my previous post, I guess my point is that you can upgrade any one of his components for minor gain for sure, but that the gains will remain very minor while other components are bottlenecking. Actually, it is a tribute to his build...a bad build is where you over-engineer and overpay on many components uselessly while others hold you back. At the time he put this computer together years ago, it actually was pretty good I think because no components were holding it back in any big way. Of course always room for small improvements. Win 7 x64 would be first on my list if I had money burning a hole in my wallet. But if he is getting consistent 30fps now, why not just hold fire till ready to do everything at once?

He will be better by OCing the heck out of his CPU than getting more cores, at least with Skyrim... i have couple system, my current which is PhenomIIx4 810 (OC 3100Mhz) and a AthlonIIx2 640 (OC 3600Mhz) and the AthlonII runs faster than my PhenomII... no [censored], it gets better FPS because is clocked higher than my PhenomII.

I also tried disabling cores from Skyrim and in Riften looking from Jarl place to the plaza using 4 cores i get 20Fps. if i disable 1 core in Task Manager i get EXACT SAME FrameRate 20, if i disable a second core in task manager i get 19fps and if i let only 1 core i get arround 8-9fps.

In the AthlonII based PC i get 26 fps using the exact same save game.

PhenomII 810 (3100) PC
6Gb DDR3
350Gb HDD 7200RPM
HD5770 1Gb

AthonII 640 (3600) PC
2Gb DDR2
300G HDD 7200RPM
HD4770 1Gb


Skyrim is set in both Systems on Custom Ultra Detail, everything MAXED except for Shadows which are set to High.

So yeah... its kinda annoying that i have olmost twice as cappable system than the AthlonII yet the AthlonII perfoms better in Skyrim because its just faster.

Yeah, not sure how much boost in actual FPS 32-bit would give, there are benefits to 64-bit but usually realized in different ways. If you want a guide to upgrade to 64-bit you can read here, although that person's situation is a bit different. They were experiencing CTDs and are not looking to upgrade their system, so updating their OS is a natural fix: http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1337677-dtcs-still-a-veritable-nightmare-in-skyrim/page__view__findpost__p__20144729

In the OP's case, they were already looking to upgrade and were specifically looking to increase FPS, the only way that's going to change meaningfully is to upgrade that aging 2-core CPU.

One thing that would be worth trying that's free and would give a taste of potential improvements from a faster CPU is to overclock your existing CPU. Not for long-term usage especially if you don't have an aftermarket heatsink, but you'd be able to see very quickly if you're CPU limited in Skyrim, which is probably the case now with the 1.4 beta improvements.

Using a 64 OS will bring no benefit if the Game does not support 64Bit.

Skyrim is CPU dependant so Skyrim would run Faster on a dual core CPU clocked at 5ghz than a 32 cores clocked at 3ghz.

Yea i agree on your point The Nanny i could always upgrade to win 7 and even put in a quad 3.0 in this system for pretty cheap and get marginal gains across the board, but like you said it would be just throwing money at something that already runs great and would be better spent on a new build if that is the plan for the near future. the only way i could see Option 1 being a good idea is if i indeed decide to hold off on the new build for a full year or close. Thank you guys for the help.

I think this a rather gross oversimplification, bordering on erroneous. Skyrim does make use of 4 cores or more, just maybe not as efficiently as it could.

I would be careful OCing an athlon 64. They already run hot; especially the 90nm.

It only balances load across all cores, not that it is using their power to speed performance, which pretty much means more cores are useless, Skyrim only uses up to 3 cores, you only gain 1 fps over a dual core.

But you are right in a way, it does balances load to all cores... it just does not improves performance at all.

Yes that and i have never OC'd and i haven't seen anything that would suggest my cpu would OC very well, read a few accounts of people getting theirs up to 3.4ghz stable and cool but imho its not something i would want to tinker with rather than just dropping faster cpu in it and call it done or leave it alone all together and build a new one and let my kids have this one.




edit- A question about a new build, modding skyrim a lot specially with lots of higher res texture mods and graphics mods and Ultra settings with driver tweaks takes a lot of Vram so i think it would be better to go for the 560ti 2g card over the 1g faster superclocked card considering the price is only $20 more for the 2g model.

It comes down to


Core clock- 900mhz -v- 822mhz
Shader clock-1800mhz -v- 1645
Memory size-2g -v-1g
Memory clock- 4212 -v- 4000


Is the factory overclocking just something to sell the card or actualy noticably faster than normal and would the extra gig of vram on the none overclocked card be better or even needed for skyrim and modding .

If you're building a new one then I'd either go for your original suggestion (a phenom ii) or with a bigger budget ($200 more) an i5 2500k system.

I'd pass on the lower-end intel. The 2500k is definitely worth it tho if you can justify the additional cost.

This is a myth/misconception due to not having full understanding of how 32bit application are unhindered running under a 64bit os like they are with a 32bit os.

There are significant benefits in running a 64bit os.. even if the game is not 64bit... Being skyrim, which has a frequent taste of playing with the 2gb memory allocation limits of 32bit.. is totally unhindered by 32bit os in purposely keeping it at 2gb or less... or with 3gb mode set... 3gb..

Additionally the memory systems in 64bit is significantly improved and generally can process that information much more efficiently.

Top it off it just saves headaches in the end as newer hardware/devices/software migrate over to 64bit.

Since the introduction of windows XP x64 which to this day is still a stellar OS even if it's a windows server 2003 with windows XP theme and capabilities slapped on... it's HUGELY superior to that of xp 32bit.


The game is Very well balanced on a triple core system.. making good noticeably improvements over the dual core even at a lower clock frequency..

Fact is that dual core is basically a requirement and people really need to understand that those few extra FPS you MAY be getting (unlikely) over say a triple or quad core doesn't amount to much... Frankly i'm seeing the opposite with a Quad core at a 500mhz slower clock frequency than the dual core equivilent is performing either the same OR in some cases FASTER than the dual core. This makes your arguement or statement totally invalid if it were using something tangeable an real today.

"MHZ/GHZ" values are nothing more than a number and mean nothing without the other equations... i know several cases in which skyrim would perform significantly better at 3ghz than another cpu at 5ghz.

Lets take a Intel P4 with HT running 4.5ghz..... vs a Intel Q6600 running at 2.4ghz i beleive it is..... you know who would win? Most definitely the Q6600.... but ah, the intel p4 with HT isn't a dual core... you would argue.. no but i'm trying to give an example of how absurd it is to make a blanket statement about cores vs frequency. If one cpu with one core is able to do 3 opperations per clock, vs the other doing 2 opperations per clock with one core...... then the one able to do 3 will perform faster than the other doing only 2 even if the one with 2 has high frequency.

Older Generation Dual core such as the e8400 isn't able to chew through as much code as a modern dual/quad core at the same frequencies.

Agree that newer CPUs are much better than old P4, but tell me why my athlonII system beats my PhenomII system in Skyrim? they are both using Win7x64 but the hardware differs alot, PhenomII uses DDR3 and a faster Newer GPU, yet the AthlonII has better framerate simply because it has faster clock 3.6Ghz compared to my PhenomII 3.1Ghz.

I'd be interested in taking a look personally...

I've several systems.... including an Athlon 64 2700+..... an althon 64 5000+ (dual core) and a phenom II x4 940....

Short of having more details about the system..... there are other factors that can accomidate the differences. While DDR3 is usually faster.. i can be sometimes lower. For example some DDR1 ram will out perform DDR2 simply due to considerably different timings resulting in while overal bandwidth being a little higher for DDR2..... the ddr1 has incredibly good timings giving it the edge in some circumstances.

Motherboards and their design.... SATA controllers, audio and windows setups... Even when things are identical.. sometimes they aren't.

I just know that through my own testing... the quad core has typically either matched or slightly performed better than the equivilent dual core even at a slight disadvantage. Granted most of my skyrim testing has been mostly specifically isolated to intel cpu's as i haven't sold any AMD systems that i've built myself for about 4 years now due to being well... not as good dollar/performance. (another debateable subject no less.. but not here).

CPU structure is what it's about..... personally while i was happy with the phenom II x4 940's performance, it was still way behind the much much older intel i7 920..... Even with it having a significant frequency advantage over the 920...

It's all about trying to compare apples to oranges.. obviously there is no point in moving to a quad core if that quad core doesn't have either the same or better performance.. right?

Overclocking shouldn't be brought into the mix because modern quad cores are amazing overclockers now and no dual core can touch them.

This isn't correct, 64-bit OS allows ALL of your 32-bit apps, the OS itself, any drivers to use up to 4GB for each instance so there is a benefit for 32-bit apps on a 64-bit OS.

In comparison, a 32-bit OS has 4GB addressable memory for everything in total, both hardware and software. After your hardware reserves addressable space that leaves you only ~3GB for your OS and user space apps. Windows limits 32-bit apps to 2GB by default in a 32-bit OS so already, you can see a 64-bit app will double your maximum memory allocation for any large address aware 4GB 32-bit apps, which Skyrim was updated to with the 1.3.1 patch and with the Skyrim4GB mod prior to that. On top of that, any 32-bit apps won't need to compete with the OS, drivers, or hardware for addressable memory as they will use what they need up to the maximum amount of physical memory you have installed.

Rule of thumb for performance at same clocks/cores:

Athlon 64 = Phenom <--<--< Core 2 (e.g. q6600) = Phenom II <--<--< Core 2 Penryn (e.g. e8400) < Nehalem (e.g. i7 920) < Sandybridge

That's a pretty good clock for clock guide, although I'd probably put Core 2 (Conroe) about the same as PhII and add one more arrow in the gap between Penryn and Nehalem.

Yeah I already changed the phenom ii to be equal to core 2 after second thoughts.

Penryn and Nehalem are surprisngly close in gaming but outside of gaming nehalem is the clear winner due to bandwidth and yet more cache.

When I had a Dual-Core Athlon64 x2 @ 2.4GHz, 2GB of Ram, and a Radeon 4870, I noticed quite a big difference when switching to a Phenom 2 x4 @ 3.4GHz, and 4GB of ram. Your GTX 460 is a lot faster than my old 4870, so I think you'd also see a big difference with a quad core. Actually a better comparison would be my cousin who had the same CPU as you @ 3GHz, and a 5830 which is still slower than your GTX 460. He upgraded to a new Phenom and also noticed quite the difference. Of course your card will be the limiting factor once you upgrade, but that's pretty much how hardware upgrades go. You're going to be limited by something at some point.

As for ram, I'm not sure how much difference you'll see in games with DDR2 vs DDR3.... might be a little, might be a lot, I've never really researched it. 4GB is still a good amount though. I've yet to see a game eat 4GB of system ram(even including the OS takes).

Personally if you can get a well priced Phenom 2 Quad, maybe consider getting that now, and start saving for completely new build later on.

The selling point of the 3ghz athlon 64 was that it offered similar performance to the 2.5ghz core 2 at a lower price.

Yeah Penryn definitely held its own and was even faster in some cases than Nehalem due to lower latency L2 and more cache per core, but newer highly threaded/multi-core optimized games and multi-GPU configs really pull away on Nehalem as the coherent L3 cache really shines. I remember GTA4 was the first example where Nehalem was just a huge advantage over Core 2, and also remember quite a few threads in BFBC2 where highly OC'd Core 2 users weren't getting the same framerates as i7 users with similar GPU set-ups.