Best upgrade for the money?

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Soldato
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So after months of persuasion i have finally managed to get my mate off his arse and do some upgrading :p
here is his current spec:

Asus M2N-E mobo,
AMD Athlon 5200+ CPU (2.6Ghz),
HD 4870 1GB, 2gb 667 unbranded RAM,
750W power supply,
500GB hdd
and a **** case :)

He clearly needs to upgrade his CPU and RAM, I have persuaded him to get the CM 690 dominator case.
He has just told me to add this bit of info about his system.... " u might wanna add the fact that my cpu overheats to temps over 90 mainly when playing CoD 4 and Guild Wars just for the added umph effect :)"

the CPU i was looking at for him is the AMD Phenom II X2 Dual Core 550 3.10GHz Black Edition http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-249-AM&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat
and the RAM either the Corsair XMS2 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX Dual Channel http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-136-CS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=813
or the Corsair XMS2 DHX 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX Dual Channel http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-184-CS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=813

bare in mind that he wants to spend as little as possible

Flare
 
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I think it's only AM2+ boards which support AM3 cpu's and that will depend if the manufacturer will bring out a new BIOS, looking at the BIOS webpage the last update was Nov last year.
 
I'd get a phenom II 720 instead of 550, so the mobo will support it and will be a nicer upgrade :P
 
RJC said:
I think it's only AM2+ boards which support AM3 cpu's and that will depend if the manufacturer will bring out a new BIOS, looking at the BIOS webpage the last update was Nov last year.
Click to expand...

"AMD has revealed that AM2 will accept AM2 or AM3 (also dubbed AM2+) CPU packages."
so basically am3 is dubbed am2+ isnt it?
And isn't around nov last year when AMD came out with the am3 chips?

wbc1 said:
I'd get a phenom II 720 instead of 550, so the mobo will support it and will be a nicer upgrade :P
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my mate doesnt have tthe cash for that and why would the mobo support the 720 and not the 550? :confused:
 
oops, i meant the 710, that's only if the mobo can't support the AM3. But tbh, that cpu is enough, the 550 will only be a minor improvement (especially in gaming). Try OC it to around 3ghz?
 
wbc1 said:
oops, i meant the 710, that's only if the mobo can't support the AM3. But tbh, that cpu is enough, the 550 will only be a minor improvement (especially in gaming). Try OC it to around 3ghz?
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so you think going for the 550 would not be much of an improvement to his AMD Athlon 5200+ ? :confused: the problem is that i reckon his current cpu is bottlenecking his 4870 1gb. also, because he doesnt want to spend much, OCing his AMD Athlon 5200+ would mean having to get a new heatsink which is not feasible
 
Yes if there is any bottleneck it would be the CPU, however, the step up from 5200+ to 550 isnt that much, maybe about 30% tops and even less in terms of fps in games, which is why im suggesting the tricores. But of course, if you can sell that cpu then the cost of upgrading to a 550 would be justified I feel.
 
jawor121 said:
You will feel the difference especially when overclocking because 550 will go higher than 5200+ can go as it is 45nm.
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thats what im thinking, although the 550 is not a massive step up from the 5200+ it has much greater OCing potential
 
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