Is the motherboard worth keeping?

Kenjiin · 6 Jan 2012 at 19:18

Hi people's, I'm just looking for a little advice.

I originally thought my motherboard was dead so I ordered a new one. A few ours later I fixed my PC realizing it wasn't my mobo but couldn't cancel the order, so its here with me now and I'm debating whether its worth returning or keeping.

The new motherboard I have is ASRock N68C-S UCC - Link

The old motherboard I currently have installed is a Gigabyte M61PME-S2P
I think its similar to this one -Link- But mine doesn't say GA- at the front.

I wondering if it's worth keeping for upgrades in the future, or isn't there that much difference?

My current specs are:
AMD Athlon(tm) II X2 245 Processor ~2.9GHz
4GB DDR2
Corsair HX450w
ATI 4850 1GB

I'm looking to upgrade some things at some point this year, but they won't be huge. For instance I was just looking at a AMD Phenom x4.

While I'm here I may as well ask, upgrading which of my components first would see the biggest increase in performance for gaming? I was thinking the CPU but I don't know.

Thanks for any advice

mickyflinn · 6 Jan 2012 at 19:34

The asrock motherboard seems to be the best as it has support for ddr3 and a new chipset with more features. Your processer is definately holding you back i would get a MD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 960T Black Edition "95W Edition" 3.00GHz £103.99 inc VAT and if your lucky it may unlock to 6 cores.

Kenjiin · 6 Jan 2012 at 20:24

Would the motherboard itself see any increase in performance?

Yeah that's the cpu I was looking at, just worried about the thermal paste stuff as I've never installed one before >_<. And I've no idea how to unlock it to 6 cores.

mickyflinn · 6 Jan 2012 at 20:39

To be honest its a budget motherboard so its hard to say but you will see a vast inprovement in cpu performance. The asrock has unlock core which i belive is a setting in the bios so you will have to read the manual. You could also buy some memory which will give a performance boost ddr 3 1600mhz would be a good choice costing about £23 for 4 gb. It all depends on your budget for upgrades.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=701&catid=8&subid=1517&sortby=priceAsc

Herecy · 6 Jan 2012 at 20:51

Kenjiin said:
Would the motherboard itself see any increase in performance?

Yeah that's the cpu I was looking at, just worried about the thermal paste stuff as I've never installed one before >_<. And I've no idea how to unlock it to 6 cores.

Thermal paste is a doddle to install, put less than a pea sized amount on the heatsink and spread around with a plastic credit card or similar.

There are many guides on how to unlock, just follow them religiously and you will be fine.