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Phenom II X4/6 or bulldozer/Piledriver

sneakysnail

sneakysnail

sneakysnail

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Im upgrading from an old ddr2 motherboard running an amd X2 7550 which was overclocked from 2.5 to 3 ghz. I'm not as much of a gamer as I used to be so not breaking the bank here.

I'm willing to spend a bit over £100 on a cpu, but which do you think delivers more value for money at that price range? I haven't heard a lot of good things about the new bulldozers/piledrivers and wondering if it's worth just buying a phenom to throw onto the old am2+ motherboard and then upgrading the motherboard and ram as I go. I've seen Phenom II X4 965's for as little as £65 and I'm sure I'd notice a huge difference In performance from that alone although I'm sure my Mobo would limit how much I could overclock it.

My rigs watercooled right now So I'm also wondering If a cheap phenom on a good am3+ motherboard and a high clock might also be better than say a more expensive bulldozer but running on a lesser Mobo.
 
sneakysnail said:
My rigs watercooled right now So I'm also wondering If a cheap phenom on a good am3+ motherboard and a high clock might also be better than say a more expensive bulldozer but running on a lesser Mobo.
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You should be looking for a 990x mobo for a piledriver. I would not look at bulldozer specifically.

Personally for the cheapest upgrade I would look at what your current mobo will take in terms of processor and look for the best black edition phenomII that you can find second hand that is supported..

Then I would look at a 990x mobo with an FX6300 or an FX8320.

You may need to upgrade ram as well.

Also see if an i5 intel and mobo would fit in your price range. Not i3 as that can be limiting.
 
i would get a cheaper am3+ mb and a FX6300

you could get a mobo more than capable for 55-60 quid

you dont need a 100 mobo if you going budget
 
nkata said:
I think the OP is going to overclock as he has watercooling so a reasonable motherboard makes sense.

YOUR BASKET
1 x **B Grade** Asus M5A99X EVO AMD 990X (Socket AM3+) DDR3 PCI-Express ATX (MB-462-AS) £70.00
Total : £79.90 (includes shipping : £8.25).

Click to expand...

the watercoolings optional at this point. The Case I'm using is an old thermaltake Kandalf lcs (watercooled case kit from when I was watercooling newbie) and the front mounted radiator is not really that quiet and changing all the fans and drain/setting the loop up again when I'm changing hardware might just be to much of a hassle.

might just throw an artic freezer on there. It's overkill for what I'm running now but If I have hardware that will be temp limited when overclocking I'd strongly consider keeping it.

what kind of temps are normal for a piledriver and how much overclock would you expect to get from one?
 
The more I think about it the more I think I'm going to hold of on a big upgrade. I could go for an 8350 but with mobo and ram I'm probably looking at at least £300+. Recently when I have been gaming it's been playing Planetside and Firefall. Both rely on CPU more than GPU but aren't great at using multiple cores so worry that the 8350 wouldn't be able to deliver It's full performance.

Also I am only using a 7770 graphics card right now so that would limit game performance as well. I think I'm going to grab a phenom II X4 9650 for £60 and sit and wait until I have more of a budget and then just build a new PC, possibly consider an intel switch as well. I cant imagine the 8350 will give me £240 worth of performance over the 9650 and I don't really want to go to cheap with the mobo. When I'm building a new pc I really like to have a solid mobo.
 
The problem with sitting and waiting for new technology is there's always something new around the corner. There's never really a right time to buy, but like you've said if you can't justify the price/performance then maybe it isn't worth it.
 
I would get a FX6300, I have one running at 4ghz no problem, I've heard of people getting them in the high 4's and they are about £105
 
From personal experience I'd say go for the 965 if you're not wanting to splash out too much cash on a new mobo. I put one in my AM2+ a few months ago - also upgraded over the weekend to a HD7850 and the games look and play great eg Tomb Raider and Skyrim. Of course I've now got upgrade fever and would like to get a new mobo and processor but it'll tide me over for now...
 
I'm still running a x6 1055t at stock with a 7850 and not having any issues with games so far.

If I wanted I could afford to upgrade my whole comp but I'm not going to bother until I need to
 
Currently running a Phenom II Quad @ 3.85ghz with a Radeon 7850 2gb, it's still more than capable @ 1920x1080 with all the games I play...

constant 60fps on Need For Speed Hot Pursuit (its limited to 60fps) @ Max Settings

50-55fps Sim City 5 @ Max and generally around these FPS with most the games I play...

Depending what graphics card you have you should see a nice boost from the dual core athlon to the quad phenom II.

The thing is, if you have a quite low low end GPU, it might not keep up with the extra horse power out of the Phenom II resulting in you seeing only a very slight increase in performance of games before the GPU starts to bottleneck you.

But to your original question, considering you wont have to buy anything else like a MOBO for a £65 upgrade you probably wouldn't get 'better value' out of the other options.

I've had this chip for over a year now, was a dual core that cost me just over £60, unlocked to quad running at the speed I got it at couldn't be happier!
 
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