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Advice needed on upgrading CPU

Associate
Joined
13 Nov 2010
Posts
20
Hey there,

I bought this current PC from the website about a year ago and I feel I would like to upgrade the CPU as it is starting to not meet the minimum specifications of new games that are coming out and is bottlenecking the GPU.

The specs are as follows:

2.90 gigahertz AMD Athlon II X2 245
Windows 7 Home Premium (x64)
Board: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. M61PME-S2P
4096 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory
ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series
400W Power Supply

I have looked at the motherboard and it downgrades hyperthreading or something with some CPUs but I really don't have a clue what that means!

So my question is, is this system possible to upgrade? What could it be upgraded to (if anything)?

Thanks a lot for any replies, much appreciated
 
I'm pretty sure the Athlon II is an AM3 CPU so you have more options open to you for CPU upgrade,

a CPU like mine is not too expensive but its a 125W cpu so not sure if your board would support it
 
Wow, thanks for the quick replies! Would my power supply be a limiting factor in what I could upgrade to? How easy is the process of installing a new CPU?

Thanks
 
So long as you can upgrade the BIOS then a nice CPU upgrade is possible. With the F6 BIOS it will accept up to 95W Phenon II X4 like the 95W verison of the 955, also an Athlon II X4 would be a nice upgrade if you are needing more cores. Also, with the more recent F7B BIOS it will even accept the 95W version of the Phenom II X6 1055T.

As for downgrading "hyperthreading" I think what you mean is that the Hypertransport bus that is running at a lower speed due to the older chipset. Supposedly it does reduce performance, but it isn't a dealbreaker.
 
Wow, thanks for the quick replies! Would my power supply be a limiting factor in what I could upgrade to? How easy is the process of installing a new CPU?

Thanks

What make and model of PSU have you got?

The motherboard only supports up to 95W CPUs, so even if you get the best CPU that the motherboard will take then the jump in power requirement will only be 30W. If you have a solid 400W PSU (maybe from Corsair, OCZ, Seasonic etc.) then you should be fine, however if it is a generic el-cheapo PSU then I would replace it with a quality (though not necessarily bank breaking) PSU at the earliest opportunity.
 
I have just checked and it is a Corsair power supply so that should be fine. Once the CPU is installed, would I have to enter the BIOS and change any settings or is it a case of 1) Plug it in 2) Turn it on 3) Enters Windows?
 
I have just checked and it is a Corsair power supply so that should be fine. Once the CPU is installed, would I have to enter the BIOS and change any settings or is it a case of 1) Plug it in 2) Turn it on 3) Enters Windows?

Perfect, then yes you should be fine!

And yes it is that simple.
 
remember to look at the sticky if you have any troubles or post again, there will be plenty of people willing to help.
 
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