Another Upgrade thread

TMHatter · 26 Sep 2006 at 10:35

I have had my current system for 18 months now, it is

Athlon 64 3500
1Gb Ram
ATI X800Xl graphics card

This moring I saw that the Athlon X2 are now down to a reasobable price. The question is, is it worth going to an AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4600+ for £165 or possibly a 4800+ for £211 or is it better spending that amount of money elsewhere.

Would it provide any noticable boost in performance and stave off a complete system upgrade for a year or two?

hyper_piper45 · 26 Sep 2006 at 10:38

For those prices you want to be looking at a core 2 duo system.

TMHatter · 26 Sep 2006 at 11:34

Yeah I was thinking that, although I can get a 4600+ for £150. With core duo I would need to by memory and mobo as well which makes it a bit more exspensive , What would be an equivalent for a core Duo system ? I have not been paying attention to cpu specs for a while.

ReeceKB · 26 Sep 2006 at 11:35

Agreed.

The conroe is the one of the fastest chips out there and offers amazing perfomance for money if your going to overclock.

wizardmaxx · 26 Sep 2006 at 11:37

The logical upgrade to futureproof is am2. If you go that route youd have to get new mb and mem anyway. Core2duo is definately a wiser choice.

TMHatter · 26 Sep 2006 at 11:45

Which one offers the most bang for buck at the moment then ? and wich MOBO ?

wizardmaxx · 26 Sep 2006 at 11:54

Price to performance conroe is about 10-15% faster.

Gigabyte 965 mobo's performing very well for 6300, 6400 (2mb cache)

Asus 975 mobo's seems to be the choice for 6600, 6700 (4mb cache)

TMHatter · 27 Sep 2006 at 15:25

so about £390 for the complete upgrade, as so nearly twice the amount for just upgrading mine to a 4800+. I have noticed that the intel boards have only one EIDE slot, that could be a probllem I have 2 200Gb EIDE drives and a DVD drive and a DVD burner and one 250Gb Sata drive.

wizardmaxx · 27 Sep 2006 at 15:54

Good point, but if consider that you gonna have 2 upgrade at some stage you gonna have to spend the cash eventually anyways. Based on all info and if u on a budget, go for the cheapest x2 upgrade u can get. As far as the ide story goes, get used to it cos i think it gonna gecome the standard from now on.

TMHatter · 27 Sep 2006 at 16:15

That what I am leaning towards, and then maybe sticking another Gig of ram in at some point although I have not noticed any need for it yet.

Trying to decide between the 4600+ (£150) and 4800+ (£190). Is there a lot of difference between them in terms of day to day performance ?

wizardmaxx · 27 Sep 2006 at 16:20

Def not worth the extra cash. Get yourself a good quality cooler and silence the system up a bit

TMHatter · 27 Sep 2006 at 16:37

So the 4600+ then? I have a Akasa EVO 120 at the moment being controlled by the mobo and it runs very slow and quiet, will that cope with the 4600 or should I look at a new cooler as well. My system is very qiute at the moment.

wizardmaxx · 27 Sep 2006 at 18:03

Akasa should work a charm. Hope it all works out 4 u.