Bottleneck/What to upgrade

simsim

simsim

simsim

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Joined
22 Jan 2010
Posts
31
Hi my system is a few years old now and I am looking to upgrade. I changed my Graphics card a while back which made a difference but I have got a feeling my processor is bottle necking my ability to play games such as Bad Company 2 on maxed out settings?

I am playing at 1920 x 1080. Specs are from dx.diag

Processor: AMD Phenom(tm) 9500 Quad-Core Processor (4 CPUs), ~2.2GHz
XFX ATI Radeon HD 5850 XXX 1024MB GDDR5
Display Memory: 2806 MB
Dedicated Memory: 1014 MB
Memory: 4094MB RAM
Model: WDC WD3000GLFS-01F8U0 ATA Device ( A raptor )

The mobo is AM2+ so i dont think I can fit Hex-core. If i change to the top spec 4 core Phenom II, will it make that much of a difference or is it best to change mobo? I am looking to play Battlefield 3, Deus Ex etc on decent settings?
 
Ah well around £150 I wouldn't want to spend much more than that to be honest. Upgrading the CPU + mobo would be kinda expensive for now and I am happy to stick with amd.
 
Whats the make and model of your PSU?

Are the harddrives and optical drive IDE or SATA connection?
 
simsim said:
The PSU is a Corsair 600W. The drives are SATA.
Click to expand...

Brilliant news:)

I know you said AMD, but Intel sandybridge are faster,

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core-i3-2120-2100_5.html#sect0


Your basketProduct Name Qty Price Line Total
Intel Core i3-2100 3.10GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £94.99
(£79.16) £94.99
(£79.16)
MSI H61M-E33 Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard **B3 REVISION** £46.99
(£39.16) £46.99
(£39.16)
Kingston HyperX Blu 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9AD3B1K2/4G) £23.99
(£19.99) £23.99
(£19.99)
Sub Total : £138.31
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.50
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £29.56
Total : £177.37


Out of interest whats the make and model of your AM2+ motherboard? just so it can be checked what CPU's it can take.
 
Last edited:
stulid said:
Brilliant news:)

I know you said AMD, but Intel sandybridge are faster,

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core-i3-2120-2100_5.html#sect0


Your basketProduct Name Qty Price Line Total
Intel Core i3-2100 3.10GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £94.99
(£79.16) £94.99
(£79.16)
MSI H61M-E33 Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard **B3 REVISION** £46.99
(£39.16) £46.99
(£39.16)
Kingston HyperX Blu 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9AD3B1K2/4G) £23.99
(£19.99) £23.99
(£19.99)
Sub Total : £138.31
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.50
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £29.56
Total : £177.37
Click to expand...


Is the i3 enough of an upgrade to make a difference? From what I have read the dual-core makes me nervous. WIth the 4GB of ram i have is there the need to change it for the kingston (i know its not exactly an expensive option)
 
simsim said:
Is the i3 enough of an upgrade to make a difference? From what I have read the dual-core makes me nervous. WIth the 4GB of ram i have is there the need to change it for the kingston (i know its not exactly an expensive option)
Click to expand...

If you can do whats at the bottom of the post above, it may be simple to just stick a AM3 chip in.

As for your RAM, well it is DDR2 and all these new boards etc are DDR3.
 
stulid said:
If you can do whats at the bottom of the post above, it may be simple to just stick a AM3 chip in.

As for your RAM, well it is DDR2 and all these new boards etc are DDR3.
Click to expand...

Hmm well the top processor that will fit into the current mobo is around £130 the

AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 975 Black Edition "125W Edition" 3.60GHz (Socket AM3)

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-286-AM

The reviewer states that they slotted it into an AM2+ mobo and it works great. I supposed the only thing is I do not want it to be a short term stop gap, but want to avoid the route of the full upgrade.

Thanks for the advice I will look further into this i3 setup vs a maxed out phenom II.
 
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