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CPU Upgrade advice

q974739

q974739

q974739

Associate
Joined
4 Feb 2009
Posts
1,396
Morning all

18 months ago I built a new system, with:

M4A77TD Pro AMD 770 (Socket AM3) DDR3
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
Patriot Sector 5 Viper II 4GB (2x2GB) PC3-12800 1600MHz Dual Channel + 3D Mark Vantage (PVV34G1600LLKB)
AMD Athlon II X2 Dual Core 240 2.80GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail
Corsair CX 400W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-400CXUK)

My plan was that when AMD moved to a new socket, or a chip line that wasn't compatible with the motherboard I'd upgrade the chip, so I'd have an acceptable system performance for longer.

And now that moment has come...and I'm stuck.

Quad core? Hex? Black (or not?) 95 vs 125 watt? (And overclockers have all these AMD deals...)

It's mainly used as a dual screen gaming/randomstuff machine.

Low power usage is nice, but not a be-all and end all.

So, thoughts/questions please people?
 
q974739 said:
The dilemma is future proofing.

Faster quad vs MORE CORES!

This is where I'm stuck.
Click to expand...
Phenom II X4 or X6 are both same architecture design, they there's not much different in performance when both are on the same clock speed in applications that don't use more than 4 cores. With Black Edition you got unlocked multipler which make overclocking easier.

At the moment 99% of the games don't use 5th and 6th core...in fact, majority of the games barely use 4 cores...so having 6 cores is not really benefitual to gaming, so you should just grab a Phenom II X4 CPU (you might even consider 2nd hand, since CPU chip rarely has problem).

Phenom II is the highest you can go on your existing motherboard, so there's no future proofing I'm afraid.
 
Hmmmm.

Ok, yes, they are the same architecture. However, (in theory) a hex core might be slightly more future proofed then a quad.

IF more newer software takes advantage of more cores. Or, on the other hand, if they focus on optimising on 2-4 cores then hex isn't a future proof at all.

Basicly, would an extra two cores extend the lifetime by 6-12 months?
 
The problem isn't really budget.

I *could* afford to just build a whole new system now; am better off financially now then I expected when I built it.

And having planned to do it, I'm going to do it!

(And, a year down the line, look at a new graphics card... then replace the mb+cpu another year down the line...then the graphics card...until we move off pci express...)
 
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