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Upgrade advice needed : FX-53 to A64 4000+

Deks

Deks

Deks

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Joined
1 Sep 2004
Posts
554
Location
Dewsbury
Hi all,

I am after a little advice regarding upgrading my system

I currently have ;
Asus AGP motherboard (A8N or something)
FX-53 socket 939 (Clawhammer)
1gb corsair DDR400 ram
Ati X800xt graphics card

I want a cheapish upgrade to last at least to after christmas. I struggle in some games like Oblivion, COD2 etc when trying to run in 1280 resolution with eye candy turned on. As far as I can see my main weekness is the graphics card.

I have decided to place an order tomorrow for an ATI X1900XT graphics card along with the Asus A8N-E nForce4 Ultra (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-088-AS).

My main question is would it be also worth upgrading the FX-53 to the AMD Athlon 64 4000+ San Diego (Socket 939) ?
Would there be much of a difference in gaming? Its £80 I don't really want to spend if I wouldnt notice the difference. I play RTS games which require a fair bit of processing power as well as FPS games.

Any comments would be appreciated.

All the best

Deks
 
I don't normally post here but, a 4000+ is basically the same as an FX53, with a locked multiplier (same clock speed and cache).

The only thing you'll gain by switching is SSE3 support. The only other thing, is the the San Diegos are .90nm, so will probably run a little cooler.
 
Hi and thanks for the replies,

I will be placing my order at lunchtime. I was trawling the net last night and managed to find the following link

http://tomshardware.co.uk/2005/11/21/the_mother_of_all_cpu_charts_2005uk/page64.html

It shows the 4000+ as faster than the dual cores in games which I didn't realise. But the main thing is it shows the 4000+ only marginally faster than the fx-53 approximately 6 fps or 3% but I like the thought of a cooler chip as my fx-53 is constantly sending Asus Probe warnings at 69 deg which I set the limit at.

I'll have a think about it this morning as I am uprading from an x800xt to a X1900xt which should hopefully show massive improvements and getting a new cpu in conjunction might help or maybe spend the money on 2gb ram instead. Damn I only just thought of that one!

Cheers

Deks
 
I'd say whack a Freezer 64 Pro on your fx-53, get a decent set of 2gig dimms (G-Skill are pretty good) and clock the LANGUAGE! outta it. The Freezer is cheap, quiet and cools great, you'll seea nice difference in new games with 2gig of ram and x1900 will really be an improvement. I wouldn't bother changing the processor until you have to change thw whole lot, and i'd wait til next year for that to see what AMD come up with (even though Conroe is oh so tempting!!) Most games won't see a massive benefit from a new cpu TBH. Go for it and clock the hell outta that FX!! :D
 
Dude you have an fx and you're ging to buy a plain a64??????!!!!!!
Overclock it now!!! Seriously buy some extreme cooling for your current cpu instead, you'd never notice the difference between a stock 4000 and fx 53 in games in a million years.
 
Thanks again,

I am going to take the advice of better cooling to OC the fx-53 and invest in a couple of gigs of ram (along with the new m/b and x1900).

I must say HL2 episode one used to lock up when entering new areas and stuttered when say a new sound was played (using Audigy 2 Zs) so not sure what the bottleneck there was but I reckon its ram.

Take and thanks for the advice

Deks
 
yep that definately seems the right thing to do to me, im sure you'l see more of an improvement with more ram and a better graphics card
 
I have used the FX and have a 3700 clocked, and have used the old 4000's.

As has been said, your so much better off getting more out of your FX.

So much more potential than what its running at, still a very potent processor in to this day.
 
Could you recommend some ram (2 X 1mb) that would overclock well but not cost the earth?

cheers

Deks
 
G.Skill ZX here. Nice tight timmings, can clock a bit as well. Or for overclocking the HZ kit has higher frequencies but looser timmings. your FX would probably prefer the tighter timings, you would need to run it on a divider though.

GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 Value Dual is a bit cheaper. OCuk seems to be low on DDR stock at the moment (lots of DDR2, i guess due to Conroe/AM2). It might be worth giving them a call to see if any of the Mushkin 2GB kits are due soon and at what price as they are very good too.
 
STOP your planning changing your mobo, ram and gfx and going 939. I really wouldnt mate if i were you id spend the little extra and go AM2 or conroe. Not denying 939 is good but your cpu is the only thing your carring over you would be as well go for the latest tech.
 
hI m8,

I held back placing my order this morning as the HIS X1900XT is now out of stock and showing 4-7 days. I have next week off work and had planned doing the build then.

I have read loads on the Conroe and must say your comments do make sense. The thing that put me off was knowing which Motherboard to pick as the 775 chipsets are really expensive. The Giga hs3 seams reasonable tho.

How would you say the Conroe 6600 would stack up against the FX-53 ?

Cheers

Deks



sgoaty said:
STOP your planning changing your mobo, ram and gfx and going 939. I really wouldnt mate if i were you id spend the little extra and go AM2 or conroe. Not denying 939 is good but your cpu is the only thing your carring over you would be as well go for the latest tech.
Click to expand...
 
Deks said:
hI m8,

I held back placing my order this morning as the HIS X1900XT is now out of stock and showing 4-7 days. I have next week off work and had planned doing the build then.

I have read loads on the Conroe and must say your comments do make sense. The thing that put me off was knowing which Motherboard to pick as the 775 chipsets are really expensive. The Giga hs3 seams reasonable tho.

How would you say the Conroe 6600 would stack up against the FX-53 ?

Cheers

Deks
Click to expand...

have you seen the X1900 on this week only that is a steal, The E6600 would be a massive upgrade from your current cpu even the E6300 would be a good move. I have the DS3 myself and you could do a lot worse
 
Thanks for the replies,

I was just reading your threads sgoaty about you trying out an E6600 compared to your current o/c'd E6300 this weekend and am looking forward to reading your thoughts.

I looked at the connect x1900xt that is appprox £210 inc vat which I am very tempted with although the HIS IceQ is suppossed to be nice and quiet. I suppose I could get a Zalman cooler or something if the connect is too noisey.

I tlooks like after years with AMD (going back to an XP2100+) i'm being tempted back to the dark side for the first time since my Pentium 233mhz (god my memory has gone, I think thats waht it was called!)

Thanks for the advice I'm getting all excited again

Deks
 
I would keep your rig and just change the vid card, go for the Iceq, I have it and am more than happy with it. I wouldnt go Conroe yet as the prices will drop over the next couple of months and more motherboards will reach the market. Dont bother changing your chip you will see no noticable difference.
 
2bullish said:
I would keep your rig and just change the vid card, go for the Iceq, I have it and am more than happy with it. I wouldnt go Conroe yet as the prices will drop over the next couple of months and more motherboards will reach the market. Dont bother changing your chip you will see no noticable difference.
Click to expand...
But he cant get an X1900 in to his agp mobo :p
 
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