upgrade advise please

hal2009 · 12 Feb 2012 at 13:58

Hi all

Since biostar haven't upgraded the bios on this board for a phenom x6, am i right in thinking i've no upgrade path. So is it worth upgrading to ivy bridge or pile driver or sb-e or just overclock what ive got?. Would these other platforms give me much of a boost as looking at some bench marks they knock 10 sec off on video encoding and a bit quicker in games. Mainly will be using it for rts games (c&c,homeworld,supreme commander that sort of thing), encoding video,photoshop and surfing the net also would like it to last for a few years, looking to upgrade again 2015 when amd bring out hsa and intel skylake.

Thanks in advance

CinderzFTW · 12 Feb 2012 at 17:18

I would get an i5-2500K or similar. It nukes the X6 by miles.

As you are running AM3, I take it you were looking at flashing your bios and pop in a bulldozer?

I wouldn't, even if you could. The bulldozer wouldn't run as fast as it would in a AM3+ socket in a standard AM3.

Slap in a nice GTX560Ti, 4/8gb memory, depending on what you want and you on your way.

hal2009 · 12 Feb 2012 at 17:55

The processors am2 and the boards am2+, and was supposed to be ready for am3. But unlike lesser boards in the range bios updates for am3 never happened.
First and the last biostar board i'll ever buy

reddev85 · 12 Feb 2012 at 18:05

I also had an AM2 Biostar board, and BIOS updates for them just.....stopped dead.

It was a good thing in the end because it forced me to swap sides to Intel, who without a doubt have better CPUs.

Even overclocking what you have now you would still lag behind. I'd either wait for Ivy Bridge, or take the plunge now and get a 2500K with a 1155 Gen3 board, those boards are ready for Ivy Bridge chips so you can upgrade again at a later date.

hal2009 · 19 Feb 2012 at 23:16

Been doing some googling, from what i can find out ivy bridge will be the last cpu on this socket as next years haswell will use a different socket, so will 1155 be a dead end like am2 is?. Would it be a better bet as from what i can find out on the internet bulldozer, piledriver and steamroller will all be using am3+ giving you an upgrade path without having to ditch boards and possible memory.

beejjacobs · 19 Feb 2012 at 23:20

A 2500K would be better than an X4:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/80?vs=288

Yes it will be a "dead" socket, technology always dates fast. But it has Ivybridge later, and regardless they are great CPUs! I wouldn't recommend getting bulldozer (Which is crap atm) just because future CPUS will use the platform?

I'd get 1155 personally. Loads of people still have Q6600, and i5 2500K is similar and will last I think.