Upgrade Now? Or wait for Bulldozer??

wentalong

wentalong

wentalong

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3 Mar 2011
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626
heyy alll, im looking to uppgrade my system and i have about a £180 budget, all i need is a Mobo, Ram and CPU, but considering bulldozer is comming soon im wondering whether i should wait for it (and most likely have to pay a hell of a lot more just because its new) or upgrade now and save the money and get good performance, heres my cart:

AMD Phenom II X2 Dual Core 555 3.20GHz Black Edition (Socket AM3) - Retail £65.99
(£54.99) £65.99
(£54.99)
MSI 870A-G54 AMD 870 (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard £64.99
(£54.16) £64.99
(£54.16)
OCZ Gold 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Low-Voltage Dual Channel Kit (OCZ3G1333LV4GK) £39.98
(£33.32) £39.98
(£33.32)
Sub Total : £142.47
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.00
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £30.29
Total : £181.76

ill unlock the Phenom 555 to 4 cores and overclock to about 4Ghz, and most likely i can get VAT off as my dad owns a pc buissness, what do you guys reccommed??

Many thanks!
 
Don't wait for bulldozer, it's ~3 months away and if you need to upgrade now, you need to upgrade now. Besides, I doubt the high-end CPUs will be sub £100.

Your ideas for the X2 555 show ambition, but bear in mind that firstly, you'll need a decent CPU cooler (£20), and secondly, core unlocks and overclocks are *never* guaranteed. The X2 555 has a great track record, but if you're unlucky, you could end up with a dual core at 3.2GHz that won't unlock or overclock at all. That's the risk. An X4 840 is only £12 more, and comes with a guaranteed four cores, and for an extra ~£20 on top, you could get the X4 955, which is guaranteed 4 cores plus a good chance of a decent overclock.

Also, as the OCZ Gold is £40 now, I'd get the Corsair XMS3. You'd only have to pay about £3 extra, and Corsair have a reputation for reliability and gaming performance.
 
It is not guaranteed that you will be able to unlock all cores and/or get to 4GHz. It is the luck of the draw unfortunately.
 
The Hyper 212 Plus is my favourite cooler at £20, but the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro at £20 and the Titan Fenrir Evo at ~£30 are also popular.

I'm not convinced the X4 840 will overclock particularly well, though. Can you push to a 955?
 
i could most probably pull a few strings, and get the money, or i can get a 965 black edition 2nd hand(with a year warranty) for £100, or would it be an overkill?
 
The 965 Black Edition is 200MHz faster than the 955. That's the only difference. If you could get it for £80, I'd say go for it.

There's no way a 965 is worth £100 second hand, unless it's in an unopened box.
 
yeah the 965 was and unopened box with the warrenty, and i suppose i could just get a couple hundred mhz out of the 955 for the 965 perfomance right?
 
The 965 is literally just a 955 which has had its stock clock raised slightly. At release, it was the same price as the 955, hence its popularity, but it's not worth paying extra for.

As you say, you can simply add that extra 200MHz easily when overclocking. You could even do that with the stock cooler, but I'd be tempted to go for ~3.8GHz with the Hyper 212.
 
ohh rightt, well, i just had a thought, atm i have a TX650, and im running a 560 Ti OC@ 1GHz atm, and with the 125w cpu, will i be pushing my luck at all? considering the reccommended psu for the 560 Ti is like 550? watts at stock clocks? and iive doine some research and know how the 840 is technically an athlon? so its worth the extra like £25, so my new baskets:

Phenom 955 £100

MSI 870A-G54 £65

Corsair XMS3 4GB 1600MHz £44

Total: £218 Inc VAT & Delivery.
£182 Exc. VAT & Inc. Delivery. (Which actually seems INSANLEY CHEAP!) i just hope i can get the ridiculous 20% VAT off that :P
 
A TX650 is perfect to run that system, you should have no trouble unless you try to stick a second 560 in there.

The 840 is basically an Athlon II chip in the way that the distinguishing feature between Athlon II and Phenom II is the L3 cache, which the 840 lacks. There's some debate as to how effective this L3 cache is, but it does increase performance in some games, and the 955 Black Edition is an easier and better overclocker, so it's worth the money.

Your system seems good :) It's worth taking a look at a CPU cooler too, to spend your VAT difference on if you can.
 
Reading various reviews, the cooler has good performance and noise balance. Adding a fan wont add much, maybe something to consider later. The Fenrir Evo isn't particularly noisy but I suppose it could benefit from a push-pull low rpm fans. Get some good thermal compound (a fiver).

EDIT : Or the Frio :) Noisier.
 
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