Upgrade route for AM3 system?

Furton

Furton

Furton

Soldato
Joined
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Liverpool
I used to be an avid PC enthusiast, however my hobbies have moved on and I've mostly been using my PC for browsing the net and doing work. The current spec is as follows

  • AMD Phenom II X4 955 BlackEdition
  • DFI LANPARTY DK 790FXB-M3H5
  • ATi Radeon HD 4870 1GB
  • 8GB (4x2GB) CorsairTwinX DDR3 PC3-10600
  • 640GB Western Digital WD6401AALS *2 RAID 0
  • Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache * 2 RAID 1 (storage)

I would like to do some modern gaming and generally speed it up. Would an upgrade of GFX card and replacing the 640GB RAID 0 drives with an SSD drive provide a suitable upgrade in performance or am I throwing money away? i.e. In comparison to modern PC's, where does the base build stand now? This was built circa 2009.
 
You might as well keep the drives and the RAM.

The CPU needs changing (that then means a new board) and a new faster GFX card.

What case+PSU do you have?

What games do you play? what resolution is your monitor, what is your budget?
 
It's a Tagan 480W PSU and an Antec P182 case. Display is a Dell 20" 1680*1024, try and play games at native resolution.

Last game I was playing was Civ 5, would like to play some more modern FPS and Strategy games.
 
You can keep the case but I'd be looking to upgrade the PSU and monitor. New mobo, cpu and gpu will also be needed.

How much are you looking to spend?
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4460 3.20GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £154.99
1 x Inno3D GeForce GTX 960 OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (N960-1DDV-E5CNX) £149.99
1 x Gigabyte H81M-D2V Intel H81 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £40.99
Total : £355.57 (includes shipping : £8.00 Ex.VAT).



That is a cheap and decent upgrade, more than ready to play at 1080P too.

GTX960 is power efficient so your PSU wont die.

Reinstall windows, download the latest drivers etc.

Then later on get an SSD and ditch the RAID0 HDDs (they may even help fund a 256Gb SSD).
 
dacads said:
You can keep the case but I'd be looking to upgrade the PSU and monitor. New mobo, cpu and gpu will also be needed.

How much are you looking to spend?
Click to expand...

Agreed, I'd definitely replace the PSU as that one is 6 years old now? Could do with a refresh
 
@OP I wouldn't pay attention to the above, the GTX960 is less power drain than your 4870:D
 
I'd start with the Graphics card and see how that performs. Phenom 955 is still capable of modern gaming, albeit with limited performance in some titles.

Depends what games you play, and what sort of settings/performance you desire.
 
stulid said:
YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4460 3.20GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £154.99
1 x Inno3D GeForce GTX 960 OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (N960-1DDV-E5CNX) £149.99
1 x Gigabyte H81M-D2V Intel H81 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £40.99
Total : £355.57 (includes shipping : £8.00 Ex.VAT).



That is a cheap and decent upgrade, more than ready to play at 1080P too.

GTX960 is power efficient so your PSU wont die.

Reinstall windows, download the latest drivers etc.

Then later on get an SSD and ditch the RAID0 HDDs (they may even help fund a 256Gb SSD).
Click to expand...

Thanks for that, would I not have to get a different motherboard for the 4 memory sticks?

So I gather since I last built my PC that Intel CPU's are preferable to AMD's and nVidia is better than AMD (ATi?)

If I was to keep the mobo and cpu as per cheesyboy suggestion, would I still be looking at a GTX960?
 
Yeah, you do need one with four RAM slots.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-578-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=2576

Theres not much in stock.

Spend much more and you may as well just get the cheapest Z97 board instock - https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-498-GI&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=2811

Or sell your RAM and get a new pair - https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-114-GL


Intel rule the roost at the moment, generally there is always a better Intel CPU than you can get from AMD.

If I was to keep the mobo and cpu as per cheesyboy suggestion, would I still be looking at a GTX960?
Click to expand...

Yes you would as they are gentle on your PSU.

There is the possibility it may not work on your old board though, even some newer ones need a BIOS update to see the newer cards.
 
I would echo the earlier sentiment of keeping your current stuff and only upgrading the GPU, at least until you know for sure what you'd like to branch out into.

The main cards to look at are the AMD R9 280x, AMD R9 285, and Nvidia GTX 960. The latter two are very similar in performance and price as well as features, power consumption etc. The 280x is the fastest and most expensive (but not much more so) but is a bit older architecturally. Keep an eye out for sales, stores are trying to move their AMD stock in anticipation of the new cards, e.g. just earlier today OCUK had a deal for the 285 to go for less than 100 pounds.
 
Resureccting an old thread here. I never got round to upgrading my system last time, however my trusty 4870 has now died, hence some urgency required!

I'm tempted to purchase a AMD 480 as performance/price wise it looks like a winner against the 960X, however would I be wasting money with an 8GB version of the AMD 480 with the rest of my system being a bottleneck?

My dual monitor set up only uses DVI and a VGA input, any issues with using a converter from HDMI/Display Port output?
 
No there won't be a bottleneck. If your monitors aren't 144hz then any dvi adaptors will work fine (I should also add VGA is essentially dead for AMD so I hope both monitors have DVI). What I would suggest tho is buy a 480 from a place with good returns policy (30 days) and then send it back when the custom ones arrive in 2-3 weeks and get one of those. I'm also not sure if you'll have a problem with newer cards working on your motherboard as sometimes that can be the case with older boards. Worth a try tho.
 
Thanks. My secondary monitor is VGA, however I have seen HDMI to VGA adapters on the internet, assume they would work?
 
Poneros said:
I wouldn't assume that, from others' experience with 290s, for example, it's more miss than hit.
Click to expand...

That's a shame, would a custom board with a DVI output have more chance of working with a VGA adapter or is it not that simple?
 
Might I suggest a GTX 970 instead? The price, performance and power are similar to an RX480 however you can find ones with 2x DVI out. I believe they also support VGA through a passive converter. Make sure to get a 2x 6 pin version if you're worried about power, you might struggle if you need a splitter for an 8 pin connector.
 
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