upgrade time

YoungRogue · 22 Jun 2010 at 18:26

I am looking at getting an Am3 setup this weekend, I fancy a change from my dying e2160. Am looking at spending under £350 for the motherboard cpu and memory as I currently have ddr2 so will need some new ram. So far I am pretty much decided on the Asus M4A89GTD because i think i would like to explore crossfire at a later date and I have always had asus boards. I am however undecided on which cpu to choose from I will be using the machine for gaming. Will i see any real benifit of getting a 1055t x6? or if I got something like the x2 550 for pretty much half the price and unlocked it to 4 cores would I be missing out on lots?

YoungRogue · 22 Jun 2010 at 18:40

so I would only need the x6 if i wanted to shave a few seconds off video rendering and stuff like that, and the quad core is better for games, bit of a no brainer then i suppose, just thought it would be cool to say 6 core processor lol. I am going to be looking at overclocking will this change anything or is the 955 quad pretty good for overclocking on the board I said, Never had an Amd processor before so dont know what I'm doing

YoungRogue · 22 Jun 2010 at 18:44

i think the i7 route is a bit out of my budget, would there be a great deal of difference?

YoungRogue · 22 Jun 2010 at 18:59

so basicly been suggested these two builds

I am leaning towards the amd route, as it works out over £100 cheaper, and I can put that towards a decent graphics card or some more memory.

YoungRogue · 22 Jun 2010 at 19:10

stulid said:
yep.

edit, one warning, the stock AMD heatsink is a bit of a screamer

I have a Scythe Ninja revb at the mo my e2160 has a load of 51 degrees and that was at 3.4ghz with silly amounts of voltage, partially the reason i wanted to go with the Am3 as this cooler will fit it (effectly saving me another £40-£80 on a decent cpu cooler)

YoungRogue · 22 Jun 2010 at 19:22

i have some arctic 5 somewhere, which memory would be best to go for? the 1600mhz or the 1333mhz? im a bit confused which the motherboard supports. ddr3 is double dutch to me at the mo

YoungRogue · 22 Jun 2010 at 19:30

the ocz memory says its specifically designed for intel, would the kingston hyper x be better? timings of 8-8-8-24 or 9-9-9-27

YoungRogue · 22 Jun 2010 at 20:19

cool, will look at ordering this all on friday (payday) cant wait to get it all up and running, and then graphics card next month x1950 is holding me back a bit lol

YoungRogue · 25 Jun 2010 at 21:29

ok so i ordered the amd setup this morning, went for the 965 cpu instead though and got some corsair memory. will be looking at getting a graphics card either this month or next as currently have an x1950xt and its a bit dated, I want to be able to run any game out now and for the forseable future as i dont like upgrading lots. Have seen the 5770 and like the price, but if i went for the 5850 surely that will be more futureproof? i have a 22" monitor and a 19" on the side, quite like the idea of playing with eyefinity if i got another screen too. would i benifit from the 5850 or should i save a bit of money and go for the 5770??