Whats my bottleneck?

Yes definetley. Try to get an unlocked Phenom 2 if you can. That way you can overclock it to last a but longer and perform slightly better.
Depending on how much that comes too if you need a mobo for it as well might change your mind on a full new Intel spec?
 
I'm not sure what a "Phenom II 935 " is, do you mean 955?

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_AM2Plus/M3N78_PRO/#CPUS

That would be a reasonable upgrade.

If you can't find a cheap 6850, get an old HD 5850 (match for the 6850) or even better a HD 5870.

Make sure you have the ram running dual channel mode, you current 3 GB is odd. :)

Before you go ahead what Power supply do you have, wanna make sure you can run the new hardware before you buy it. :)
 
times_champion said:
Hmm - so in that case would the 6850 + Phenom II 935 (and 6/8gb RAM) be a worthwhile upgrade or not?
Click to expand...

Yes you should see a substantial speed increase compared to what you have now. The 6850 is a good deal faster than a 4850 and the phenom II x4 also much faster than what you have. They should complement each other just fine.

One note...with the ram I see you keep mentioning 6gb, The best would be 2x4 gb memory chips for various reasons pertaining to the speed. You will be buying old hardware though so look for bargains.
 
Thanjs guys - I did mean a Phenom II 965 sorry, my bad. Sounds like I will go ahead with that then (965, 6850 + 8gb RAM) and start looking for cheap parts. Thanks!

Oh - my PSU is 60w I believe, standard OC value one fromn a couple of years back. Will that be OK? I only have a DVD drive and 750gb HDD also running off it.

Oh - can one of you guys also confirm that my M3N78 Pro mobo can run a Phenom II 965?
 
The i3 holds its own yes and has an upgrade path to Ivy. However the Phenom's are still decent and a second hand one as long as it costs less than a i3 build should be good.
 
As per Idleman's post you have the 1.01G version of the Mobo it will work with the right BIOS.

Otherwise you should get the Phenom II X4 955 (HDZ955FBK4DGI),3.2GHz,125W,rev.C2. The HDZ part is important bit as the HDX also requireds 1.01G.

What's the +12 V rating on the PSU, if the combined is 400 W + you should be ok, as I can't see you going over that?
 
Normally written on the mobo somewhere.

Possibly show up on the post screen or Bios.

Run CPU-z and look on the Mainboard tab, it might show up on that.
 
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