Which amd upgrade from phenom 2 945

danoliver1 · 8 Sep 2013 at 19:10

Currently i have a phenom 2 x4 @3.5 ghz with corsair a50 hsf, on a asus sabretooth 990fx m/board, question is what to upgrade to amd wise that will give me a reasonable boost? Budget around £100 ish.
I play mainly fps's and will be getting bf4 running on a 670 gtx.
Psu is an enermax 550w.
Case is a lianli pc7+ 2x120mm fans.

JonSmith · 8 Sep 2013 at 19:57

I would recommend a Piledriver FX 6300 . With your motherboard and fan you should be able to get it up to at least 4.5GHz, which will provide a significant boost over your current chip.

The other other alternative for a bit over £100 is the 8320.

danoliver1 · 8 Sep 2013 at 20:06

Yeah those were the two in budget, anyone done what iam thinking of doing have you noticed a difference?

Marine-RX179 · 8 Sep 2013 at 20:09

danoliver1 said:
Yeah those were the two in budget, anyone done what iam thinking of doing have you noticed a difference?

Only if you are overclocking them to at least over 4.00GHz, and/or games would use more than 4 cores.

swiftmetal · 8 Sep 2013 at 20:14

Bf4 will be optimised for the and 8350 so if you get the 8320 and do a decent oc which should not be hard and you will be good to go.

JonSmith · 8 Sep 2013 at 20:27

Anandtech bench:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/699?vs=186

It's difficult to tell what turbo speed the fx 6300 CPU is running at, theoretically it will max out at 4.1GHz on one core. Regardless it is an upgrade over your phenom II even at stock, more so if overclocked properly.

foster grant · 8 Sep 2013 at 20:43

Mine goes from 3812.95 to 4114.93 ish according to CPU-Z

I have thought about overclocking ( dont know how to though ) but @4.5 is there much difference really ?

Martini1991 · 8 Sep 2013 at 20:45

Go for the FX8320.

teppic · 8 Sep 2013 at 20:45

6300 at 4.5GHz performs really well, take a look at the comparison with the stock 6350 (which is already above the 6300):

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/piledriver-k10-cpu-overclocking,3584-10.html

As far as the OP's concerned I'd get the 8320, the board can easily take it and it should also overclock to 4.5GHz.

ivan165 · 8 Sep 2013 at 20:57

I had the same cpu and upgraded to a 8350 before upgrading the mobo and ram etc
Even on my old board it made a huge difference , I imagine the 8320 will make a similar improvement and would be my recommendation for your budget .

Drangueos · 8 Sep 2013 at 22:31

8320 is the way to go

Phixsator · 8 Sep 2013 at 22:33

Get the 8320 and the second you can afford it slam a Corsair H100i on top of it and clock the balls off it. Should be able to hit 4.6-4.8 without much trouble. As a reference my 8350 does 4.8ghz(200x24 multiplier) using offset voltage at around 1.42volts and the temps isnt even close to being an issue. The chip has literally transformed performance wise after the OC.

danoliver1 · 8 Sep 2013 at 22:50

Iam edging towards the 8320, i dont think the corsair h100 will fit in my case.

teppic · 8 Sep 2013 at 22:55

A very good air cooler will do very well too - by very good I mean something that's £50-£60, e.g. mine or the Mount Doom or high end Noctua.

A cheaper one (£30ish) will get you to 4.5GHz or so.

JonSmith · 8 Sep 2013 at 23:24

I wouldn't go that far tbh. If you have a rear outlet fan behind that a50 then the airflow should be pretty good, probably good for 4.5GHz on an 8320 and definitely for a 6300.

danoliver1 · 10 Sep 2013 at 19:24

Went for the fx 8320 in the end 2 extra cores for not much more money.

teppic · 10 Sep 2013 at 19:55

Good choice. Have you tried overclocking yet?

danoliver1 · 10 Sep 2013 at 20:29

It gets here tomorrow, also got a couple of decent 120mm cosair case fans for some improved airflow.

teppic · 10 Sep 2013 at 20:34

I don't know how good the A50 is but as long as it's reasonable you should get 4.5GHz or better - be sure to post in the OC forum if you have any problems

JonSmith · 10 Sep 2013 at 21:08

With two fans on the heatsink it's basically the A70 version of the cooler, and that's actually pretty close to some of the higher end ones from what I've seen. I think he will get some good results.