Processor Upgrade

I'm looking to upgrade my Athlon 64 X2 4600+ .... whilst keeping the same motherboard. What would be an advisable upgrade and would it yield a decent performance boost?

I'm also considering upgrading my nvidia 7950 GX2 ... again what would be a decent upgrade and what performance gains could I expect. I'd basically like to be able to play farcry 2 with a fairly decent framerate, if possible!

I'd also consider upgrading my RAM if that would help, I'm running 2gb at the moment, on XP tho

Thanks v much!

Ben

If it's a 939, forget it. You can't upgrade and keep the same motherboard.
If it's an AM2 get a Phenom.

how do i find out which it is?

cpuz.

ok its an m2n32 SLi, which is AM2....

so i should go for a phenom? and as for performance? will it be noticable in games?

how about the gfx and ram?

i dont think it would be expensive to add another 2gb


this is my motherboard: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-...-SATA-RAID-ATX

is there no difference between AM2 and AM2+ sockets?

That's a good motherboard. Be aware that a whole bunch of AM2 motherboards however (especially the cheaper ones) were sold as future upgradeable, and then turned out to not support the voltage requirements for Phenom's. (Or something like that. Edit: See the AM2+ thing below)

Looking at the ASUS website for your motherboard we can see that the latest BIOS is "Version 2101". (Let us know if you are unsure how to check or update the BIOS).
That site tells me that there are a whole stack of various Phenoms available for that motherboard, from the triple core 8000's right up to a 2.5Ghz quad core 9850.
This triple core is under £100.
I have to advise a single note a caution however, as i'm not certain how much it'd benefit you. It all depends how you use your computer, and in what conditions at the moment does it not behave well enough. A dual core X2 is still a good chip!

As for RAM, you said you've got 2Gig, how is that arranged? 1 x 2 Gig, 2 x 1 Gig or 4 x 512MB? RAM is very cheap these days, there's very little reason not to get 4 Gig (even with a 32-bit OS, it's barely worth getting 3 Gig), and get a least 800Mhz speed.

Finally the graphics card. Can i ask what power supply you have, and in what case will it all be living? In rough and ready terms, the new ATI / AMD Radeons are wonderful. A 4850 for just over £100, or a 4870 for £170 ish are both great.

Edit: I had to read up on the differences between AM2 and AM2+ myself, there's not been alot of talk of it from what i can remember.
The ever-wonderful and always accurate (:eek:) wikipedia

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Originally Posted by MSIC

That's a good motherboard. Be aware that a whole bunch of AM2 motherboards however (especially the cheaper ones) were sold as future upgradeable, and then turned out to not support the voltage requirements for Phenom's. (Or something like that. Edit: See the AM2+ thing below)

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I think that has been resolved now with Ver.2 issues of the boards in question.

You can get 4870s for under £150 over at novatech

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/s....html?SAP-4870

No brainer if you have a decent power supply in my eyes.

RAM is 2x 1GB corsair PC2-5300 @ 333Mhz

PSU is 750W Xclio X14

BIOS is 0504.... i have never updated it

GPU is 7950 GX2, which i thought was quite good? maybe not anymore!...

soooo.... the reason for my upgrade is that it doesnt perform very well at all on the more demanding games, particularly cod4 but also farcry 2 doesnt run great... i'd like to be able to play these at a decent frame rate and for them to look pretty. thats it!

thanks for the input so far

edit: oh and the case is an antec p180 ... its huge, the 7950 gx2 was some early release edition and its about a foot long and that fits in there

edit 2: i should also add that my screen is 1680 X 1050 hence why i think its struggling a bit with the higher end games!

one other thing, im sure it makes no difference but the mobo has some nvidia stuff on it of which i have no idea what it actually does.... it won't cause any problems having a radeon card on there will it? probs a stupid question but i thought i should check... or is the nvidia stuff just for SLi?

the 4870 will work fine with your mobo and be a good increase in performance over the 7950gx2 and that power supply will be fine.
I would recomend updating the bios anyway as it will help with eliminate the chance of any incompatability issues with upgrading.

so what are peoples opinions on the upgrade?

naturally i would like to spend as little as possible... would it be enough just to get the new gfx card and update the bios?

or should i upgrade the RAM as well?

although i read that 4gb is not supported by 32bit systems and i am running windows xp

if i were to just upgrade the gfx do you expect i would get close to the benchmark levels where they are using quad cores and all the rest of it? what should i expect from just upgrading the gfx?

thanks again

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Originally Posted by stuck

soooo.... the reason for my upgrade is that it doesnt perform very well at all on the more demanding games, particularly cod4 but also farcry 2 doesnt run great... i'd like to be able to play these at a decent frame rate and for them to look pretty. thats it!

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I'd recommend just upgrading the graphics card firstly. After you've done that you can increase things further by upgrading the CPU, but I'm on a worse CPU and it's not limited me in any games I have yet. (Don't have far cry 2, but Crysis is fine).

No you won't get close to benchmark figures, but that's because the benchmarks don't represent a real world situation. For example 3dmark06 benches at 1280x1024 - that's a low resolution and more likely to be CPU bottlenecked. Whereas if you run a modern game at 1680x1050 you are more likely to be GPU limited.

ok i'm buying that gfx card from novatech

what about the RAM?

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Originally Posted by stuck

ok i'm buying that gfx card from novatech

what about the RAM?

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Least important of them all. 2gb is more than enough for things.

I'd concur, overall it sounds to me like a graphics card upgrade would be very worthwhile.
You'd also actually lower your power / wattage use too, i think.
A 4850 would be a noticeable upgrade, a 4870 would be really worthwhile if you're happy to spend that amount.
I'd be tempted to leave the rest for the time being, although as i said earlier, RAM is so very cheap that another 2 x 1GB sticks would only cost around £25.
Your current RAM is rated at PC2 5300 speed, which means 333Mhz (and therefore 667Mhz DDR - all very confusing). You could swap that pair out for a faster pair, eg running at 800Mhz DDR or even faster, and perhaps at the same time get 2 x 2GB sticks. That would cost £34 (which really is a bargain), and you could still sell your current pair on fleabay (or here). But you'd only notice a bit of a difference, the graphics card is the wiser move.

In terms of your settings, is the CPU overclocked?

i'm gonna go for the 4870 and see how it goes with that

CPU is running on the stock settings... I had planned to overclock it but have never got round to it, probably out of fear of blowing it up

Well that might be wise given your current memory speeds - its not that you can't do it, however you'd have to lower the speeds initially (within the BIOS) to allow for an increase in the Front Side Bus on the CPU, which then bumps the RAM back up again, however they would then be running asynchronously. Do-able, but of limited use. Faster RAM allows for this, and to still be run synchronously. Post back if you want to try overclocking, certainly your great case will allow good airflow (which is so important in overclocking); do you know if you have the standard AMD Heatsink/Fan (HSF) on the CPU, or did you get a different one?

its the standard heatsink and fan but i was told at the time that the stock one is quite a good one anyway...

would there be a decent performance boost from overclocking? what can i expect?

also... the 4870... is it worth spending the extra to get 1gb rather than 512mb? and how does the powercolor compare to the sapphire? for an extra £5 it seems the powercolor is OC'd to 770 rather than 750Mhz ... is it worth the extra?

also is the 4870 that much better than the 4850? would save me about 35 quid to go for the 4850 instead

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Originally Posted by stuck

would there be a decent performance boost from overclocking? what can i expect?

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No. Depends on the game and whether it's CPU limited or not. It's going to be quite rare that you find a game old enough to be CPU limited, yet still running slowly enough on your computer that improving the speed gives you a noticeable improvement in enjoyment.

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also... the 4870... is it worth spending the extra to get 1gb rather than 512mb?

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Not at 1680x1050.

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and how does the powercolor compare to the sapphire? for an extra £5 it seems the powercolor is OC'd to 770 rather than 750Mhz ... is it worth the extra?

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Nominally there's no difference - I've not checked the coolers for those ones though.

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also is the 4870 that much better than the 4850? would save me about 35 quid to go for the 4850 instead

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It is about 25-30% better I guess so scales quite well with the cost.

Have a glance at this Bit-tech review of the current AMD and nvidia graphics cards:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/gra...70-1gb-toxic/4
It's at your resolution, on full settings, and that page is FC2 which you mentioned. Perhaps the 4850 is the one to go for.
You'll probably get slightly lower framerates than they did because of your CPU etc, however it demonstrates the cards relative to one-another.

I've never personally been a fan of pre-overclocked cards, i think that's how the companies make easy money. The only extra 'feature' i'd recommend is if it comes with a really good cooling system (and quiet etc).

As for your stock HSF on the CPU, you can still get an extra 10 to 20% i'm sure without any sweat.

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Originally Posted by MSIC

Have a glance at this Bit-tech review of the current AMD and nvidia graphics cards:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/gra...70-1gb-toxic/4
It's at your resolution, on full settings, and that page is FC2 which you mentioned. Perhaps the 4850 is the one to go for.

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I can't see anything about the 4850 there, am I missing it?

that page also seems to show a fairly decent +~10fps average improvement of the 1GB over the 512, with 4x AA......

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Originally Posted by kalniel

I can't see anything about the 4850 there, am I missing it?

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Oops. that's true, sorry!
Will try to find a better link in the morning

I'm really quite unsure what to do now... the 4870 was pushing my budget in the first place but the extra £35 for the 1GB seems to offer some decent gains when running 4x AA and from what I'm reading it will be more suitable for the more consuming games that come out in the future.... what do you guys think?

If you where pushing your budget before then i would stick with the 512. Its still going to be a solid cards and whilst the extra bit of performance would be nice, the performance is going to be far from disappointing with a 512 model.

powercolor or sapphire?

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Originally Posted by stuck

powercolor or sapphire?

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Whichever's cheaper.

ordered the sapphire 512 just now off novatech... arrives friday 13th (scary!)

woohoo!

thanks for all your help

when the card arrives what do i need to do to install it? Should I flash the (now 2 and a bit years old) BIOS?? If so, how..

Also my current card is nvidia so what do i need to do to make sure all the drivers for that are completely gone?

Cheers

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Originally Posted by stuck

when the card arrives what do i need to do to install it? Should I flash the (now 2 and a bit years old) BIOS?? If so, how..

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No.

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Also my current card is nvidia so what do i need to do to make sure all the drivers for that are completely gone?

Cheers

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1) Download a driver cleaning program
2) Reboot into safe mode
3) Run the nVidia uninstaller/control panel uninstaller
4) Reboot into safe mode again
5) Run driver cleaning program
6) Reboot.

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Originally Posted by stuck

ordered the sapphire 512 just now off novatech... arrives friday 13th (scary!)

woohoo!

thanks for all your help

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It's the second Friday the 13th this year!! :surprised:

I realise that you're appreciative, but calm down with all those 'thanks' Stuck! Otherwise you'll get people posting useless comments just for one.
PS You can thank me for this :mrgreen:

PPS Kalniel, why would you advise against flashing the BIOS? Is it the old 'if it aint broke dont fix it' principle? I suppose that if Stuck isnt changing the CPU then its probably not necessary, but if he wants to venture into overclocking land there might be a few BIOS tweaks for extra stability in the newer versions. Just MHO...

PPPS CAT, am loving your new sig :)

I would tend to agree with MSIC, its rare that updating the bios is a bad thing to do.

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Originally Posted by kalniel

No.


1) Download a driver cleaning program
2) Reboot into safe mode
3) Run the nVidia uninstaller/control panel uninstaller
4) Reboot into safe mode again
5) Run driver cleaning program
6) Reboot.

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at which stage do i remove the old and insert the new gpu?

thanks

If you do decide to flash the BIOS make sure you don't flash from inside windows :)

It has a stupid failure rate (still hasn't caught me out yet though :D)

at caught me out last time but i was super lucky. Crashed halfway through then I couldnt get into the setup but it still booted so i just ran the flash again. Very very close to bricking it :s

get a 4870 & a better CPU cooler & clock it up to 3ghz

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Originally Posted by MSIC

Be aware that a whole bunch of AM2 motherboards however (especially the cheaper ones) were sold as future upgradeable, and then turned out to not support the voltage requirements for Phenom's.

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Like my motherboard. I'll never buy from Biostar again, i cheaped out and now it's gonna cost me. The equivalent Asus board was £10 more and supports everything up to an AM3 Phenom II! To add insult to injury i updated the bios and could no longer overclock the CPU past 2.2GHz (previously i was hitting 2.6GHz) even though i've also added a Xiggy...

Sooner i get rid the better, however i'm tempted buy the great deals of 4870s at the moment and the 7750BE might tide me over CPU-wise for a while (now £53 at eBuyer). Gah!