Processor Upgrade

[stuck]

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

[SiM]

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

[stuck]

how do i find out which it is?

[Blaineoliver]

cpuz.

[stuck]

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?

[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)

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 () wikipedia

[Koolpc]

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)

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

[Biscuit]

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.

[stuck]

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!

[stuck]

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?

[Biscuit]

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.

[stuck]

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

[kalniel]

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!

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.

[stuck]

ok i'm buying that gfx card from novatech

what about the RAM?

[kalniel]

ok i'm buying that gfx card from novatech

what about the RAM?

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

[MSIC]

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?