Hi Guys, I have a rig that was pretty sweet when I built it a year or two ago: AMD X2 3800 1GB DDR2 CORSAIR XMS2 ASUS M2NR32 Mobo X1900XT 512MB IceQ GFX However as you can tell its starting to show its age. I need to update but have no more than 150ish in total to do so. So with selling my CPU on flea bay for 30 quid I can get a 4gb of the same RAM to bring that up to speed but what about cpu? Better to get? amd x2 6000 or amd quad core 9550? Cheers, Dean.
What's this doing in the 'Modding' section Just get as fast a CPU as the motherboard supports/you can afford
that's not always true. if a game is not programed for multi core processor the 6000 would run it better because of the higher clock speed. I also remember hearing about a bug in the phenoms, might want to do some research on it before making a desision. edit: no bug in the the 9550 taken from wiki
The performance I am after is for games mainly. General computing is also a consideration but I dont find it that slow for general stuff. My question is thus will either of those cpu's combined with the RAM be better than upgrading the gfx card to one of the new dx10 ati cards???? Its the RAM that looks lacking to me but I dont know? Are any games out there at the moment / new games quad core enabled? Cheers, dean.
Games still currently benefit from CPU MHz and a couple of cores, more than tons of cores and less MHz. We found we could get better results with an X3 than X4 even, just as long as you can crack 3GHz with it, otherwise you might as well buy a 6400+.
To be honest, zilch. I hang my head in shame as I was someone who used to beast the original Athlon mobiles to great heights. I though that the CPU had extremely limited OC potential (locked?) would it be worthwhile/safe just getting some fast RAM and OCing the X2 3800 I have (obiviously dont mind forking out for a nice heatsink) Ahwell a whole new round of googling to do now. All above advice greatly appreciated, might even get me back on these forums! Thanks, Dean.
2GB of fast DDR and some overclocking will do you no end of good in terms of system speed. In fact, I'd say the biggest performance gain you'll see is from that extra smidge of RAM - I couldn't believe the difference when I upped from 1GB->2GB, and that was back when STALKER was out...
Athlon AM2 arent that great at overclocking, its pretty hard to crack 3GHz for some reason. i dont think its your 3800x2 that is the limiting factor here, low memory and poor graphics card are at fault. combine 2Gb of ram with a ATI 4850 and you'll see the potential that machine has. i use to run a opty 165 at 3.3GHz, and when i looked for an upgrade i realised AMD had lost out big time, so i bought a Q6600 clocked the nuts off it and never looked back!
I dont even want to look at GFX cards. I imagine my X1900XT is worth nothing to sell?? I think I will OC the cpu to 2.8ish if possible and leave that until the quad cores settle down next year. Memory is cheap would the system be best running with 2, 4 or even 6 gig under the hood? It will be Corsair XMS2 DDR2 6400 same as exisiting as I like keeping the sticks the same! Seriously though how big a jump would the 4850 offer, it would blow the 150 quid alone? Tempted! Im so confused those, how come its 145 quid on eBuyer? The 3 series cards are more? It is cheap, no really now I am tempted! Thanks again, Dean.
X1900XT to HD 4850 - epic, I'd imagine. You're talking 48 DX9 shaders compared to 800. Get yourself a 6400+ (if you can find one) or X3 CPU (as long as you find one CHEAP and overclock the nuts off it: ours does 3GHz easily). 4GB of cheap memory should see you through well for a while yet. You'll need the latest BIOS on that M2N board too, don't buy a new one yet - there are better chipsets for AMD arriving shortly. If you're upgrading the board too, just grab yourself an Intel setup and start again.
