hi i currently have a AMD Phenom x3 8650 running at 2.3ghz and was thinking of fitting a newer phenom II x2 x545 running at 3.0 ghz as i have £60 burning a hole in my pocket. would this be a worthwhile exercise ? i only play modest games. Vista 32 os,2 gig ram ati 4670 graphics card is the rest of the setup thanks.
Not really, would be my instinct, why would you want to effectively downgrade? I know this isn't authoritative, but worth a look : http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php With £60 I'd look at either maxing out the ram or combine it with the sale of the GPU & maybe scrape together a few more £s to get a 5770 instead.
What you have probably meets your needs for the moment. However if you did want to spend money on upgrading you do have some options. A CPU upgrade as you have suggested would be one. The Phenom II X2 545 (or even a X2 550) would give better performance for single threaded software, such as many older games however as you are buying a CPU with one less core than you have today multi-threaded software such as the benchmark Landy_Ed referenced would perform around the same or slightly worse. Another option with the CPU is to scrabble together another £60 or so and look at a Phenom II X4 955. You would have to check that your motherboard and PSU could handle the power requirements of the X4 955 though. As Landy_Ed has also pointed out a bit of extra memory and a new graphics card would be of benefit in the long run, particularly if you are to gain the full benefit of a CPU upgrade.
Overclock to 2.5ghz and your all set most review sites will say a 2.5ghz duel core is enough to cap the fps that your card can pull
