Advice needed on a upgrade.

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
S

simonlodge

Distinguished
May 16, 2012
42
1
18,535
Been thinking about upgrading my Processor for awhile now.. my budget is kinda small around £100

I currently use an old AMD Athlon II X4 640 Socket AM3 3GHz 2MB L2 Cache. Not sure if to go for a AMD FX-4 4100 Black Edition 4 Core 3.6Ghz Socket AM3+ 8MB L3 Cache or the AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition 3.4GHz Socket AM3 6MB L3 Cache Cache, Been told to keep away from the bulldozer's because they are apparently slower in benchmarks and i cannot afford an i5 gaming setup. If you can make any other suggestions for me feel free to do so :) Will also be upgrading my Gfx card in January so any recommendations would not go a miss 😀 Maybe a 560ti or 660ti?

Pc Specs:

AMD Athlon II X4 640 @3Ghz
Asus M5A78L/USB3
XFX HD 6790 1GB
8GB @1600Mhz Corsair RAM
500 GB Samsung SATA III
700w OCZ
Windows 7 64bit

 
For the processor see if you can save up a bit just to make it to a FX-4300 or FX-6300. Either way for a decent AMD processor without needing the top of the line AMD processors would be either of the processors I have mentioned.

Edit: 965 is pretty good as well.
 
If you can find the 965BE for around 90 bucks get it. It should OC to 3.8(980BE speed) on the amd cooler. If you want to go higher(like 4ghz), you may want to spend a few bucks on an aftermarket cooler like a cooler master hyper 212 plus. I recommend against fx processors(lower instructions per clock).
 
Well now the option is between the FX-6300 and the 965 Black edition. Both can overclock well and technically all FX series are based on a newer architecture which is supposed to be more efficient. That being said I would go with the FX-6300 if money is not a factor, the 965 will still hold its ground fairly well even today. I myself am running a Phenom II X4 955 Black edition and I max out most games with my HD 7770. Point being made the Phenoms are still capable processors but they are quite outdated and no longer in production whereas the FX series is still in development with newer series coming out.

All in all, I believe they are close but the FX-6300 is the newer processor and is easily overclockable. My vote goes to the FX-6300, its a decent successor to the Phenom II x4's.
 
At those prices, get the 965be. it's like this. Each core in a phenom II is 3 way super scaler(each super scaler has 1 pipe that does both floating point and integer and one pipe that does integer only). FX cores are two way integer cores. 2 cores are in a module, and they share the fat floating point unit in the module. One fx module is sort of like one hyper threaded intel core(four way super scaler and can run 2 threads at once). How super scaler a processor is will be transparent to the OS(instructions broken down into micro ops and fed into pipes by scheduler at the top of a core) but programs can be finicky in how they perform based on how the os schedules the workloads on the cores. This is more of an issue for amd fx processors( getting the os to load cores and/or modules in the correct order to make the best use of the the processor's integer and floating point abilities). In some workloads the fx will be faster than the phenom, but in games the phenom is faster. intel is faster than both, but only the most expensive processors in a given class can be overclocked while the majority of amd processors can be overclocked(both require a mobo that lets you adjust that feature). The better amd processors use more power and require better cooling to push higher clocks.
 
Thank-you guys so will the 965be be a perfect upgrade to my Athlon ii x4 640 @3ghz? and i think my 6790 is on its way out.. what gfx card do ya think would fit this cpu perfect so it won't bottleneck my fps.. i prefer nvida over ati 😀
 
nvidia just came out with new drivers they claim boost performance a lot in a number of titles, but I'm waiting for independent testing from some of the sites I trust before I can suggest them over amd. Right now amd has better performance at any given price point and generally overclocks better too.

The only advantages nvidia has over amd right now are lower power consumption(not that much difference), cuda(not applicable to games) and physx(used in only a few games and not worth it imo). Your previous card was a hd6790(you posted this at least twice, but to be sure it's not a hd6970?).

What is your budget? Just want to make sure any card you get will be an upgrade over your current card.
 
It is indeed a 6790 this one to be more specific... http://www.amazon.co.uk/XFX-Radeon-HD-679X-ZRFC-Graphics-Memory/dp/B005FE272A

I have had alot of problems with this card also, it will freeze up my games, and also blacks out and comes back with a notification saying display driver stopped responding and has recovered some rubbish like that and the card is not even over heating, temps on ideal are around 40-47c full load max temp is 70c also using latest ati drivers but anyway my budget is around £150-200.
 
after a quick glance at pcpartpicker.com(UK option), the best bang for your buck in that price range is a 2GB hd7850. it's faster than a gtx660(non ti), it overclocks much better(most gtx660 non ti cards suck at overclocking), and the 2GB frame buffer will serve you better going forward than only 1GB. The hd7870 is also in your price range a performs similarly to the more expensive gtx660ti which is out of your price range. Both overclock well, but the hd7870 has less frequency potential than the gtx660ti when it comes to that. Not a fan of ocz power supplies like yours myself. If you will overclock the 965BE to take full advantage of its unlocked multiplier, you will use more power. The hd7850 uses less power than the 7870, so is a safer bet. That's my thoughts. Maybe your issues with the hd6790 had to do with it being an xfx model. Another brand like gigabyte, his, msi or sapphire may work better for you.
 
but i think i will get a better cpu cooler then overclock the hell out of it don't want any of these cards to bottleneck my system, hopefully can play games like crysis 3 maxed out and any other game within the next 3+ years
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom