Athlon II X2 upgrade for gaming?

[sonic_boom81]

I'm a bit lost. The CPUboss website seems to say that Phenom II X4 is only a bit better than Athlon II X2, compared to the price difference... Not that I understand much more than one is 4 core and one is 2..

What's going to be best for gaming? Keeping my Athlon II X2 or buying a Phenom for £40+. I'm still to get a GPU for it too.

 

[greens]

I'm a bit lost. The CPUboss website seems to say that Phenom II X4 is only a bit better than Athlon II X2, compared to the price difference... Not that I understand much more than one is 4 core and one is 2..

What's going to be best for gaming? Keeping my Athlon II X2 or buying a Phenom for £40+. I'm still to get a GPU for it too.

PassMark
Data courtesy Passmark
Phenom II X4 965
5,916
Athlon II X2 250
1,767

The Phenom II X4 965 was a very good gaming CPU for a very long time.
You'll be able to get decent performance out of games with it even today, but i wouldn't put too beefy a graphics card into it, as you'll run into CPU bottlenecks.

I wouldn't consider a Passmark score of nearly tripple to be just a bit better, it is a huge difference.

 

[sonic_boom81]

Thanks. I'm not sure if the Phenom II X2 965 would work with my motherboard. I've got a ASUS M4A78L-M LE motherboard and PC parts picker doesn't show that one as compatible?

Also, I was thinking about a GTX 750ti or a GTX 770 GPU. What sort of PSU watts would be good for the GTX 770?

 

[Peter_144]

I would go with a 500w or 550w if you can try to get a 600w but I would not go for nothing less then a 500w

 

[sonic_boom81]

If I go with a GTX 750ti I can keep my current 350w PSU I guess?

 

[Peter_144]

Yes if you are using a 750ti you can use the 350w but what games are you playing? Because that 750ti might not run some of the new games.

 

[Peter_144]

Or get the rx 460 if I were yu I seen it run 60fps in bf1 but the person did have a i5 to help out but still get the rx 460

 

[sonic_boom81]

Okay here's my setup:

Athlon II X2 245 2.90GHz with stock cooler
ASUS M4A78L-M LE motherboard
2 x 2Gb DDR2 800 RAM
PSU: FSP Group 350W
Windows 10

I'm looking to either keep what I've got and get a GTX 750ti (£80), or upgrade the PSU, CPU and RAM to 8GB and get a better GPU (about £200+ for all that..)
I'm hoping it'd run modern games at 1080p with 30+ fps. GTA 5, Planet Coaster. And Quake 1 😀

I think I'll just get a 750ti for now and then upgrade in the future when I can afford.

 

[sonic_boom81]

If I upgrade my CPU from the 65W to a 95W one, would I need a different cooler than the stock AMD one that came with the 65W Athlon II X2? And would my 350W PSU still manage?

 

[Peter_144]

yes you would need to change the 65w CPU cooler would not work with the 95w because the 95w puts out more heat

Also if I were you get the rx 460 4gb and 8gbs of ram and leave the 350w PSU

 

[sonic_boom81]

the rx 460 4gb is a bit out my budget just now

 

[Peter_144]

It's a $100 the 750ti is $90 I think

 

[sonic_boom81]

In the UK new the rx 460 4gb is £125 and the gtx 750ti is about £100. Second hand on ebay theres very few 460s, but I could prob get a 750ti for about £75.

 

[Peter_144]

Oh ok then get the 750ti in American it's the same price