Lookin to UPGRADE..any HELP would be great! :) :)

[matty6]

OK so i had my rig built about 6 months ago on ibuypower dont no much about building and dont want to overclock because i am not very knowlegable on the whole matter so here is spec, looking to upgrade btw for pfs on MMOS specifically and maybe graphics too :

MOBO: asus M3A78-cm amd 780v/sb700 chipset w/integrated ati video, 8-channels gb lan, s-ata raid, usb 2.0 single pci-e mb(copied from ibuypower.com so if to much detail sorry lol )

cpu: amd athlon 64 x2 6000+ runing at 3.2 ghz

video card: 4850 512mb

psu: 600 wat

ram: 4 gb of ram ( 2gb x2) ddr2-800

case: nzxt alpha gaming tower case

fan: AVC Silent AMD CPU Fan and Heatsink

Now the question is.. what would be my best bet in raising preformance and my graphics slightly an keeping around 300 bucks that is just for right now. a couple things... maybe just uping to a 4890 1gb ati? ..would my mobo and processor be fine with that and would the dual core i have last for awhile till i needed to upgrade that . also is the 4gb of ram ok for now as well ? or could i add another 2gb stick . i dunno how much space is in the case for that either so :S dunno there lol also if anyone has a better bundle for mobo and processor together that is good for the 4890 and has link and is fairly decent price and better then what i have im all ears! anyways thanks for any help all!

 

[ahslan]

well first of all, you have a pretty solid rig...its practically the same as mine
are you having trouble playing any games with ur current rig? The reason I ask is because my currently plays all my games just fine...at 1900x1200...some of them I cant max but most of them I can...
Second of all, if ur cpu is running at 3.2ghz, then its already overclocked from 3.0ghz...
what resolution are u currently playing on?

 

[Why_Me]

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GIGABYTE GA-MA790X-UD4P AM3/AM2+/AM2 AMD 790X ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail

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AMD Phenom II X4 940 Deneb 3.0GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM2+ 125W Quad-Core Black Edition Processor - Retail

 

[dirtmountain]

Your motherboard will support all the PhenomII CPUs with a BIOS update, it's also a corporate stable model which means that updates etc. will continue for quite some time. At this time if i were you i'd simply upgrade my graphic card for better gaming performance. Go with a HD4870 1GB or the HD4890. In the future you can always get a tri or quad PhenomII and plug it right in with the BIOS update.

 

[jitpublisher]

Okay, I don't think upgrading to a Phenom, or a anything less than a 4890 GPU is going to give you much bang for your buck, based on what you have. Sure, it will perform a little better, but only a little for the cash layout.
Stay with your X2 for now, at 3.2ghz you enough horsepower to drive a pretty high end graphic card to decent frame rates. If you feel you must upgrade something, I would think that a 4890 would be a decent bump up in performance. Even though GPU's at that level or higher start getting spendy, if you do not go to that level at least, you are going to feel disappointed with only a small performance increase.

 

[matty6]

well first of all, you have a pretty solid rig...its practically the same as mine
are you having trouble playing any games with ur current rig? The reason I ask is because my currently plays all my games just fine...at 1900x1200...some of them I cant max but most of them I can...
Second of all, if ur cpu is running at 3.2ghz, then its already overclocked from 3.0ghz...
what resolution are u currently playing on?

ok im runing at 1680 x 1050 (wide) no games have let me go any higher well the option isnt there is it cause i have wide sreen lol i dunno.. thats as high as i can get it using my ati catalyst program. so i dunno an ya i used a amd overdrive from there site and auto clocked it to 3.2 and the frequency went higher and the bus speed but then did a system preformance test and it was a lower score then before i did the clock so im confused there.. im not really having trouble id say with games just wish the framrates were perfect lol but cant always get everything we want.

 

[matty6]

Okay, I don't think upgrading to a Phenom, or a anything less than a 4890 GPU is going to give you much bang for your buck, based on what you have. Sure, it will perform a little better, but only a little for the cash layout.
Stay with your X2 for now, at 3.2ghz you enough horsepower to drive a pretty high end graphic card to decent frame rates. If you feel you must upgrade something, I would think that a 4890 would be a decent bump up in performance. Even though GPU's at that level or higher start getting spendy, if you do not go to that level at least, you are going to feel disappointed with only a small performance increase.

i think i might go with the 4890.. but how long do u think my x2 will last for now?

 

[matty6]

Your motherboard will support all the PhenomII CPUs with a BIOS update, it's also a corporate stable model which means that updates etc. will continue for quite some time. At this time if i were you i'd simply upgrade my graphic card for better gaming performance. Go with a HD4870 1GB or the HD4890. In the future you can always get a tri or quad PhenomII and plug it right in with the BIOS update.

might be a silly question although appreciate the feed back...um how would i get the bios update .. from like the asus site?

 

[dirtmountain]

Yes, from Asus. Carefully follow directions for updating BIOS from their site. Usually best to put it on a floppy/disc or USB flash drive. Go to this link and select Operating system for driver downloads and BIOS update. Make sure that it is your motherboard model.

http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&model=M3A78-CM

 

[jitpublisher]

i think i might go with the 4890.. but how long do u think my x2 will last for now?

Paired with a 4890, a good while. Remember, most games will not make use of 4 cores. Even though the new Phenoms are faster than the old X2's at the same clock rates, it is not a huge difference. Maybe 10-15%. By the time the 4890 starts getting sluggish, there will likely be better upgrade options for the processor and motherboard than what is out there right now. If you changed to a Phenom II at say 2.8~3ghz, you'll see about the same gaming performance out of it that you do your X2. If a game supports 4 cores, then it will be more of a boost.

 

[matty6]

Yes, from Asus. Carefully follow directions for updating BIOS from their site. Usually best to put it on a floppy/disc or USB flash drive. Go to this link and select Operating system for driver downloads and BIOS update. Make sure that it is your motherboard model.

http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&model=M3A78-CM

say i download a file it wen tto my rar program would i extract it to a certain place or how does that work cause i did a certain update but didnt specifically no what to do with file lol

 

[matty6]

Paired with a 4890, a good while. Remember, most games will not make use of 4 cores. Even though the new Phenoms are faster than the old X2's at the same clock rates, it is not a huge difference. Maybe 10-15%. By the time the 4890 starts getting sluggish, there will likely be better upgrade options for the processor and motherboard than what is out there right now. If you changed to a Phenom II at say 2.8~3ghz, you'll see about the same gaming performance out of it that you do your X2. If a game supports 4 cores, then it will be more of a boost.

alright thank you appreciate the info!