Upgrade phenom ii x4 840t

[rvieaujr]

im running a phenom ii x4 840t with a radeon hd 7770 graphics card. im looking to upgrade and really get a bang for my buck. on a budget so no i7 suggests plz. not a rich kid. i was told to go with the fx 8350 dozer by a few and other people told me to hold out. any suggests, new to pc gaming. so im not even sure what pcu's are combatable with the phenom ii x4 840t... help guys and thx all.

 

[lazyboy947]

get the motherboard model and post, it may be able to take the first gen fx gpus the bulldozer, and the 8350 is piledriver.

Also that 840T is two disabled cores so if may be able to unlock to a six core which would help performance

Also do not think that the 7770 will be bottlenecked by a 2.9ghz Phenom II quad core. so rlly a cpu upgrade is not rlly helpful at this point, maybe a overclock if anything

If ur board doesnt take any am3+ cpu then ur only upgrades on a new cpu without a new board would be a x4 965be, or a x6 1045t as they are the only commonly sold cpus that are new. The 965 is just a 3.4ghz version of what u have, and the 1045t is the 100mhz less of what u have with 2 more cores and ur current cpu could possibly get the two extra cores unlocked

 

[rvieaujr]

mobo is ASrock 770icafe. im not a pc wiz or anything so i dont know how to unlock the xtra 2 cores. bottlenecked? do u mean i should upgrade the vid card instead and overclock? any suggests? been a console gamer until a month ago. thx for all info and patience with my noob pc questions

 

[Kamen_BG]

Your CPU is great actually.
I don't know why would you want to upgrade to anything more powerful.
It can handle a GTX 680 with ease.
First go in your Bios and look for an option called Turbo UCC.
Enable it and your CPU may turn into a six core.
This way you'll have an equivelent of the FX 6300.

Or if you want to overclock it, go in the bios.
Increase the reference clock to 240 and lower your RAM speed by one step.
If it is 800, make it 667. If it's 667 make it 533 and so on.
This will make your CPU 20% faster.

 

[rvieaujr]

thx kamen. new to pc gaming. friend told me i had to upgrade to play all my newly bought games. BF3, metro 2033, black ops 2 and ghost recon online. glad i didnt waste the money i cant really afford anyways.

 

[Kamen_BG]

You will be able to play all those games just fine.
There really is no need to upgrade, but if you do want to run them at high settings, you may not be satisfied.

 

[lazyboy947]

for future reference - http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/770iCafe/?cat=CPU

Motherboard with a bios update will support every am3+ cpu up to the 8350

But an OC or unlock of cores will be better than an upgrade

 

[jtenorj]

I know this thread is a tad stale, but I was reading your other thread and came across this one. Will post both places.

For most games right now, having a faster quad core cpu(or one that can do at least 3-4 threads) is more important than a slower hexacore(or octacore). True the ps4 ( and likely the next xbox) will have 8 core amd processors, but those are based on the jaguar core(an update to the ultra portable bobcat core) and not based on bulldozer or piledriver. The stars architecture(a refinement of the K8 of athlon 64/x2 of old) has higher IPC. If you get something like a phenom II x4 970(BE) for around 100 and a decent cpu cooler like a cooler master hyper tx3, you can overclock to 4ghz+ on your mobo to help eliminate any potential cpu bottlenecks that might stymie the performance of a new gpu. Then, you go for a bit less powerful gpu than a hd7970(like a hd7870xt). The combined pricing of new cpu, cooler and hd7870xt will be about the same as a hd7970 alone(about 360 after rebate). I'm just going to figure you have a power supply that is up to the task and that your case can fit a larger size graphics card.

Edit: a 2.9 ghz amd cpu(3.2 turbo) won't cut it for BF3 MP(the main reason for getting that game).

 

[Guest]

Hello, to play console ports on your PC is just not a good option. The Video Card alone would cost more than a New XBOX 360 and a Console copy of the game. After you spend $1000 on a new PC BF3 will only be about as playable as the Xbox 360.