Worth upgrading AMD Athlon 64 X2?

[YaaR21]

Hello everyone,

My trusty old system has been with me for a few years but age is starting to show. I'm not much a gamer, but I do some audio editing (nothing heavy) and I have recently been playing some StarCraft 2. Now it runs pretty well, but things do get exceptionally choppy when there are a lot of units at the same time (not necessarily when they are on the screen, but if there's a ~100 around I get basically 1 fps).
I've been looking to upgrade my system. A new one is out of the question at this point in time. Current specs:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+
4GB of ram
NVIDIA GeForce 9600GT

Nothing high end, I know! A friend suggested upgrading the processor and came up with a vendor that still has a AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+ in stock.

Would this upgrade help in anyway or would it be a better idea to save a little and buy a more modern system? I would regret doing so as it would mean buying a new motherboard, processor, RAM and possible graphics card, which I think is a waste, as normal things run just fine on this system.

Thanks in advance!

 

[jeffredo]

Whats your motherboard model number? You may be able to upgrade to a Phenom II or Athlon II which would be a lot better than an X2 6400+ (which I had once and wasn't much better than the X2 5200+ it replaced).

 

[YaaR21]

Thanks for the reply!

I've just checked and it's an Asus M3N78, with AM2+ socket.

 

[Brett928S2]

Hi

The 6400 x2 was a VERY good cpu and yes if you can get one, it will plug straight in and work ...and will give a big improvement...depending on cost of course...

All the best Brett

 

[YaaR21]

Thanks for the reply Brett.

Do you reckon the 6400+ is better than say a Phenom II?

 

[sk1939]

Thanks for the reply Brett.

Do you reckon the 6400+ is better than say a Phenom II?

Phenom, but it is harder to find.

 

[jeffredo]

Your motherboard can support a Phenom II X4 965, which is much, much better than an an Athlon 6400+. You may need to upgrade the BIOS though. Here's the full list of supported CPUs:

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_AM2Plus/M3N78VM/#CPUS

 

[-Fran-]

Your motherboard can support a Phenom II X4 965, which is much, much better than an an Athlon 6400+. You may need to upgrade the BIOS though. Here's the full list of supported CPUs:

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_AM2Plus/M3N78VM/#CPUS

Ah, beat me to it, mate.

I was going to add the same thing/info. A friend of mine put a Phenom II X4 955 C3 stepping into his AM2 MoBo from an Athlon64 X2 6400 as well. It's quite the upgrade I'll tell you right away. I did it from an Athlon64 X2 4400 (s939) to my current Phenom II X4 965 (AM3+) and it IS a huge huge upgrade.

Cheers!

 

[Cazalan]

Hard to beat that upgrade price. 30% - 160% improvement depending on clock speed and core scalability.