Time to start the upgades

[Steel~Sparta~]

I am running a 3 year old system that was mid to range when I built it and I am now bumping the upper limits of what I can do with it. As I can not afford to build a new computer outright I have decided to do my upgrade in stages. I have done the research and I know that my bottleneck is my processor and motherboard so that will be what I upgrade first. I think the memory from my old system will be compatable but if not I am not really worried as memory is cheap.

 

AMD or Intel? Ford vs Chevy? Wood or Aluminum? I do not care it is about having the most bang buck. That said, I have a lot of experaince with AMD systems and, while I am not a fanboy, I am a lot more familur with them.

 

I am considering this motherboard MSI 890FXA-GD65 AM3 AMD 890FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

 

As far as the processor I am considering This One

Help and suggestions are appreicated. Many thanks.

Edited March 4, 2011 by Steel~Sparta~

[Fatal_Papercut~SPARTA~]

Go with option #1, the X4 955. That is a quad-core CPU. The other option has the same clock speed but is only a dual-core, hence the "X2" designation.

 

Until very recently, I used the CPU that is just one step up, the 965, stock speed of 3.4GHz. The "Black Edition" means that the chip has an unlocked multiplier, so it is very easy to overclock. Bumping the speed up to 3.4GHz would require nothing more than a simple BIOS tweak. If you eventually get something better than the stock HSF, you should easily be able to go up to 3.8GHz, although doing so would also require a small voltage tweak as well--again, easily accomplished with the BIOS.

 

For gaming, you'll see no noticeable performance difference between the 955 and a comparable Intel CPU. Intel's i-series does offer better performance for other things such as file transcoding and other real-word applications. However, any decent dual-core running at 3GHz is going to give you everything you need to run the latest game. The next performance upgrade that is going to make a big difference is the GPU.

[Steel~Sparta~]

Go with option #1, the X4 955. That is a quad-core CPU. The other option has the same clock speed but is only a dual-core, hence the "X2" designation.

 

Until very recently, I used the CPU that is just one step up, the 965, stock speed of 3.4GHz. The "Black Edition" means that the chip has an unlocked multiplier, so it is very easy to overclock. Bumping the speed up to 3.4GHz would require nothing more than a simple BIOS tweak. If you eventually get something better than the stock HSF, you should easily be able to go up to 3.8GHz, although doing so would also require a small voltage tweak as well--again, easily accomplished with the BIOS.

 

For gaming, you'll see no noticeable performance difference between the 955 and a comparable Intel CPU. Intel's i-series does offer better performance for other things such as file transcoding and other real-word applications. However, any decent dual-core running at 3GHz is going to give you everything you need to run the latest game. The next performance upgrade that is going to make a big difference is the GPU.

 

Sounds good. What is you recommendation for a motherboard. My only requirement is that it DOES NOT have onboard video.

[NoScream~SPARTA~]

Like Fatal said, try for a quad core CPU, use toms for ref.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/charts/desktop-cpu-charts-2010/3DMark-Vantage-Overall-Performance,2416.html

 

Motherboard if you go for DDR3, go for triple channel boards & not dual channel boards.

 

Windows 7 64bit if possible

 

SSD boot if buget allows (120GB) otherwise a decent HD.

[Fatal_Papercut~SPARTA~]

Sounds good. What is you recommendation for a motherboard. My only requirement is that it DOES NOT have onboard video.

 

No on-board is my only real recommendation. Otherwise, I'd say go with an ASUS or Gigabyte AM3 mobo that fits your budget. ASRock is also good, because it's a less expensive variation of the ASUS line. The build quality is the same, but they do use fewer high-end components. For example, you won't find an ASRock board with more than 2 PCI-E 2.0 GPU slots, and many of them only have one. For the purposes of future upgrade considerations, I recommend the higher-end ASUS models.

 

Here's one example of something I would buy if I were in the market for an AMD mobo. It has a recent chipset that supports features such as SATA 6Gb/s. Because I am not a firm believer in the benefits of or need for SLI/CrossFire, I would be happy with the single PCI-E 2.0 slot.

[Steel~Sparta~]

No on-board is my only real recommendation. Otherwise, I'd say go with an ASUS or Gigabyte AM3 mobo that fits your budget. ASRock is also good, because it's a less expensive variation of the ASUS line. The build quality is the same, but they do use fewer high-end components. For example, you won't find an ASRock board with more than 2 PCI-E 2.0 GPU slots, and many of them only have one. For the purposes of future upgrade considerations, I recommend the higher-end ASUS models.

 

Here's one example of something I would buy if I were in the market for an AMD mobo. It has a recent chipset that supports features such as SATA 6Gb/s. Because I am not a firm believer in the benefits of or need for SLI/CrossFire, I would be happy with the single PCI-E 2.0 slot.

 

I was looking at that motherboard earlier and and wondering if there was enough of a differance between the 870 chipset and the 890 chipset to make a real diffeance and if that diffeerance is worth the $50 or so.

 

Viper for the life of me I can not find a 3 channel board