Processor or Video Upgrade

[Reece]

Well it's that time of the year when my age moves up one slot!! I was thinking of upgrading my CPU from an AM3 Phenom II X2 550 BE to a Phenom II X4 955/965, I will have to flash my bios first (nerve wrecking!).
Would this be a good move? or would it be better to upgrade my video card, (a ATI HIS Turbo HD 4850 512)? if so what would be a good one to switch to? seems the HD 5xxx series aren't that good, also the 4850 runs very hot so a cooler running one would be better, my motherboard chipset is optimized for AMD/ATI so I wouldn't change this.
Can only afford one or the other at this stage, maybe xmas for the other.
Advise always welcome!

[Gerald]

Bios upgrade only if absolutely Necessary, what you use for OS? And how much are you going to put in money for Graphics Card

[Reece]

At the moment I am using XP Pro, I am holding off Win 7 till SP1 is released, that isn't expected now till early to mid 2011!
I won't be going over AU $200, though our dollar is around 95c compared to US, so it's a good time to buy!

[Gerald]

Yes it is good choice to wait until they have been released, service pack 1 for more stability,How about Nvidia 400 series,Ati 5 is a good choice also, how much RAM you are using, I assume that running 64-bit

[Reece]

No XP Pro is 32 bit, not much support for 64 bit and at this stage not worth purchasing and converting, because my AMD chipset is optimized for ATI I will stick with them, but as I stated the 5xxx series is vast but not really good performance write ups, the 4770 would be a better move but still quite pricey!

[Gerald]

But if you later do an upgrade to W7, there are advantages with 64-bit,but have ATI left

[Gerald]

ATI HIS Turbo HD 4850 512,what is the price roughly

[Arclight]

I'm thinking the 5850 would be a good card for you. 8530 doesn't make any sense any more with the 460 on the market, but it's something to consider if you want to stick to ATI.

CPU seems alright; as long as you have good speed, a dual-core can still pull its weight. When you move to a quad-core, make sure you're not trading in core speed for more cores.

I'm not sure how it is with the different Win7 packages, but mine came with both 32 and 64bit disc (retail Ultimate). 2GB RAM is getting on the meager side nowadays, while 4GB is still plenty (for gaming). But to use that 4 GB, you'll need 64b OS.

[Reece]

Yes the 5850 does seem to be the way to go regarding video cards, but a little too pricey still (average around $300).
I guess I will have to do some more research on the CPU, I kinda figured that my 2 core running at 550mhz would be noticeably slower than a 4 core at 955mhz!
@ Vendor, my old card is around $100 new now.

[Arclight]

Regarding the CPU, it depends on the application. Games aren't all that well suited for multi-threading; you always see 1 core peak higher. As a result, a slow quad can be worse than a fast dual, sine that fast dual has enough speed on individual core to cope with demand, while the quad is lacking.

There isn't some kind of magic at play that always equally divides the load over all cores; an application needs to be created to make proper use of it.

Doesn't really matter though, going to 955 is a proper step up and goes a way to future-proofing. Or hold off for AMD's next series.


Honestly the only card I would recommend at this point is a 460, but mostly because it's such good value for money. A 5850 is ussually a bit faster, but costs more. 5830 is slower and costs about the same. Imo the 200-250 pricepoint is the sweetspot (upper-mainstream, should last you about 3 years or longer, allowing to max out graphics in 95% of games).

[Reece]

Well really it seems that for the time being I might hold off for now and review the situation around xmas, if I had the money I would do the following:

Change to Win 7 Pro 64 bit
Buy this: http://www.hisdigital.com/un/product2-474.shtml
Upgrade my CPU to AM3 X6 1090T
Upgrade my ram to 8gb Kingston HyperX.

I'll keep saving my pennies, may be the best move!

[THE_MASK]

You can just go on upgrading an old system forever . I bit the bullit and got out a loan and bought all the parts and made it myself . I repaid the loan back in 6 months with no intrest .
Coolmaster haf 922 case .
Corsair HX750W power supply .
Asus P7P55D deluxe mobo .
Intel i5 760 cpu .
Corsair dominator memory 4 x 2 gig 1600 mhz .
Asus EAH5870 version 2 graphics card .
Win 7 Pro 64 bit

[Gerald]

Originally Posted by sober

You can just go on upgrading an old system forever . I bit the bullit and got out a loan and bought all the parts and made it myself . I repaid the loan back in 6 months with no intrest .
Coolmaster haf 922 case .
Corsair HX750W power supply .
Asus P7P55D deluxe mobo .
Intel i5 760 cpu .
Corsair dominator memory 4 x 2 gig 1600 mhz .
Asus EAH5870 version 2 graphics card .
Win 7 Pro 64 bit

meet the board what you expected,

[antikristuseke]

Originally Posted by Reece

Yes the 5850 does seem to be the way to go regarding video cards, but a little too pricey still (average around $300).
I guess I will have to do some more research on the CPU, I kinda figured that my 2 core running at 550mhz would be noticeably slower than a 4 core at 955mhz!
@ Vendor, my old card is around $100 new now.

What the bloody hell are you talking about, that number does not represent the operating frequancy of the processors
The 550 operates at 3.1Ghz and the 955 operates at 3.2. In your case the processor upgrade makes little to no sense unless you plan to overclokc since very few aplications take advantage of 4 cores. If you want a more immediate performance upgrade the graphics card would be the way to go. Later on you might want to do a processor swap, but to be honest there will be a whole nother generation of microprocessors out there by then.

[Reece]

Originally Posted by antikristuseke

What the bloody hell are you talking about, that number does not represent the operating frequancy of the processors
The 550 operates at 3.1Ghz and the 955 operates at 3.2. In your case the processor upgrade makes little to no sense unless you plan to overclokc since very few aplications take advantage of 4 cores. If you want a more immediate performance upgrade the graphics card would be the way to go. Later on you might want to do a processor swap, but to be honest there will be a whole nother generation of microprocessors out there by then.

You are correct, I didn't know why I put that, it is clearly marked on the box the frequency, and I know it! also shown in PC Wizard/CPU-Z etc! I really don't know why I put that in, obviously typing without thinking, a moment of insanity!!