Best AM3+ Cpu for my board? or Upgrade time?

[magister]

Hello,

I currently have a:

GIGABYTE GA-970A-DS3 AMD 970/SB950 AM3+ FX ATX Motherboard

and a:

Phenom X4 955 3.2G

I am looking @ upgrading on black friday / cyber monday this year. So in the next month.

I think I'll have around 300$ in my budget to do this and I'm wondering if it's worth it to upgrade to another AM3+ CPU, or if it's time to upgrade past this motherboard.

I still do not have a SSD drive and I really want to get one so bad. I really didn't see the point in getting anything less than 256GB or even 512GB but I really wanted to see the prices come down and they have this past year quite a lot.

So, this is my quandary.

If there is a sufficent AM3+ CPU that can last me another year or so, then I might as well go for a CPU + SSD right now, if not, then I guess I'm stuck with a CPU + MB upgrade and a SSD at a later date.

I recently had to replace my GPU, going with a 280x, which says it requires a 750w PSU, which is exactly what I happen to have, was looking at upgrading that too. (the PSU not the GPU hehe).

Just trying to prioritize what I have to do =)

The CPU is really pretty dated and I really would like to upgrade it, I just don't want to bother upgrading it, if there is no point.

For example, if the best upgrade I can get for my current MB is only going to be a tiny upgrade, for a significant price, and buying a new CPU + MB is going to get me more performance, for roughly the same or a little more money, then I might as well just upgrade those.

However, if I am going to get a semi-decent boost in CPU performance, and still have enough left over to get a SSD, then that is what I am going to prefer to do.

Lastly, where do you guys do your cyber monday shopping? just the usual sites like newegg / tiger, ncix, etc? (from Canada btw).

Thank you so much in advance!

Cheers.

 

[rolli59]

FX83xxE is what I would look for that board, they are 95watt parts when the 8320 and 8350 are 125watt parts that the board may or may not struggle with.

 

[iron8orn]

hmm well the only sensible upgrade for a cpu anyway would be an i5.

 

[SU11YBEAR]

I would say a 6300 for gaming is the best bet, if you want an 8-core it is an option but you wont see any big difference between these two for gaming. And then get the SSD and a PSU for around 300.

PCPartPicker part list: http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/p/RByfD3
Price breakdown by merchant: http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/p/RByfD3/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor ($115.98 @ DirectCanada)
Storage: Crucial MX100 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($115.98 @ DirectCanada)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA NEX 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($86.27 @ DirectCanada)
Total: $318.23
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-03 08:50 EST-0500

Also in Canada and generally use Newegg and NCIX for my shopping but part picker may be a good option for finding deals (haven't tried it on a holiday yet) then use ncix for price match

If you want to go the upgrade route you probably wont see a ton of increase between the phenom and most other AM3+ chips, there just wasn't a huge performance bump there, so it may be time to consider the switch to a new board but that's a pretty expensive proposition (assume 150 for mobo and 190 for cpu if you go 1150 i5)

 

[iron8orn]

Solid state drive are great but if the most the intensive thing your doing is gaming then all it will give you is fast booting and fast loading screens. You can get a lga 1150-i5 combo for less than $300 if you want perfect frame rates from your gpu.

 

[magister]

@rolli59 My current CPU is 125w, the 8350 is also 125w .. not sure why my MB would struggle? Perhaps you could clear that up for me?

In any case, the 8350 seen here:

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113284

would probably be the best AM3+ cpu no?

Also, thanks to @SU11YBEAR

Excellent response!

However, as I mentioned, I currently have a 750w PSU. I'd like to upgrade it to 1000w, as I mentioned. My current GPU requires a 750w and with hardware changes, I'd rather have more power available than too little ya know =)

Still, if I can get a semi-decent upgrade for all 3 of those parts at todays prices, for 300 bucks, then hopefully (fingers crossed), come black friday / cyber monday, I should be able to upgrade easily!

@iron8orn , not totally true. For example, in Diablo 3, a SSD drive dramatically smooths out gameplay, otherwise players are forced to use a flashdrive to read game files from to prevent stuttering.

Generally speaking though, the loading / booting performance increase with a SSD are extremely noticeable.

Still, I really would like to take more advantage of my current GPU. My current system is bottle necking it pretty bad atm I'm sure.

 

[iron8orn]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106-5.html

read^ if you where to oc your current cpu to 4.2ghz it's gaming will be very similar to the 8350.

 

[rolli59]

Take a look at your board here http://www.overclock.net/t/946407/amd-motherboards-vrm-info-database biggest issue is there is no VRM cooling. Phenom and FX are two different beasts and the FX uses more power. 750watt PSU is still plenty for your rig, 280X runs fine in a system with quality 550watts manufacturers recommendations are inflated because of all the generic crap PSU's on the market.

 

[SU11YBEAR]

Ok thought it was more the PSU was aging, 750W will be more then enough if you are only running one card, 1000W is only necessary if you want to crossfire and O.C.
280X minimum is 550W btw (https://forum-en.msi.com/faq/article/power-requirements-for-graphics-cards) with that being based on 100W CPU

The 8350 or 8370 are the most powerful chips still available for the AM3+ but even there they are not necessarily the best for gaming, an i5 will beat them in most gaming applications, they really need to update this chart to break out the top some more but for comparison
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106-5.html

The SSD may not give you a ton of performance increase in gaming but I find it is one of those things were once you have it going back to a mechanical drive is terrible, boot times alone make it worth it to me.

 

[rolli59]

I made the upgrade from a 955BE (@3.6GHz) to FX8350 and with a HD7850 it was about 10-15% increase on average in FPS in modern games, nothing noticeable in older games.