What to buy first to help gaming performance (CPU vs RAM)

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mrshoppingcart

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Hello all, I am looking to increase my gaming performance as my R7 250 is being heavily bottlenecked by my CPU/RAM. I don't know which to buy first, 4 GB RAM (max motherboard supports) or an Athlon II X2 250-270 (all around same price)

Right now I have:
Athlon 64 X2 4800+
2 GB 800 MHZ DDR2 (400 MHz per dimm, max board supports)

Which would help my gaming performance the most? Buying the CPU, or buying the RAM first?

I don't have much money so I can probably buy one of them tomorrow, and buy the other in a month or so. If you need any other specs I'd be willing to provide.

Honestly I think the CPU first would be a better idea, since when I overclocked my 4800+ my frame rate practically doubled in every game. I just want to get some other opinions before tomorrow when I go on Amazon or Ebay to buy the component I will need.

Good day.
 
Solution
Karadjgne
Well, phooey, your choices are limited, the x2 6400+ is 3.2GHz dual core and the fastest available for that 65w board. Hate to say this as you seem kinda attached to the ol' gal, but it may be better to keep what you have and save up for a newer generation mobo/cpu/ram, or even a pre-built from Walmart. With technology advances on software, your older system is fast becoming obsolete and what you have is no longer supported by the software companies. Sorry, but even increasing the size of your ram to 3.5Gb usable, will only be a stopgap on the inevitable.
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Karadjgne

Karadjgne

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Ram first, it'll have the biggest impact on everything from Windows to games. Considering Windows itself is using a large chunk of that 2Gb, anything extra is fighting for what is left over, which is slowing down the flow of info from source-ram-cpu-gpu. Many games are single threaded, they'll use 1 core with spillover on a second, so your current cpu is OK, not great, but ok, and an eventual move to the more powerful x4 will help, Windows on 1+ cores, game on 1+ cores etc, but your ram size holds all the info needed for the cpu to process. If it's full, the cpu has to wait for more info, so you wait.
 
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mrshoppingcart

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http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c01237538 is my motherboard,

no x4 is supported. It has some typa TDP limit where CPUs will slow down if they have a TDP higher than 83, so I get out of luck there. My BIOS is modded, and a few CPUs were tested, and the Athlon II X2 245-280 were the best performing, there was also an old Phenom X4 9500 that was tested, which worked, but I can't seem to find it anywhere on the internet to buy,
 
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artyor

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You should named games you are playing or plan on playing.
Anyway, I also suggest you upgrading RAM 1st. Remember that your Mobo supports 4GB, but only as 2x2GB and not 1x4GB module.
In my country you can get 2nd hand 2GB DDR2 for like 15$...so I guess just get the RAM 1st and see how your PC works
 
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Karadjgne

Karadjgne

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Well, phooey, your choices are limited, the x2 6400+ is 3.2GHz dual core and the fastest available for that 65w board. Hate to say this as you seem kinda attached to the ol' gal, but it may be better to keep what you have and save up for a newer generation mobo/cpu/ram, or even a pre-built from Walmart. With technology advances on software, your older system is fast becoming obsolete and what you have is no longer supported by the software companies. Sorry, but even increasing the size of your ram to 3.5Gb usable, will only be a stopgap on the inevitable.
 
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mrshoppingcart

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Feb 22, 2015
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Got an AM3 board, heh. and CPU to go along with it, now I just need some DDR3 RAM and I will be set.
 
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mrshoppingcart

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Been reading about RAM faster than motherboard, and it seems like I will just get 1600 MHz anyway, cause it'll either work or underclock itself, and I want some Crucial Ballstix Sport, cause it seems like it is used by a lot of people, reviews are good, and it is pretty cheap compared to other DDR3 kits.

Also, the motherboard site/page lists DDR2 and DDR3, which is confusing, and as far as I am concerned, cross-platform boards are very slim, and I don't think a generic HP/OEM one would be cross-compatible.
 
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mrshoppingcart

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I guess it can't hurt to try it tho
 
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