Upgrading AMD Phenom ll Black Edition 965

Apr 18, 2018
9
0
10
current setup

CPU AMD Phenom ll Black edition 965 overclocked to 3.9GHz (3.4 GHz stock)

MOBO Asus m4a88t-m

RAM 4x4 Corsair Vengeance PRO 16GB DDR3 2133MHz

GPU EVGA GTX 960 4GB

PSU Corsair CX600 W

1x not very good 250gb ssd + 2x500gb standard WD Hardrives

Looking to upgrade the CPU and motherboard. Can anyone point me to a right direction. I looked at a couple of procesors from AMD like FX9590 but would like to hear some feedback. Looking to increase the performance by 35% (up to £200/250)

Kind Regards

Mateusz
 
Solution
Best you can do to upgrade using your current DDR3-2133 16GB SDRAM is to find a used Z87 or Z97 motherboard and a i5-4460 or higher

For new unfortunately you will have to get a full set cpu/motherboard and ram, the upside is that 16GB will sell on eBay really quickly at about 100$.

Here is what I suggest;

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1500X 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£107.99 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: MSI - B350 PC MATE ATX AM4 Motherboard (£73.99 @ Box Limited)
Memory: Patriot - Viper Elite 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory (£94.21 @ SmartTeck.co.uk)
Total: £276.19
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when...

sourodip

Distinguished
If you can wait for some time, then you can pick one of the Ryzen 2xxx processors. I'm sure the pricing would be aggressive and some nice motherboards would be available at cheaper prices. If you want something ASAP, then Intel's Coffee Lake is what you should be aiming at. Kindly mention your budget.
 
AMD FX line is not even worth to consider.

You could get something like this for £250.

  • Intel - Core i5-8400 2.8GHz 6-Core Processor £143.99 Aria PC
    Gigabyte - H310M S2H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard £52.99 Overclockers.co.uk
    G.Skill - Ripjaws 4 series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2400 Memory £59.30 Amazon UK
https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/Qf3fHh
 

electro_neanderthal

Respectable
Jan 22, 2018
450
2
1,965
First of all, the FX-9590 (rare motherboards; unstable; poorly designed power delivery) is a waste of money. The best stable FX processor that is easy enough to get is probably the 8350 - and you need to make sure the motherboard supports it, 'cause most AM3+ sockets don't.

My best suggestion is to get something based around the 8th gen Intel processors or the Ryzen processors (they will all well-outperform your current processor).

The "not-as-new" (and inferior) option I recommend is the Pentium G4600. You can at least re-use your RAM (at slower speeds, most likely) while being able to upgrade to DDR4 (for faster speeds) if you want to spend the extra money.

https://ark.intel.com/products/97453/Intel-Pentium-Processor-G4600-3M-Cache-3_60-GHz
 
Best you can do to upgrade using your current DDR3-2133 16GB SDRAM is to find a used Z87 or Z97 motherboard and a i5-4460 or higher

For new unfortunately you will have to get a full set cpu/motherboard and ram, the upside is that 16GB will sell on eBay really quickly at about 100$.

Here is what I suggest;

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1500X 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£107.99 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: MSI - B350 PC MATE ATX AM4 Motherboard (£73.99 @ Box Limited)
Memory: Patriot - Viper Elite 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory (£94.21 @ SmartTeck.co.uk)
Total: £276.19
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-04-18 12:20 BST+0100

2018-04-18_06-20-47.png




 
Solution
Apr 18, 2018
9
0
10
Your board does not support the amperage/wattage needed to run a FX9590. they can easily pull over 200watts,more when overclocked.
Your boards VRM will not handle it.


I do realize that. That's why I wanted to upgrade both the CPU and the mobo
 


The fx 9590 is a terrible cpu. Even if you had one of the few motherboards that could handle it and a powerfull cooler to keep it cool most would still be unstable and not hold their 5ghz clockspeed. The cheapest ryzen atm (either the 2200g or 1200 depends on your local market) beats the 9590.

I would just save up a bit more to do a whole ram+motherboard+cpu upgrade.
Also is your corsair psu a green label? If so replace it before you do anything since the green labels were terrible psu's known to break systems.
 



check AMD sales for last few years, this will explain it all. Yes ryzen almost doubled most stats of FX series.
 

electro_neanderthal

Respectable
Jan 22, 2018
450
2
1,965


AMD failed pretty hard with the FX series (it was meant to be an enthusiast line, but wasn't). The A series actually did alright (it was never designed to game; it succeeded where it needed to).
 
My suggestion is a Ryzen 3 2200G, a reasonable B350 motherboard, and 8 GB 2666Mhz DDR4. On Newegg you can get all those for right around 260-280 USD.

You don't even have to use the built in Vega graphics since your GTX 960 is most assuredly faster. You'll see a massive performance increase over that old Phenom II. The Ryzen option also gives you an upgrade path to a Ryzen 5 or 7... but IF you get the 2200G, you probably won't need to upgrade until gen 3 or 4 of Ryzen. However, if you can scrape up a little more money I'd recommend getting the Ryzen 5 1400, for the SMT, or the 1600 because the 1600 is pretty darn awesome.