[Solved] Difference between 1.8 and 2.3 Mhz quad core?

Is it worth $109, upgrading from a 9150 Phenom x4 to a 9650 Phenom x4 ~ 1.8 to 2.3 Mhz? Or save the money for a new motherboard/CPU combo? Used for a buget gaming rig. Next year I will be building a more expensive rig so this is just a temporary boost, is it a good idea?

Thanks

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It depends if the CPU is limiting you... To test this, start up your fave game, but set the graphics options to the lowest setting possible... Now you are getting an idea of how the CPU is limiting the game... up the settings a stage at a time, and note the performance, you should notice a point that the frames start to drop, now the gfx is limiting the performance.

Knowing the above will give you a better idea of what you need to upgrade and why. Just popping in a faster CPU may get you nothing is you are GPU bound.

Reply to jamesgoddard

LowRes wrote :

Is it worth $109, upgrading from a 9150 Phenom x4 to a 9650 Phenom x4 ~ 1.8 to 2.3 Mhz? Or save the money for a new motherboard/CPU combo? Used for a buget gaming rig. Next year I will be building a more expensive rig so this is just a temporary boost, is it a good idea?

Thanks

in my option it's not worth it. Certainly if your going to be upgrading in a year anyways. You wont see much of a difference between the speeds and you wont get you money worth out of it.

BTW, i think your meaning GHz and not MHz. I'd hate to see how long it would take windows 3.1 to load on that slow speed. :lol: jk

Reply to warmon6

not worth it. put that $109 towards a new mobo/cpu.

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Reply to brett1042002

LowRes wrote :

Is it worth $109, upgrading from a 9150 Phenom x4 to a 9650 Phenom x4 ~ 1.8 to 2.3 Mhz? Or save the money for a new motherboard/CPU combo? Used for a buget gaming rig. Next year I will be building a more expensive rig so this is just a temporary boost, is it a good idea?

Thanks

If it's that small a difference in speed why don't you try to overclock it?

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Reply to dunklegend

Ha, yes GHz, sorry stupid me, typing faster than i was thinking. Thanks for the replys.

I find that i can run games at fairly high resolution with almost everything turned on (i have a budget card GPU aswell - HD 4650) including AA and AF. Fps really drops off in situations where there is smoke or haze and if simracing when there are few cars are in shot. Interstingly i noticed that changing the resolution or reducing eye candy made little impact on the sudden drops in fps in those situations (unles i turn off special effects completely). Thats why i was thinking about a CPU upgrade.

I was going to buy a new power supply and HD 4870 to use in the current machine which i could transfer to the more expensive rig in January time.

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Reply to LowRes

LowRes wrote :

Ha, yes GHz, sorry stupid me, typing faster than i was thinking. Thanks for the replys.

I find that i can run games at fairly high resolution with almost everything turned on (i have a budget card GPU aswell - HD 4650) including AA and AF. Fps really drops off in situations where there is smoke or haze and if simracing when there are few cars are in shot. Interstingly i noticed that changing the resolution or reducing eye candy made little impact on the sudden drops in fps in those situations (unles i turn off special effects completely). Thats why i was thinking about a CPU upgrade.

I was going to buy a new power supply and HD 4870 to use in the current machine which i could transfer to the more expensive rig in January time.

a more powerful gpu is what you need for better fps.

Yeah sometimes happens to me as well. typing/talking faster than i can think sometimes.

Well if you need anymore help you know where to ask.

Reply to warmon6

Thanks for you help, its much appreciated

That was my initial thought (bigger GPU and PS) but won't it bottleneck at the CPU, i don't know how to tell, little increase in performance i guess? Thats why i was thinking it needed a few more GHz. And also my (older) laptop unzips files faster than my desktop... its emabarrasing. :pfff:

Reply to LowRes

+1 for overclocking. it's basically the same cpu... just overclock it. If you were looking to upgrade to phenom 2, then you'd see a difference. You're much better off getting a phenom 2 triple core than a first run phenom quad core (for gaming especially, and for everything else it's a tossup if you consider max overclock).

Reply to sepayne21

I was going on these specs for the motherboard:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc [...] =c01357175

Looks to me like the AM2+ socket and 95W max are the main concerns, I don't fully understand the FSB requirements, motherboard spec says 2000MT/s, i don't know what that means, i thought options were 833 or 1333Mhz (or something like that)!?!. All the Phenom IIs have AM3 sockets don't they?

I have never tried overclocking... I will certainly try if you thin it'll make a difference though. The general opinion seems to be to save for a newer mobo/CPU later down the road, because i won't get much more performance from this motherboard even with a slightly faster CPU.

So the only question i have now is - will i gain fps with a better GPU or will the 1.8GHz CPU bottleneck everything? If so i'll wait until i put together a new system (good GPUs will be even cheaper by then hopefully).

Thanks you all for your replies.

Reply to LowRes

About .5 MHz

Reply to foody

Best answer

Probably upgrading to a better video card would benefit you more. If you were changing to a Phenom II, then it may be a bit more worth it, but since you have a 4650 that should probably be your first concern.

A beefier GPU would still yield better fps than what your 4650 could bring. The overclock would increase performance in any case.

For example, if your 4650 could do around 30fps, a 4870 could possibly do 70fps. At such a case, if you overclocked the CPU, with the 4650 you may gain an additional 5fps, but with the 4870 it may be 10fps.

Reply to amnotanoobie

Guys, 1.8 is pretty low...500MHz is also a pretty substantial increase in speed (all things considered)...A 4870 would clearly be bottlenecked at his current speeds.

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Reply to gamerk316

Ok, so maybe i could take this approach -

Buy a 750W PSU and H4870 now. See if that works with an attempt at overclocking... if that doesn't work i could always bring forward the new build incorporating those 2 with a Phenom II x4/x3 +mobo+ddr3 ram perhaps with a second 4870?. Or is that stupid and everything will be cheaper if i wait a couple of months? If i do that i want a good base platform ie CPU+mobo for future developments.

I have read that the games i like to play happen to be more processor hungry than some others.

Again thank you for your responses, i'm a learner.

Reply to LowRes

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