To Upgrade or Not

[skwisgar]

Hi, I'm a first time poster here. I need an opinion on whether or not I should upgrade my computer. I currently have an ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe motherboard that's socket AM2 with a nForce 570 SLI MCP chipset. I have an AMD Athlon 64 x2 3800+ processor as well. Should I upgrade to a new motherboard, processor, and DDR3 RAM, or should I just try to max out what I have?

 

[Guest]

well it really depends on what you want to use it for. if it is for gaming, then yes now is a great time to upgrade. if it is for surfing the web, then no not really, just overclock it until it cant go no more

 

[skwisgar]

I'm using it for gaming currently. Everything is good right now, except the motherboard and processor. If I upgrade it, I'll need new RAM as well. Any suggestions?

 

[Guest]

i like amd, so i would go with amd 955, 720, or 550 depending on if you want quad triple or dual core. Also theres a great combo deal on newegg for a great mobo, great ram and the 955 for 330$

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.308218

also you might want to get a better video card, like a 4890 or 5770

 

[skwisgar]

i like amd, so i would go with amd 955, 720, or 550 depending on if you want quad triple or dual core. Also theres a great combo deal on newegg for a great mobo, great ram and the 955 for 330$

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.308218

also you might want to get a better video card, like a 4890 or 5770

Right now I have a nVidia GTX 260. I'm thinking about getting another for the SLI. The combo doesn't look bad, but I thought Tom's recommended to stay away from the Phenom?

 

[Guest]

if you have a nvidia card then maybe, but i see no reason why to stay away from the phenom 2 series. The phenoms werent great, but phenom II is amazing. Maybe look at this:


http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.309196

that with 2 260s and 4 gigs of ram would be great, but also much more expensive then the amd setup

 

[brendz155]

Phenom more or less is the same as athlon

 

[Guest]

Phenom is basically athlon, but phenom II is much, much better

 

[brendz155]

What the difference with a athlon and a phenom II then?

 

[Guest]

just want to make sure we are talking about athlon, not athlon II, but as far as athlon goes...everything. Phenom II is all 45 nm, 6 Mb of L3 cache, multicore, faster clock speeds, different cores, faster hyper transports, different voltage, i could keep on going but yeah they are entirely different.

 

[skwisgar]

If money wasn't an issue, what would you recommend for a motherboard and processor?

 

[Guest]

if money wasn't an issue i would recommend the i7 920 and the GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD7 LGA 1366 Intel X58,EVGA E760 CLASSIFIED "Overclocker's Pick" 3-Way SLI + PhysX 1366 Intel X58 EATX Intel Motherboard, or another high end asus i7 board (but money is always an issue and a build like this will cost somwhere around 3000$)