When should I upgrade and should I switch to Intel?

[wyspyr]

Hey all,

I was just wondering when would be the most economically/performance related time to upgrade from my current system. Now, or when Intel releases their new line of chips later this year. Will current chips drop in price dramatically? Or should I bite the bullet and pay for a premium system? I game, watch HD movies, surf the net, listen to music, edit photos, monitor the weather and use a web cam...almost all at the same time I lose a little responsiveness when really going for it. Current stats are as follows:


OS: Wndows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
Case: Antec 300 Mid ATX - love this case...and its cheap!
PS: Antec TruePower Quattro 1000w
MOBO: ASUS M4A79T Deluxe AM3 DDR3 AMD 790FX
CPU: AMD Athlon II X4 620 @ 3.12GHz on air with stock voltages
MEM: OCZ DDR3 @ 1600MHz 2 x 2GB
GPU: SAPPHIRE Vapor-X Radeon HD 4890 overslocked to 950Mhz
Boot Disk: 120GB OCZ Summit Series SSD
Media Drive: Pioneer BD-ROM 202


Upgrade options and opinions???


Thanks.

 

[andy5174]

Hey all,

I was just wondering when would be the most economically/performance related time to upgrade from my current system. Now, or when Intel releases their new line of chips later this year. Will current chips drop in price dramatically? Or should I bite the bullet and pay for a premium system? I game, watch HD movies, surf the net, listen to music, edit photos, monitor the weather and use a web cam...almost all at the same time I lose a little responsiveness when really going for it. Current stats are as follows:


OS: Wndows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
Case: Antec 300 Mid ATX - love this case...and its cheap!
PS: Antec TruePower Quattro 1000w
MOBO: ASUS M4A79T Deluxe AM3 DDR3 AMD 790FX
CPU: AMD Athlon II X4 620 @ 3.12GHz on air with stock voltages
MEM: OCZ DDR3 @ 1600MHz 2 x 2GB
GPU: SAPPHIRE Vapor-X Radeon HD 4890 overslocked to 950Mhz
Boot Disk: 120GB OCZ Summit Series SSD
Media Drive: Pioneer BD-ROM 202


Upgrade options and opinions???


Thanks.

Since you already have a top end AM3 MB, I suggest that you go for the PII-955 if you want to upgrade the CPU.

However, I doubt that you will see significant improvement in responsive time even with a Intel i7 CPU.

Your current setup is excellent and shouldn't get you in trouble with responsive time.

Maybe you are just too picky about the responsive time so that you can't tolerate even a minor delay which is normal to any current system.

You should get a PCIE SSD as system drive if you want to have extremely fast response.

Have a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3eFgClKGMc

 

[Chad Boga]

Considering what you already have, staying with AMD seems an obvious choice.

If you don't overclock, then the PhII965 would be the one to get today, but if you do overclock, get the PhII955 instead.

AMD will probably be releasing a PhII 975(@3.6Ghz) in Q2.

 

[wyspyr]

Considering what you already have, staying with AMD seems an obvious choice.

If you don't overclock, then the PhII965 would be the one to get today, but if you do overclock, get the PhII955 instead.

AMD will probably be releasing a PhII 975(@3.6Ghz) in Q2.

Awesome guess I'll wait and see what AMD throws out next! Thanks guys...

 

[andy5174]

BTW, according to a few owners of PII-955 here, it can be eaily OCed to 3.6GHz without increasing the stock/default core voltage(1.35V).

 

[andy5174]

AND THIS IS A MUST READ:

http://www.overclock.net/amd-cpus/535501-amd-phenom-ii-core-unlocking-guide.html

You can get a quad core AMD CPU for the price of the dual core.

 

[wyspyr]

Checked out that ssd RAID PCIe setup: sweet!!! Makes me wish I had a couple grand... By the way, how much performance for my listed needs would I get out of getting another ssd and running them in RAID 0 for my listed applications? Also how much would 4 more GBs of RAM help for the multitasking? I only max out when EVERYTHING listed is running at the same time. Thanks again. Hope I don't sound spoiled and picky. Just bored and love hardware!

 

[andy5174]

Setting up a Raid 0 SSD config will definitely give you significant performance gain, but I don't think another 4GB RAM will do you any better unless you are doing something extreme memory intensive multitasking.

 

[wyspyr]

Setting up a Raid 0 SSD config will definitely give you significant performance gain, but I don't think another 4GB RAM will do you any better unless you are doing something extreme memory intensive multitasking.

Awesome. Thanks man. I've been into custom PCs for a year now and this is my third and newest build. Aiming for performance with budget as a consideration has been challenging and fun. All that to say I'm still a newbie but learning is my goal so here I am. I've only noticed the MEM maxed out with iTunes or streaming Hulu while importing GB's of photos into Adobe Lightroom 2.6. It tends to lag then, but thats just one thing. Overall I'm pleased as far as memory usage goes so thanks for the advice and I think I'll hold off. I'm going to keep an eye out for another SSD. Mine is discontinued so that could be a problem But it could also mean I find one cheap somewhere under the rainbow Thanks again all...

 

[wyspyr]

Don't mean to hog the post but hey andy5174; I do have some DDR3 1600 RAM thats compatible with core i5/7. Would replacing my current mobo/cpu combo for either of the intel systems give me significant multitasking and editing boosts? And about how much do you think we're talkin' for the switch? Thanks man.

 

[andy5174]

Don't mean to hog the post but hey andy5174; I do have some DDR3 1600 RAM thats compatible with core i5/7. 1. Would replacing my current mobo/cpu combo for either of the intel systems give me significant multitasking and editing boosts? 2. And about how much do you think we're talkin' for the switch? Thanks man.

1. You should be able to judge yourself based on the charts below which shows the comparison between i5/i7 and PII-965.

2. Assuming that you want one of the best P55 MB

ASUS P7P55D-E Premium: $$279.99
( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131606 )

Intel Core i7-860: $279.99
( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115214 )

OR if you have a Microcenter nearby

Intel Core i7-860: $229.99
( http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0317378 )

 

[wyspyr]

Wow thanks for the leg work..I get so confused finding good stats. Looks like I'm just being picky on my rig There is some performance boost but not sure its enough to justify any upgrades at the moment. Now I see the light! Guess I needed some sense talked into to me considering budget is an issue and new chips are on the horizon. That motherboard is sweet though. Saw a vid of it on youtube. I like that it has usb 3.0 and sata 3 for future technologies. The guy in the vid even said it would support the 6 core intel chips due out sometime this year. I like the idea of getting an upgradable mb but thats what I said with amd...now maybe a switch. Do you happen to know when the new 6 core amd chips will be out? Tried to find posts but no one gave any hints that I could see.

 

[wyspyr]

AND THIS IS A MUST READ:

http://www.overclock.net/amd-cpus/535501-amd-phenom-ii-core-unlocking-guide.html

You can get a quad core AMD CPU for the price of the dual core.

Getting this one for my parents...maybe I'll get lucky and trade them for my Athlon if it unlocks both unused cores. It'd be an upgrade for them and me in one shot!!!

 

[andy5174]

Wow thanks for the leg work..I get so confused finding good stats. Looks like I'm just being picky on my rig There is some performance boost but not sure its enough to justify any upgrades at the moment. Now I see the light! Guess I needed some sense talked into to me considering budget is an issue and new chips are on the horizon. That motherboard is sweet though. Saw a vid of it on youtube. I like that it has usb 3.0 and sata 3 for future technologies. The guy in the vid even said 1. it would support the 6 core intel chips due out sometime this year. I like the idea of getting an upgradable mb but thats what I said with amd...now maybe a switch. 2. Do you happen to know when the new 6 core amd chips will be out? Tried to find posts but no one gave any hints that I could see.

1. It will support 6-core but the dual channel bandwidth is INSUFFICIENT for 4+ core CPUs and the memory bandwidth will be saturated earlier than your CPU.
That is why Intel made 6 core only available to tri channel x58 mb.

2. Q1 or Q2 next year. Not sure!

 

[wyspyr]

Thanks again. This saves me hours of reading on the web...of which I already do Thanks again for the effort you've given. I'm going to wait for some drastic changes from either camp except for the Phenom II x2 chip for my parents with possible core unlocking. I do love my current setup as it is the most power efficient I've had to date and does everything I need it to do with hangs only when multitasking while importing mass photos. Guess I can learn from a little patience

 

[wyspyr]

One more quick question, if you're still following this thread andy5174. For my typical multitasking dream day, would a better video card impact me at all? Or should I save for SSD RAID 0? Again I'm picking straws but I get a little sluggish even before the cores max out. Not sure what my bottleneck is. I'd be running the following: 3-7 tabs in Safari while switching back and forth to play with photo editing in Picasa and Adobe Lightroom, while watching an iTunes movie or Blu-ray playback on a separate monitor. Google gadgets and Windows 7 Aero blazing, with MahJong in the background in case I get bored As I said I've noticed a bottle neck like lag before resources are 2/3's taxed. Any clues to squeezing a little more out of my rig till a new CPU arrives in the future? Thanks man...or anyone else!

 

[andy5174]

SSD in raid 0 will give you the best performance gain out of the 2 options given.

 

[wyspyr]

Thanks man you rock this forum!!!