Athlon II X4 630 Vs. Phenom II X4 945?

[historyfend13]

Hello,

I have been pondering over an upgrade option for my pc. I received a pc from my parents for Christmas, and I replaced a few parts to make it work better, however I haven't had the money up until now to buy a new shiny CPU!!

I currently have a Phenom 8650 which has worked, but I know there are better options out there. MY motherboard will support the Athlon II and Phenom II equally well, but idk that I can justify more money for the Phenom II. Is the 200 mhz and L3 cache worth it?

To add some perspective, I game a little and have a HIS Radeon 4650 for my GPU but it serves my purpose. I need something a bit better for every day use because I do some photography on the side and also do some encoding with my music and DVD's. I know the X3's scale well for gaming, however the everyday desktop use is more of my concern. I may also do some OC'ing in the future, but for right now stock speeds have worked for me.

Overall specs

Antec Earthwatts 380w PSU
AMD Phenom X3 8650
4gb DDR2 800mhz RAM
Gigabyte GA-MA785GM-US2H
Seagate 320 gb 7200 HDD

Any advice will be appreciated, Thanks!!!


Alex

 

[xaira]

get the 630, ull hardly see a difference between the 2 for ur uses, save the paper toward replacing that gpu

 

[FALC0N]

The 945 is about 15% faster than the 630. But most of that 15% is gaming. Look at the prices, consider how you will use it, and judge for yourself.

 

[shubham1401]

Get the 630. That's a very nice processor for 99$!!

 

[Herr_Koos]

Agreed; if gaming is not your primary activity then the 630 is the better option.