Upgrade bios question

[bobarotti]

I have the following home built system. I am considering upgrading to a Phenom II x4 and when checking the following site ( http://event.asus.com/mb/2010/m4_6cores/ ) Asus says this is okay but to upgrade the Bios to version 1502. When I go to the Asus site to obtain this there are later versions available. Should I go with the 1502 or opt for the 1602 as this also lists "support new CPU's"? Corollary to this question, as I have the black edition 7750 CPU, should I upgrade at all or merely OC what I have? I am not a hard core gamer but want the best speed I can afford. Thanks.

Windows 7 64 bit
2.70 gigahertz AMD Athlon 7750 Dual-Core
256 kilobyte primary memory cache
1024 kilobyte secondary memory cache
8 kilobyte tertiary memory cache
64-bit ready
Multi-core (2 total)
Not hyper-threaded

Board: ASUSTeK Computer INC. M3N78-VM Rev X.0x
Bus Clock: 200 megahertz
BIOS: American Megatrends Inc. 0907 01/13/2009

160.04 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
130.51 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

HP DVD Writer 1040r [CD-ROM drive]
LITE-ON DVDRW SHM-165P6S [CD-ROM drive]
3.5" format removeable media [Floppy drive]

WDC WD1600AAJS-22PSA0 [Hard drive] (160.04 GB) -- drive 0, SMART Status: Healthy

3968 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory

Slot 'DIMM0' has 2048 MB
Slot 'DIMM1' has 2048 MB
Slot 'DIMM2' is Empty
Slot 'DIMM3' is Empty

 

[calinkula]

You say your not a gamer, but do you do a lot of video encoding? That would justify upgrading to a quad. From the sounds of it though it doesn't sound like you need the best performing CPU out there. The best performance upgrade for you may be a SSD.

Don't bother with upgrading the bios unless you need a bug fix or need features enable by a newer feature.

 

[bobarotti]

Thanks for your response. I do, in fact, do some video encoding but not a terrific amount. The bios issue is necessary per Asus to support the Phenom II. If I am going to upgrade CPU, I must upgrade the Bios. I just don't know if I should use the recommended version or an even newer one. I would consider an SSD but would like to wait for the "dust to settle" and prices to come down a bit. I would probably opt for faster memory first. Additionally, one of the Phenom II x4 is hardly the best CPU out there. It's not even the best that my board could handle.

 

[mosox]

For gaming the GPU is much more important than the CPU. You can get a video card.

 

[bobarotti]

Best answer selected by bobarotti.

 

[bobarotti]

Thanks to anonymous I will use the latest as that was my first inclination as well, As to mosox's comment... Thanks for your reply but I am not a hardcore gamer and am looking for general speed boost not necessarily gaming oompf? Eventually, I will add a video card as well, as I would like to use this rig as a DVR, but the current on board graphics are doing a spiffy job for now.