Cpu Upgrade worth it?

[tangiblebody]

Hi everybody I was wondering if I should Upgrade My cpu from a AMD phenom II X4 820 to a AMD phenom II 955. My main purpose is gaming. Any advice or help will be appreciated .

 

[wintermint]

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. You should save your money and upgrade both your motherboard and CPU when the time comes such as when Bulldozer releases or when you feel like switching to Intel.

 

[tangiblebody]

yes it would be worth it for gaming heres a rough comparison:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/82?vs=88

but spending that money on a new graphics card/better card would be a better investment.

I already have upgraded my graphics card very recently to a hd 5770 but i am wondering on the cpu.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. You should save your money and upgrade both your motherboard and CPU when the time comes such as when Bulldozer releases or when you feel like switching to Intel.

That is what I was thinking and planning to do but i am not sure about wich intel processors that are better than mine at around 100-200 pounds and a decent motherboard as i am quite new to this stuff or if i should stick with amd?

 

[dhicks19]

+1 wintermint, I would wait to see what bulldozers are like upgrade mobo n cpu together. Intel 2500k are great for gaming, they are serious overclockers too.

 

[henydiah]

agree .. agree agree .keep it .... for while this is not wort to upgrade the CPU, discarding waste of money, it is better to upgrade the PSU 80 + Platinum and AM3+ motherboards (990fx )

 

[someguynamedmatt]

An 820 is plenty of power to run a single 5770. As has been suggested, I'd just wait and save up for a while to do a complete overhaul when it stops doing what you want it to do. That's what I tell people - unless you're seeing that you need more power, leave it alone until that happens. If you only want to upgrade in order to get from "High" to "Ultra" settings, then ask yourself, is it really worth $300? Because upgrading from an 820 to a 955 wont give you a very noticeable performance boost, if any at all. You need to spend a lot more than $120 on a 955 if you want to see a difference.

Your major limiter here is the graphics card. The thing is, even though an 820 is more than enough power for an HD 5770, still isn't an extremely fast processor. If you want to run anything over an HD 6870 at its maximum potential, a 955 or faster processor is what you want to go for.

Like I said, if I were in your position, I'd just wait. Bulldozer is due to come out any time now, and you'd be a whole lot better off just saving up a while longer to do a complete overhaul than you would be dumping more money into your current system.

Just my $0.02.

 

[tangiblebody]

Ok i will take everyone's advice and save up some more more money until next year and see what the bulldozers are like and maybe do a complete overhaul of my system when it is time to anyway.

 

[tangiblebody]

depends, I have a couple of questions.
1.) how much out of money pocket is it going to cost you.?
example:
I had a 940BE, I bought a 955BE and then sold my 940BE.
out of pocket money was $10.
in the process of the upgrade I also while in the case cleaned it out and tried different thermal paste.
also a learning experience for those who might need practice.
with that being one option.
2.) can you just simply overclock your current 820, and depending on motherboard try and unlock L3 cache.?
3.) what are the rest of your unit specs.?
maybe just an upgrade to a AM3+ motherboard in preparation for Bulldozer if running a slightly older board.
but that depends on your current specs and what you really want to do.

waiting it out for straight full Bulldozer platform to me is logical but not wise TO ME..
it gets pushed back and back and we still do not know about performance.
we already know what an overclocked 955BE or 965BE can do, very positive especially paired with good gfx card.
so I say pull the trigger on the CPU upgrade if not able to overclock it and/or unlock L3 cache.
then maybe AM3+ board.
also a switch to the Intel platform will be more expensive.

I now have a similar problem with my units now AGAIN..
AMD and my Intel.
I do not think that I'm ready for the 2nd generation Intel SandyBridge.
my i5-760 unit is so killer..
I might not even go Ivy when it's released, might have to wait little bit longer.
I might upgrade my AMD unit first after the release of Bulldozer depending on performance results and/or at least a new motherboard DDR3 and newer features.
my AMD unit is AM2+ and it's wicked (Asus M3N78-EM is a flagship board) so the newer technology has to really blow me away.

good-luck.

sorry for the late reply. but here are my answers to your questions.
1. to be honest i dont know how much it will cost me but i am selling two graphics cards (hd 5670 and gt220) and the cpu for all about 120-150 pounds and i am hopefully waiting for the amd bulldozers to come out.
2. nope i cant because i have got a dell mother board as i have bought a prebuilt dell that does not let me overclock one bit.
3. I think my dell motherboard is am2+ or am3 i am not sure.
So i am thinking about whter i should get the bull dozer and am3 motherboard or do something else.

 

[tangiblebody]

what model Dell.?

Dell inspiron 570

 

[tangiblebody]

I'll look into that model dell in a few.
right now here's what I'm telling everybody.
Get an AM3+ motherboard and then you will have an upgrade path to Bulldozer.
This way you can also wait for Bulldozer to actually be tested in the real world before you pruchase.
The AM3+ motherboard will run the 955BE so more than likely your 840 will run as well.
The Gigabyte board I'm getting (AM3+) allows it from the start:
http://www.gigabyte.com/support-downloads/cpu-support-popup.aspx?pid=3901

Take all your Dell hardware you can over to it (new motherboard) possibly including RAM as well as the optical drives and such.
Now your all set.
Now by a real case and throw that Dell case in the closet..

I think that's a good motherboard i'll be sure to save up for that and also do you think this case is good for my gaming:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cooler-Master-RC-430-KWN1-Elite-Window/dp/B003OEDJTI/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1312635241&sr=8-7

 

[tangiblebody]

I have the exact same case.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119227
link to motherboard for exact details:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128509
GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD5 AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

http://i1130.photobucket.com/albums/m529/malmental/IMG-20110530-00033.jpg

http://i1130.photobucket.com/albums/m529/malmental/IMG-20110803-00003.jpg

Awesome! thanks for the motherboard details looks quite good but the only problem is it's a bit to expensive over here in england so i was thinking something along the lines of this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/890GM-PRO3-R2-0-Micro-Atx-Motherboard/dp/tech-data/B004X43V6Y/ref=de_a_smtd.

think it's any good?

 

[tangiblebody]

these would be some better options (with free PandP too!):

http://www.dabs.com/products/asus-m5a97-am3--amd-970-ddr3-atx-7LYB.html?refs=48620000-473460000
http://www.dabs.com/products/gigabyte-ga-970a-d3-am3--amd-970---sb950-ddr3-atx-7JYR.html?refs=48620000-473460000
http://www.dabs.com/products/gigabyte-ga-970a-ud3-am3--amd-970---sb950-ddr3-atx-7JYQ.html?refs=48620000-473460000
http://www.dabs.com/products/asus-m5a97-pro-am3--amd-970---sb950-ddr3-atx-7K04.html?refs=48620000-473460000
http://www.dabs.com/products/gigabyte-am3--amd-990x-sb950-ddr3-atx-7JF9.html?refs=48620000-473460000

all of the above are based on the AM3+ 9-series chipsets, starting from £75 up to £90.

those seem ok for me but unlike the one i posted i dont think any of them support crossfire

 

[tangiblebody]

both the Asus board support Crossfire and the final Gigabyte board (the most expensive one) supports both SLI and Crossfire. but the second and third board don't.

thats good to know i may consider buying one of them then

 

[tangiblebody]

even with a GTX570 the difference seems to be about 2FPS:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pci-express-scaling-p67-chipset-gaming-performance,2887-4.html

it used to be really bad with the older P55 and X58 chipsets, but the 9XX-series chipset and the sandy bridge chipset are pretty good, the difference beetween x16 and x8 is 0% or so, in some benches a x8 slot does better than a x16 slot:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/08/16/sli_cfx_pcie_bandwidth_perf_x16x16_vs_x16x8/2

so if i try to crossfire 2 hd 5770's i would not notice a considerable performance drop when using a x16 and an x4?

 

[tangiblebody]

no, with a 5770 the most i think you will notice is about 2-3FPS drop and i would reccommend crossfireing your 5770 with a 6770.

Is it possible to crossfire a hd 5770 with a hd 6790? That would be great if so.

 

[tangiblebody]

Nope as you can see in that graph Malmental linked, the best card you can crossfire a 5770 with is a 6770.

oh well thats a shame still im ok with it as the 6770 isn't a bad card.

 

[tangiblebody]

be sure to put the 6770 in the FIRST slot, and the 5770 in the second, thats why AMD reccommend (might not work the other way round.) and anyway crossfire 5770/6770 has similar (slightly worse) performance than an AMD/ATI 6950 (depending on the game ofcourse)!

Thats sounds very good considering that i bought my 5770 for £70 and there is a 6770 for sale at £90 and the 6950 costs £200 to £250
just take a look at these benchmarks:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/his-radeon-6770-iceqx-turbo-crossfire-review/13