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Will changing the mobo increase performance?

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I have a relatively old Gigabyte GA-M61P-S3 motherboard and I am wondering how much of an effect does the old mobo have on my gaming performance. I bought it in 2006 or 2007 ( http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=... ).

I would like to know: If I changed only the motherboard for a newer model would I see a significant performance increase? I ask because I hate to throw anything away and hardware in my country is double the cost of what it is in USA.
I know that a newer mobo would support DDR3, but would a new mobo with DDR3 and the current CPU and graphics card be better than say, keeping the current mobo and getting a SSD, more DDR2 RAM or a faster graphics card? My budget is a bit limited but flexible.

Full specs are:

GA-M61P S3 Motherboard
AMD X3 445 CPU
3 Gigs DDR2 800 RAM
ATI 5770 512MB Graphics
1 x 500 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200 RPM SATA II HDD

Thanks!

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Motherboard Expert

The motherboard itself won't give you anything except maybe more overclocking power. However like you stated the motherboard allows you to upgrade your system.
DDR3 memory maybe a new CPU and a new GPU would make a noticeable difference in performance

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Motherboard Expert

south_valhalla said:
I have a relatively old Gigabyte GA-M61P-S3 motherboard and I am wondering how much of an effect does the old mobo have on my gaming performance. I bought it in 2006 or 2007 ( http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=... ).

I would like to know: If I changed only the motherboard for a newer model would I see a significant performance increase? I ask because I hate to throw anything away and hardware in my country is double the cost of what it is in USA.
I know that a newer mobo would support DDR3, but would a new mobo with DDR3 and the current CPU and graphics card be better than say, keeping the current mobo and getting a SSD, more DDR2 RAM or a faster graphics card? My budget is a bit limited but flexible.

Full specs are:

GA-M61P S3 Motherboard
AMD X3 445 CPU
3 Gigs DDR2 800 RAM
ATI 5770 512MB Graphics
1 x 500 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200 RPM SATA II HDD

Thanks!

if i had to choose between your 2 options i would get the ssd and a new video card (dont get a 6770 its the same as your 5770 but with 3d bluray chip), you wont see much improvement with the just doing mobo and ddr3, i wouldnt waste money on new ddr2 if you can get some off your friend or extremely cheap get it or go without. your system wont be able to use more unless its a 64 bit os. spend 30 bucks on a coolermaster 212 heatsink for your cpu and clock your cpu up, that way when you save another couple of hundred bucks you can swap out your motherboard, ram and cpu for a new Intel sys!
Motherboard Expert

akxpckwb said:
The motherboard itself won't give you anything except maybe more overclocking power. However like you stated the motherboard allows you to upgrade your system.
DDR3 memory maybe a new CPU and a new GPU would make a noticeable difference in performance

technically you will probably find it is possible to put a new gen chip in the current board but it would get handicapped slightly by ram speeds and hyper transport and new features of course eg sata 3 usb3 more pci-e lanes etc and he did say he would keep the same cpu if he went along that upgrade path. if your gonna go that way you would be better off going completely different platform (ivy or sandy) and get rid of the under performing current gen bulldozers completely
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jasont78 said:
if i had to choose between your 2 options i would get the ssd and a new video card (dont get a 6770 its the same as your 5770 but with 3d bluray chip), you wont see much improvement with the just doing mobo and ddr3, i wouldnt waste money on new ddr2 if you can get some off your friend or extremely cheap get it or go without. your system wont be able to use more unless its a 64 bit os. spend 30 bucks on a coolermaster 212 heatsink for your cpu and clock your cpu up, that way when you save another couple of hundred bucks you can swap out your motherboard, ram and cpu for a new Intel sys!


I'm running Windows 7 Pro 64 and I have noticed via the Task Manager that the RAM can tend to fill up when I game and multi-task a bit. The CPU, however, almost never reaches above 80% use.

Thanks, I think I'm gonna go the SSD/RAM route for now and then see if I can find a decent NVIDIA card for a bargain.
Motherboard Expert

south_valhalla said:
I'm running Windows 7 Pro 64 and I have noticed via the Task Manager that the RAM can tend to fill up when I game and multi-task a bit. The CPU, however, almost never reaches above 80% use.

Thanks, I think I'm gonna go the SSD/RAM route for now and then see if I can find a decent NVIDIA card for a bargain.

thats fine getting ram just dont spend alot on it btw it costs alot more than ddr3 new if you haven't noticed!

jasont78 said:
thats fine getting ram just dont spend alot on it btw it costs alot more than ddr3 new if you haven't noticed!


Thanks, I actually hadn't started looking so I hadn't noticed...will keep it well in mind!
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