Replacing my CPU [Need Help]

December 6, 2011 4:03:04 PM

About a summer ago, I bought a pre-built PC when on sale during the school season. I know, it would have been better to just re-build my PC from the ground up. But at the time, I wasn't very knowledgeable. And even now, I'm still learning. The specs were pretty good for only $499. Was a quad core, 8gb ram, 2tb internal hardrive. Basically, I've used this pre-built computer and replaced parts as I went along. I put in a 650 watt Power Supply and upgraded my graphics card. And so far, it's been perfect. I can run Battlefield 3 at Max specs, no lag or screen tear.

But recently, I decided to move over all my parts to a new case. This case in particular:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Why? Because my old case was pretty compressed, and the graphics card barely fit in there. It was getting pretty hot, and I just figured it would be nice to upgrade to something better (I'm quite proud of my rig).

Anyways, long story short, I'm about to move all my guts over to this new tower this week. And I was thinking about getting this Blu Ray Drive to install as well:

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-12XReadable-DVD-Writable-...

But I noticed the minimum requirements say: Minimum System Requirements: CPU Pentium 4 3.2 GHz or above.

Well, my CPU is only 2.8ghz. Here is a picture of my specs:

http://i.imgur.com/HKaLc.png

I actually upgraded my graphics card to a GTX 580 1.5gb. So that picture is actually a bit outdated. Now it shows that I can max skyrim out (and I can, with no problems). But anyways, the point I'm arriving at is that I have an AMD Phenom II x4 840 2.8ghz Quad Core.

Does this mean I can't run that blu ray drive, since it says 3.2ghz? And for that matter, is 2.8ghz really poor? Is it worth upgrading? And is so, how hard would it be to buy a new AMD Phenom II Cpu and install it (would there be compatibility issues etc.). I was looking at Amazon, and saw this:

http://www.amazon.com/AMD-Phenom-Socket-Quad-Core-Proce...

^^^^

Is that compatible? And is it really worth upgrading for just 3.2ghz? Like I said, I haven't had any issues with my computer up to this point. But I've also been told by some folks that my CPU is the weakest part of my system. Thoughts? Sorry for the wall of text/noob talk.

I really appreciate any help/advice I can get.

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Dock_Ellis

December 6, 2011 4:45:03 PM

The clock speed of your processor is hardly relevant in this situation. If you weren't already aware, the Pentium 4 is a single core processor and much older than your current Phenom II. You should realize that 4 cores clocked at 2.8GHz are much more capable than a single core at 3.2GHz. Your processor is significantly more powerful than any Pentium 4 and can easily handle Blu-ray playback, especially since it is more dependent on your GPU, which is top of the line. Essentially what I'm saying is that, no you do not need to upgrade your CPU at all.

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satanigatan

December 6, 2011 5:02:59 PM

Dock_Ellis said:

The clock speed of your processor is hardly relevant in this situation. If you weren't already aware, the Pentium 4 is a single core processor and much older than your current Phenom II. You should realize that 4 cores clocked at 2.8GHz are much more capable than a single core at 3.2GHz. Your processor is significantly more powerful than any Pentium 4 and can easily handle Blu-ray playback, especially since it is more dependent on your GPU, which is top of the line. Essentially what I'm saying is that, no you do not need to upgrade your CPU at all.

Derp, I feel like such a fool. That really was that obvious, wasn't it.

Well thank you sir. I truly appreciate your reply. You could have been a jerk to me, but instead were patient and gave me great information. I'm now going to read up more on this. If anything, this thread has inspired me to read up on more of my parts - so I know exactly what each one does, and how it functions. It should mandatory before moving them all out and upgrading (I actually have help from someone that has done this before, so I'm not completely shooting in the dark with this one).

But yeah, thank you. I learn something new every day.