Which AM3 CPU is worth upgrading to from Athlon II X4 635?

[markusaurileus]

I currently have an Athlon II x4 635 2.9GHz, and I'm looking at upgrading. Not sure which CPU is worth upgrading to for the next 1 year at least.

I saw a Phenom II x4 955 3.2GHz for $120. Is something like this worth upgrading to? I'm not too interested in OC'ing because I tried that out and didn't work so well for me (OC noob = instability and overheating). I just want a faster cpu which preferably draws about the same amount of power as the Athlon 2 I have right now (is that possible). Anyway, thanks.

 

[fuggles]

what watts can you take ? 95w or 125 w ??

How about a 960t ? or

AMD Phenom II X4 965

or a X6 1035T, six core processor.

the 960t however, unlocks, (not overclocks) to a six core processor if your motherboard supports it, so you could save the money.

What is your motherboard ?

Unlocking is very easy and much easier than overclocking, you jsut change 2 settings and it is done

 

[Stardude82]

I currently have an Athlon II x4 635 2.9GHz, and I'm looking at upgrading. Not sure which CPU is worth upgrading to for the next 1 year at least.

Following Tom's CPU chart rule of thumb, there is nothing worth upgrading.

Get an SSD instead if you have $120 burning a hole in your pocket or save the money to get yourself a Sandy Bridge setup that much faster.

 

[wiinippongamer]

Yep, Agree. The Athlon II line are just phenoms with disabled L3 cache, unless you plan on overclocking it won't give you a significant improvement over the athlon outside some benchmarks.

 

[fuggles]

could he upgrade to a 1075T

 

[Nibhor]

Hi,

In my opinion, you have only two valuable options:

- buy a cheap cpu cooler, read some tutorials and have some fun overclocking.
If you really not into overclocking:
- Save and wait for Ivi Bridge

Any other Amd alternatives won't get you any substantial gains.
You can push your cpu easily to 3.4-3.5 Ghz.

My cpu: Athlon II x3 435 @ phenom II x4 3.67 Ghz 1.42v

 

[fuggles]

how much difference in performance does an extra 0.5ghz give you ?

 

[wiinippongamer]

Quite a bit if done right, my 3dmark06 score went from 17800 to 20000+ after changing my phenom from 3.2 to 3.6ghz ( and that's 0.4ghz) which ofcourse translates into framerates. It will vary alot depending on the app though, some may not show any difference at all.

 

[markusaurileus]

Ok so I see now that's it's about neck & neck with my current athlon x4. I have a zalman copper heatsink/fan that I installed for overclocking. I tried it out and got to 3.2GHz, but the comp was blue-screening like crazy. I also managed to kill my graphics card back then, as well, cuz of the OC'ing.

I have this mofo in my system http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_AM2Plus/M4A785M/#specifications so it supports 125W AM3

I'm willing to try to OC again, but can someone point me in a good direction for a board like mine? I tried a few sites, and that led me to the situation I explained above. Otherwise, I'll look at an SSD like stardude said.

I think the Ivi bridge is out of the question. That'd mean having to get extra things - __ - I wish

 

[wiinippongamer]

Are you looking for better overall system performance or more FPS in games?

An SSD will be much more of an improvement on the overall speed feel and multitasking than a cpu upgrade would ( there is less room for improvement is what I mean, unless you're encoding or compressing lots of files or something like that). It will not give better framerates in games but the system will boot in like 10 secs, 3 secs shutdowns, everything will open hell of alot faster, etc.

 

[markusaurileus]

That's the main thing I'm wanting to do. Startup, reboot, loading of everyday apps. I'm not too worried about FPS on games.

 

[truegenius]

That's the main thing I'm wanting to do. Startup, reboot, loading of everyday apps. I'm not too worried about FPS on games.

then ssd is the thing that can do this

 

[loneninja]

+1 for the SSD on what your trying to improve performance in, the extra 10% performance from a processor won't do that.

 

[markusaurileus]

alright. thanks guys

 

[markusaurileus]

Best answer selected by markusaurileus.