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Jul 13, 2012
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10,510
AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black AM3 3.4Ghz 512KB 45NM 125W 4000MHZ

XFX ATI Radeon HD6950 2 GB DDR5 2DVI/HDMI/2x Mini-Displayport PCI-Express Video Card HD695XCDFC

Assuming I can sell either/or at a decent price, is it worth it to upgrade at this point or should I wait for a bigger/cheaper step up in technology?

If not, when will that be?

If it is, what should I be looking to upgrade?
 
What is the computer used for?

The 6950 video card is still a very strong card and you shouldn't be needing an upgrade for that untill at least a year from now if even then.
The cpu has been out for a while now and if your computer is used for gaming then you could have upgraded to an Intel cpu as soon as you got this one. The cpu will still play games and it;s not like you can't get some decent performance it's just that the Intel cpu's are so much better at games that you can upgrade to an Ivy Bridge 3570k and get a good performance increase over what you have now. Fortunatly there are a lot of games that rely on the video card for most of the performance but there are those games that require a better cpu.
 
I personally dont think its worth the $ for an upgrade at the moment. You may want to see whats in store for the next generation of CPUS(Piledriver cpus after trinity or INtels next Haswell line) If you are waiting for a new gpu, upgrading from what you have right now would be a bit costly, as the 6950 handles games pretty well on its own already
 
If the process goes as it has for the past releases of Windows then Windows 8 is going to be a bust. Windows 95 great , Windows 98 bust , Windows 98se great , Windows Millenium bust , Windows XP great , Windows Vista bust , Windows 7 great , so that means Windows 8 ........
 

Augray37

Distinguished
May 4, 2011
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19,010
Yeah I agree that it's not quite worth the upgrade right now. I'm in the same boat with a 955 and an HD 6870. I want to upgrade, I know an Intel build would be better, but the Phenom II x4 isn't that bad, the HD 6950 is still pretty good, and most games are GPU dependent. Sandy Bridge is a step up from our rigs, but an expensive step up. This is my take on the SB versus AMD Phenom/bulldozer dilemma...high-end/expensive Sandy Bridge CPUs = noticeable step up in EVERY thing, midrange/affordable Sandy Bridge CPUs = noticeable step up in a FEW things. Unless you are a hard core gamer that needs the best stuff, I'd rather wait till the next step up (haswell/perhaps piledriver) so that an affordable midrange jump will definitely be a noticeable difference in EVERY thing, not just a FEW things. Know what i mean?
 
Everybody has thier level of what they can aford and while it's true that Intel cpu's are just plain better they are also expensive and the AMD is a cost solution to those who don't have the money t spend. The thing is that the AMD cpu's can still play the games and you can still have a computer that will play games. A lot of people are ok with lowering the settings or resolution to get good game play while others have to have the most that they can get.
So an alternative option would be to be patient and save what you can for a quality build and get what is the better optione for a gaming computer.