Upgrading: Phenom II X6 1045T or X4 965?

anthonyla65

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Jun 6, 2010
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Hi everyone, currently I'm running an Athlon II X2 250 3Ghz with a HD5670 and 4GB RAM gaming at 1280x1024. I'm planning to upgrade my PC rather for uni soon so I need some advice. I'm choosing to upgrade rather than a new build because I don't a lot of money and my Mobo, PSU, Case, RAM and optical drive is fine so theres no point wasting them. My PC is starting to show signs of age when running games like Batman AC on high settings. I need a new monitor because my monitor is kinda small and it'll be like my TV so I'll be getting a 24" 1080p screens.

Now I'm running a Gigabyte GA MA78LMT-US2H that supports up to 125W Phenom II X6 CPU's, with 2 spare RAM slots and a Corsair CX400 PSU. Is my motherboard up for the job? I heard cheaper boards have high fail rates when you overclock and according to this VRM Info list (http://www.overclock.net/t/946407/amd-motherboards-vrm-info-database) my board is one of them. I don't plan to overclock so will it be fine?

The 2 candidates for upgrade are the Phenom II X6 1045T (£85) and X4 965BE (£75). My main use is gaming, quite heavy multi-tasking and perhaps some programming so I'm undecided. Since I'm not overclocking, the Black Edition feature is wasted. And gaming at 1080p, I guess CPU doesn't matter that much? Some say the 50% increase in cores is more useful than 700mhz speed difference in the long run and the X6 can turbo 3 cores to 3.3Ghz anyways? I like alt-tabbing ALOT whilst gaming with quite a lot of background applictions like Steam, Skype and Xfire, also with chrome and youtube providing my music haha. Currently my X2 isn't too shabby, but running youtube with certain games drops my FPS and recording with fraps destroys my FPS. I'm leaning heavily on the X6 to be fair, but I can't decide whether 4 cores with 700MHz faster cores is more useful for my uses. This will need to last me another 3 years, so future proofing is pretty essential.

Now I know this is the CPU section, but I also can't decide on the GPU. I'd want to spend £80-100 so I'm stuck between the HD7770 and GTX 650, at a stretch the GTX650 Ti or HD7850. With my CX400 PSU, which one would be the best? I'd ofcourse need a balance between power consumption and performance. I'm leaning with the GTX650 because I prefer nvidia drivers and their linux support. But I'd prefer performance > driver stability and AMD linux drivers aren't too bad ether. Also the GTX650 have the same amounts of cores as the GT640? So is it worth paying extra just for the GDDR5 RAM? If I have the money, I'd get the Ti or 7850, but we'll have to see about that.

Also is 8GB RAM essential? As I said, I have 2 RAM slots free. So I can cheaply fill them with 2 extra 2GB sticks.

Thanks in advance,
Anthony
 

Starmaderp

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I'm running a 1055T currently and I havn't had any problems from it what so ever and I play every game on max my GPU is a 6870. Also I'm running 8gb ram and it seems to run pretty but I have found some games pop over 4gb sometimes so you might want to uprgade.
 

anthonyla65

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Thanks, I think I'm just going to go for X6 because it's going to last me a while. What resolution do you game it if you don't mind me asking? I think I'll make it 8GB RAM too. Still undecided on GPU but that comes later.