Upgrading dualcore to quadcore. Adding RAM. Is it worth it?

[Thijsku]

Hello there,

I currently have this setup:

Processor: AMD Athlon 7850 Dual-Core
RAM: 4gb
Videocard: AMD 6770 1gb
Monitor resolution: 1920x1080

I was wondering if I should upgrade my processor (to a i5 3450), motherboard (to an ASRock B75 Pro3-M) and RAM. (to a Corsair 8GB) This update will cost about 300 euro.

Will I see a lot of improvements in general? And will I see a (big) FPS boost in games?

Thanks,
Thijs

 

[ohiou_grad_06]

When I went from dual core to quad core, I saw a difference. Especially in the Battlefield games. Check your current board though, a lot of those older AM2 and AM2+ boards can actually take an Athlon II quad core or a Phenom II quad core, which if you did that and upgraded your video card, you'd be ahead if gaming is what you want to do.

 

[groundrat]

If you are going to a hyperthreading i5 your areupgradeing to eight (logical) cores. So yes.

 

[TonyArnold2]

Yes, that is a massive upgrade. My MacBook Air has 4 GB RAM and a dual core, and I never play serious games on it. My gaming PC has 16GB RAM and a i7 3770K (quad core.)

 

[Thijsku]

Thanks for the replies, now I'm convinced to upgrade the system!

 

[edogawa]

If you are going to a hyperthreading i5 your areupgradeing to eight (logical) cores. So yes.

The i5 line has no hyper-threading, only the i3 and i7.

 

[groundrat]

I hadn't seen one with hyperthreading but didn't want to make a blanket statement.

 

[ohiou_grad_06]

As I said though if gaming is the primary reason, see if your current motherboard will take an amd quad core if you could put an Amd quad core in and maybe upgrade to a radeon 7850. I can about guarantee you that you'd get a better performance boost in games if you go that way. Sell your old chip and video card and start saving for a new board and processor whether amd or intel.

 

[bliq]

also, if what you're feeling is that the computer just generally feels slow as in slow boot times and slow app launch times, an SSD is pretty cheap nowadays and will definitely improve responsiveness.

 

[game junky]

In terms of visible day to day changes, the quadcore and a SSD would be the biggest visible difference makers. Additional RAM will help when you're multitasking or running beastly games like BF3 but it's not a game changer.

The SSD will improve load times, but it won't increase in-game performance that significantly but the CPU upgrade will help with the load and your GPU will be the bottleneck instead of your CPU.

Some games are more processor intensive (Dragon Age, larger scale RTS games, etc.) and some games are more GPU intensive (BF3, Farcry, most FPS') - what are you planning on playing mostly?

 

[Zeal514]

I'd put some extra ram in there if you are running 64 Bit. The big thing about 64 Bit windows is that its capable of using more than 4 gb of ram, otherwise you might as well 32bit.

I role with 8 GB of ram on my 64 Bit 6core, theres nothing my rig cant handle atm. Ofcourse I run programs like Adobe after Effects, and video editors like Vegas and Cyber director, at the same time.

Getting an extra Stick or 2 in there is worth it if you are running heavy duty programs, but if you are already at max settings with games on your quad than, it won't matter.