want to upgrade: is this cpu still good?

Ben Harris

Honorable
Jul 18, 2013
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10,510
i have a Dell Inspiron 620, which is about 3 years old (looks like this PC ).

i already upgraded the power supply to a 620W Antec.

i mainly want to upgrade the motherboard and pc case for future upgrades (graphics and such).

my CPU now is an i5-2310, idk if that's old for pc's nowadays. anyways, would it be possible to keep my current CPU and transfer it to a new motherboard? if not, what would be a good replacement, maybe something AMD or not?

budget around $400 maybe $500 for upgrades
 


Intel has not had much of any performance improvements in mainstream desktop CPUs since your Sandy Bridge i5-2310 came out two generations ago. That is a big sticking point amongst Intel enthusiasts as they feel cheated as Ivy Bridge and Haswell are barely any faster than Sandy Bridge.

You can keep your CPU and transfer it to another motherboard but I would not do that unless your current motherboard is defective or doesn't have enough expansion slots for you. The Inspiron 620 motherboard does have a PCI Express x16 slot so you can add whatever graphics you want, especially since you upgraded the PSU.

My recommendation would be to put a GPU of your choice in the machine and use it until there is actually something considerably faster out there to upgrade to. Then, I'd get a whole new case which is much larger than the Inspiron's mini-desktop case, a new motherboard, a new CPU, new RAM, and a new GPU.
 

Ben Harris

Honorable
Jul 18, 2013
7
0
10,510


alright thanks, i think i can live with it until it dies