Should I upgrade my motherboard?

[Susedester13]

I currently am Ina tough situation because I want to upgrade my radeon 6850 to a 7950 but I don't want my CPU (fx-6100) to bottleneck it. I was thinking about a fx-8350 but then I would need to upgrade my MOBO. I've never done a MOBO change but I read I would need a new windows copy because I have the oem version on my existing computer. If you have any advice I'd appreciate it! Specs:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?cc=us&lc=en&dlc=en&docname=c03154290

(Radeon 6850 and corsair 430w psu)

 

[ACTechy]

I can say from experience that doing a significant upgrade, like the mobo, to a factory computer sucks. Everything from I/O wiring to the OS is a big pain. Not to say it's not possible, but don't necessarily expect it to work how you envision, it just get's funky. But you're right, if you upgrade your mobo you're gonna have to buy a new OS, format your HDD, re-install everything etc, etc.

I don't know that your CPU would bottleneck though...might be worth it just to throw in a new graphics card and call it a day...

 

[Susedester13]

Thanks for the advice. Just looked at my motherboard and it supports the fx 8150. Not sure if its any better than my current one, but I might skip the MOBO and just upgrade the CPU and gpu

 

[ACTechy]

Thanks for the advice. Just looked at my motherboard and it supports the fx 8150. Not sure if its any better than my current one, but I might skip the MOBO and just upgrade the CPU and gpu

That would be a huge step up:

http://cpuboss.com/cpus/AMD-FX-8350-vs-AMD-FX-6100

 

[Susedester13]

Ok, I'm just a little confused at why a motherboard would support the fx 8150 but not an fx 8350? Don't they run on the same chipset?

 

[ACTechy]

Ok, I'm just a little confused at why a motherboard would support the fx 8150 but not an fx 8350? Don't they run on the same chipset?

the 6100 and 8150 both run the Zambezi architecture, the 8350 is the newer Vishera architecture, that's my best guess. I don't know a lot about AMD cpus to be honest.

 

[Susedester13]

Alright thanks! I just read another forum claiming that a guy in my similar situation had an am3b socket which is just am3+ black. He bought a 8350 against what hp said and he claimed it worked like a charm. Might just have to take the risk but thanks!