Mulling an upgrade...

[artoodeeto]

I’m looking for any advice anyone might have – I’m considering an upgrade, and since I’d give most of my current system to my wife it’d be an upgrade for her too.

My system:
Asus Crosshair II MB AM2+
Phenom II x4 940 CPU
4GB RAM
Win7 Pro
NVidia GTX285

What I’m considering:
AMD FX or Phenom II 1090T (or any of the other CPUs in that line…depends on price)
AM3 or AM3+ MB (considering ones by Asus, Gigabyte, etc)
At least 8GB Ram DDR3-1600
RETAIN my GTX285 due to budget and the fact that it still performs well – according to nvidia’s site it’s about the same level as a GTX560, and I don’t have $300+ to get a 570 or higher. I’d also need a new waterblock which would add another $120 that I don’t have. So I’m keeping that.

I want to stick with AMD mainly because I wouldn't have to buy new waterblocks - not a *huge* deal for the CPU but it's the main reason I don't want to upgrade my GTX285.

I've been doing a LOT of reading up on current AMD offerings. I originally thought that the FX series CPU's would be best, but it's looking like the Phenom II T-series and the Intel Sandy Bridges are superior... HOWEVER... I've also read that Windows 7 doesn't really handle the AMD Bulldozer platform properly, and that once Windows 8 comes out and/or Win7 is updated there could be a pretty big performance increase for the FX's.

All that being said, I just don't know if it's worth the $$ to do an upgrade right now. I don't know how my current Phenom II 940 compares to the newer CPUs for gaming. I know from my reading how the current CPUs stack up against each other. What I wonder is whether my Phenom 940 is well below these, or if it's about equal or even better in gaming performance to the newer FX series. I'd hate to shell out $500 and discover that the new machine is slower than the old one.

I *could* be willing to switch to Intel; a new waterblock would add about $50. But more than that, it seems that the Bulldozers might well be more future-proof than the current Intels, even though the Bulldozers aren't as fast right now.

Any thoughts are appreciated, thanks!

[TheGreatSatan]

I can get you an AMD FX-8120 (8-core) with a FREE Gigabyte 970A-UD3 AM3+ motherboard, all for $200

8GB Kingston HyperX DDR3-1600 $35

[artoodeeto]

that would be..... AWESOME..... I'll pm you. kinda solves the issue in one fell swoop, don't it...

[x88x]

I'd go with TGS's deal. The FX-8120 is a really nice chip.

I've been doing a LOT of reading up on current AMD offerings. I originally thought that the FX series CPU's would be best, but it's looking like the Phenom II T-series and the Intel Sandy Bridges are superior... HOWEVER... I've also read that Windows 7 doesn't really handle the AMD Bulldozer platform properly, and that once Windows 8 comes out and/or Win7 is updated there could be a pretty big performance increase for the FX's.

The issue there is that the Bulldozer cores generally don't perform as well per-core as the Phenom II T-series chips...but, they scale like nobody's business, so the better an OS is at handling lots of cores, the better it will likely perform with a Bulldozer chip, especially if you get 8+ cores. Where they really start to shine (from what I've seen) is when you start getting into double-digits, which is one reason they emphasised the Bulldozer Opterons.

[TheGreatSatan]

I'm giving it away right now over at Bit-tech.net

[artoodeeto]

I'd go with TGS's deal. The FX-8120 is a really nice chip.



The issue there is that the Bulldozer cores generally don't perform as well per-core as the Phenom II T-series chips...but, they scale like nobody's business, so the better an OS is at handling lots of cores, the better it will likely perform with a Bulldozer chip, especially if you get 8+ cores. Where they really start to shine (from what I've seen) is when you start getting into double-digits, which is one reason they emphasised the Bulldozer Opterons.

My main concern right now is gaming performance - I do use my machine for other things too, but the most taxing thing is gaming at the moment. That's why I was a bit concerned about the FX CPUs, since most games aren't multi-core oriented, the phenoms out-perform them. On the other hand, realistically, I don't know if I'd actually SEE that speed difference while gaming. I have two 20" 1600x1200 screens, and only use 1 when gaming, so the res I'm running isn't nearly as high as, say, a 2560x1920 screen. Really, the upshot is, at minimum, as long as it's no worse for gaming and is a little better at running several programs at once, it's worth it.