Upgrade or Replace...

[ionicle]

current rig spec in sig.

is it worth upgrading to 4Gb DDR400, and a Athlon 64 4800+ DC and a noctua NH-D14...which i feel may make that run at only a degree or two above ambient

...or for the money i would have pour into that be more worthwhile upgrading to something a bit more modern?

EDIT: note if upgrade is the better option, whats AMD's latest offerings? bulldozer i believe was what it was?

 

[8bitbreed]

That rig is pretty dated, and i think the D14 would be overkill for the cpu.

If you have the budget I would think about building a Phenom 2 quad core rig, you could get cpu mobo and ram for under £200, and recycle the rest from the old rig.

It would be many many time's faster.

Edit: I realy would'nt bother with BD untill rev 2 next year, and thats coming from a massive AMD fan boy.

 

[dugdiamond]

^^ plus - you are using Vista Home premium

unless you are using a 64-bit operating M$ system, the memory limits are 3GB

 

[ionicle]

That rig is pretty dated, and i think the D14 would be overkill for the cpu.

If you have the budget I would think about building a Phenom 2 quad core rig, you could get cpu mobo and ram for under £200, and recycle the rest from the old rig.

It would be many many time's faster.

Edit: I realy would'nt bother with BD untill rev 2 next year, and thats coming from a massive AMD fan boy.

it is dated, but it is stable, id rather keep it than invest in yet unproven technology...but if i was to invest in unproven technology, it would only be in the top top top spec, i.e. bulldozer...

the D14 would be overkill, i like overkill, it means i could undervolt the fans and have almost absolute silence...

^^ plus - you are using Vista Home premium

unless you are using a 64-bit operating M$ system, the memory limits are 3GB

i despise windows 7, worst OS since 98....98 was terrible, XP was brilliant, Vista was XP+, 7 just ruined it all.

if i upgrade my OS, it would only be to linux, because windows 8 isnt exactly shaping up to be a good desktop os...might be ok for tablets, but not desktops....not anymore...

and ahh, thats a very good point, yes, i only use the 32 bit version, thank you for reminding me of this

 

[8bitbreed]

If your going for top top spec then wait for ivy bridge, or build an i5 2500k with a gen3 mobo so you can upgrade the cpu later, like my self

AMD are not doing to good keeping up with the competition these day's imo.

 

[Korg]

Deffo need an upgrade, go with a 2500k, Z68 board, 8GB ram. You can upgrade to Ivy Bridge down the line if needed also.

Z68 platform is rock solid also.

And weird your experience with W7, it's the best Windows OS so far, rock solid stable and very smooth.

 

[8bitbreed]

Deffo need an upgrade, go with a 2500k, Z68 board, 8GB ram. You can upgrade to Ivy Bridge down the line if needed also.

Z68 platform is rock solid also.

And weird your experience with W7, it's the best Windows OS so far, rock solid stable and very smooth.

Yerp w7 rock's

 

[ionicle]

clarification:

situation:

i may be able to scrape together about £200 in about a month or so...

that limits my options really...

intel is a nono, ive only had one intel chip that hasnt died on me so far out of 5 ....

i will only be using vista, or linux as OS

i would be open to buying vista 64bit as an OS instead of 32 bit.

bulldozer would be preferred, but after a quick poke around overclockers.co.uk ...it seems they aint too cheap at the moment...

 

[dugdiamond]

do not bother getting a 990FX mobo and bulldozer

if you are thinking about BD, then wait until the new chipsets come out in a month or two (FM chipset)

bulldozer was intended for these boards NOT pre-flashed suped-up AM3+ mobos

 

[8bitbreed]

AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition £95

Asus M5A78L/USB3 AMD £56

G-skill 1600mhz 8gb 2x4gb £38

Thats my top recommendation.

 

[ionicle]

AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition £95

Asus M5A78L/USB3 AMD £56

G-skill 8gb 2x4gb £38

Thats my top recommendation.

im liking this, however, would my current graphics do the system justice, and would my current cooler (some gigabyte ........thing......) that only has a 939 fitment, fit on that? i.e. has amd's mounting system changed since 939?

 

[8bitbreed]

Your gpu will be fine as long as you don't expect amazing fps, but it will be better than on your old platform.

I think you might get away with it by using the cpu bracket of your old mobo. if not you could get a half decent cooler for around £20 £30.

Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro rev 2 £16, dam good cooler for the price.

 

[ionicle]

dont game, not a problem, this system is just getting a little slow for my daily use is all.

 

[8bitbreed]

dont game, not a problem, this system is just getting a little slow for my daily use is all.

Go for it, and so you can see the inprovement run wprime 32m on your pc, the 955 will do it in about 12 seconds give or take half a second.

I think you will be very shocked.

http://www.wprime.net/Download/

version 1.55

 

[SmoulderingCircuits]

do not bother getting a 990FX mobo and bulldozer

if you are thinking about BD, then wait until the new chipsets come out in a month or two (FM chipset)

bulldozer was intended for these boards NOT pre-flashed suped-up AM3+ mobos

Are those boards going to rescue BD or just make it slightly less of a catastrophy?

And upgrade to Linux or Ubuntu, if you don't game there is no massive reason to use windows. Natty Narwhal was the latest last I checked (11.4?)

 

[ionicle]

Go for it, and so you can see the inprovement run wprime 32m on your pc, the 955 will do it in about 12 seconds give or take half a second.

I think you will be very shocked.

http://www.wprime.net/Download/

version 1.55

downloading now, i shall post the results in a moment

EDIT:

EDIT2:

it seems my 32 bit windows vista does recognise 4gb of ram...

 

[8bitbreed]

Wow I was not expecting it to be that slow, I make that about 6/7 times faster.

Have I sold it to you?

I’m guessing your boot up is about 1 min 30 sec - 2 mins maybe more, The 955 should be about 45-55 seconds depending on your hdd. Where you will really see the difference is encoding, compressing and decompressing, also HD movies will be super smouth.

Edit: also with a tiny OC to 3.7-.3.8 at 1.4v you should be around the 10 second mark.

 

[ionicle]

shall i try the longer stress test one? ...for s*its and giggles?

you have, basically, i have been left in the stone age, i get it

my HDD is a 80Gb samsung SATA-1 7200RPM

i only upgraded from IDE a couple of years back..

 

[8bitbreed]

shall i try the longer stress test one? ...for s*its and giggles?

you have, basically, i have been left in the stone age, i get it

my HDD is a 80Gb samsung SATA-1 7200RPM

i only upgraded from IDE a couple of years back..

Lol, I think the 1024m will take an age.

If you use your pc quite a lot you should go for it, but if you only use it to check Facebook then no point, it will do.

The sata1 drive will do for now, and once problems in Thailand are sorted hdd's will go back down, and you should be able to get a decent hdd for around £30.

Edit: Im just going to have a look on photo bucket for some old benchmarks with the 955, of mine.

 

[ionicle]

dont have FB

i use this pc as a server for my files to my macs, it also is used for internet brousing, and a lot of film playing, as its hooked upto my HDTV

EDIT: its in progress