Upgrade

[G-sus]

First off, some current specs.

Asus m4a79xtd evo motherboard
AMD Phenom II X4 965BE @ stock
2x XFX Radeon 4890

I recently bought an OCZ Vertex 4 128GB ssd, which was a really big improvement over my hdd, so now I'm wondering if upgrading my motherboard to something like a Asus m5a99x evo would yield much improvement. Would I see any benefits from sata 6gb/s over my current 3gb/s on the ssd?

I wanted to upgrade my 965 to a 1090t or an FX 8350 if I was to upgrade my motherboard, but after some research, it seems not worth it, as I mostly do gaming and some 3d rendering. My rig is more than enough for the 3d rendering I do and playing something like Hitman Absolution, I still get decent framerates and my CPU goes up to around 80% overall usage and the temps go up to 60C so I though I might buy an aftermarket cooler later on and overclock it. Thoughts?

 

[Spiderz]

Should see a healthy increase on the SSD by having SATA 6Gbps instead.

If your 965BE is anything like mine I'm surprised you haven't gone for an aftermarket cooler already, stock cooler is like a jet engine under heavy load, no chance of surviving any overclocks.

Only other upgrade I can think of would be to the graphics to get through the newer games but if you feel it isn't holding you back and giving frame rate issues then you could be fine for now.

 

[G-sus]

Should see a healthy increase on the SSD by having SATA 6Gbps instead.

If your 965BE is anything like mine I'm surprised you haven't gone for an aftermarket cooler already, stock cooler is like a jet engine under heavy load, no chance of surviving any overclocks.

Only other upgrade I can think of would be to the graphics to get through the newer games but if you feel it isn't holding you back and giving frame rate issues then you could be fine for now.

My stock cooler isn't that loud actually, it gets decent airflow and the temps don't go higher than 60C when gaming, my 2 4890s are the loudest part of my rig. I will be upgrading my graphics in the not too distant future, thinking of selling both 4890s and buying an XFX 7950, but at £220, I can't afford it right now. Framerates aren't that bad, but it is aging and soon I won't be able to play games at max and there's no dx11 support or pixel shader 5, it is a 3 year old card. As for the CPU cooler, I was looking at a Zalman CNPS9500. I really like the full copper design and at £29, it's not expensive.

 

[Spiderz]

Mine hits 70C+ in games at stock everything so I envy your luck on the silicone lottery in that regard. Might just be the crappy case I have being a heat box.

As far as coolers go, heard a lot of good about the Cooler Master hyper 212 Evo @ £27 on Scan and the non-evo one for under 20 quid. Arctic Cooling Freeze 13 is also a good one about that price so plenty to chose from. Would personally go with the 120mm fans, should be quieter than the 92mm ones.

7950 is a good shout on graphics I;d say.

 

[G-sus]

Might just be your case, I myself have a 15 quid case. I cut a window in the side with 2 120mm fans blowing on the graphics cards, 120 in the back blowing air right at the CPU and a 120 in the front just below the optical drive exhausting air that rises from the graphics cards. Until I installed the fans, my CPU used to overheat, now it's running nice and cool even a cheap case can have good airflow.

 

[MacLeod]

I think a 8320 would be a nice upgrade especially if you stick a nice fat overclock on it. It might not work out to being worth it performance to dollar but itll still be a nice benefit.

Comparing a 8350 with a 965 at stock clocks on AnandTech's bench and you can see it is a huge improvement in some areas and a solid one in games. Getting a nice beefy motherboard and 8320/8350 would be a nice platform to build off of in the future if you want to move up to newer GPU's.

 

[ccaution]

Don't change you motherboard just for the sata's sake. You'd see a huge improvement @ CrystalMark and such, but you'll most probably won't notice it on everyday use.

Impove you airflow, get a nice big cooler that you can keep with you next setup too (D14?) and get a healthy o/c out of that chip. If it's a C3, you can go 4GHz most of the times, no drama

 

[G-sus]

I'd be tempted to upgrade my motherboard if I'd see a noticeable improvement on boot times and game loading screens. Though my OS in on the SSD, but my games are on my 2TB WD Green. If I decided to upgrade to a 8320 or 8350, that would basically mean the only thing old left in my rig would be the hard drives and I do love my 965.

 

[dragoonk]

Hmm If you have the Phenom II 965, it means it's a 125W CPU with the copper base and heatpipes heatsink, which in my opinion is a pretty good cooler for a stock one. In fact I have one myself cooling my Athlon II X3 450 OC@ 3.93 GHz, 1.56 V. I know high voltage, but for some reaon I can't get it stable on lower volts than that. In games however, it never reaches 50C. that cooler can sometimes reach even 6000 RPM so it can handle some good temps. I am sure you have case airflow issues. I have a cheap case that I wouldn't even pay 5 euros for it... 2x80mm exhaust fans scavenged from broken power supplies, and under my CPU is a OC'd 3870 X2 which isn't known for being cool and quiet at all. Get yourself good airflow trough the case. You said your cooler isn't noisy, well now you know why you get high temps like that. Set a lower target in the bios, so it starts spinning up sooner when it gets warm.
Goodluck!

 

[MacLeod]

AMD stock coolers are actually pretty good. The coolers that came with the Thubans were very stout and as good as just about any $40 or less cooler on the market aside from a Hyper 212 or a couple others. I used a stocker on a Phenom II X2 555 that was unlocked to a quad core and got it to 3.6 with no problem. Was able to get 3.9 once I got my 212 though.

 

[airdeano]

I'd be tempted to upgrade my motherboard if I'd see a noticeable improvement on boot times and game loading screens. Though my OS in on the SSD, but my games are on my 2TB WD Green. If I decided to upgrade to a 8320 or 8350, that would basically mean the only thing old left in my rig would be the hard drives and I do love my 965.

not really.. a couple of seconds tops. dunna know how much start-up phoo-phoo
is loading, (look at some OS diet books on faster start-ups) in old days mobo
had alot to do with operational speeds and overall performance. todays efforts
are all pretty much the same other than core products (CPU, GPU, RAM).

as said before, just updating to SATAIII would be a marked improvement,
but $$$ spent to gains, i wouldn't think so.

airdeano
(i wouldnt spend more past the 1090t platform for overclocking and perf)

 

[G-sus]

My CPU fan only spins up to 3000rpm during gaming and 60C is more than acceptable to me. Along with my 2 4890 pumping out 70C keeps my room nice and warm I will be changing my 4 120mm case fans though, those cheap chinese fans barely move air and are starting to rattle. Found some CM Sickleflows locally for 4 quid each, they are double the cfm of my current fans. I'm not so sure I really need to change my CPU cooler now, it would be more for looks than anything, I'm sure the temps would drop a bit, but I'm not looking to overclock just yet.

 

[airdeano]

an overclock situation will require an aftermarket cooler, deffo! stock cooler won't
control the heat from the overclock. and depending on how wicked the overclock,
will determine cooling solutions.

airdeano

 

[Deejeta]

You would see an ssd speed improvement going to something with sataIII. You are maxing out the sataII bandwidth at the moment.
Shame it is an ocz drive. You will probably be sending it back for rma before long.
A 1090t or 1100t are killer overclocking chips and you would be mad if you could get one cheap and passed it up. Obviously pair it with a nice cooler.
Piledriver/bulldozer are a waste of time for the price.
Your 2x4890's are a little long in the tooth. Maybe head down the dx11 path, even something midrange would be as fast/and faster and with more eye candy. Something like a 7870, also a hell of a lot more frugal in terms of power consumption compared to an old crossfire setup.

 

[G-sus]

Shame it is an ocz drive. You will probably be sending it back for rma before long.

Why is that? It has a 5 year warranty, that alone should say it's at least decent, plus I don't stress it.

 

[dragoonk]

What's this about all OCZ's being crap?

 

[MacLeod]

Its not that all OCZ stuff is crap. Some of their stuff is pretty solid. Its just that its usually hit or miss. No manufacturer puts out great stuff all the time with the possible exception of Seasonic and maybe Corsair but OCZ seems to get as many scathing reviews as they do raving ones. Id still buy their stuff but just make sure you do your homework and check out all the reviews you can find on that particular product before investing your hard earned cash.

 

[G-sus]

Question. If I was to upgrade, I would have to sell my current parts to cover part of the cost of new parts. The Phenom can be sold for around 50 quid ob ebay, the graphics cards are quite rare and catch a decent price on ebay as well, after all, I bough my second card for 40 quid on ebay. But I'm not so sure about the motherboard. Is there any interest in the 790fx chipset motherboards?

 

[MacLeod]

There should be some. It would be a good base for somebody building a rig for their wife or something like that. Its a solid board and with a good Phenom II proc, could still be a very capable rig for all but us PC/OC geeks.