Upgrading from phenom 2 x4

domsch1988

New member
Hey guys.
I've not posted in some time. Back then you all helped me out well, with getting my current setup together. I used parts from friends, used parts and new parts to put together a rig that served me well till now.

Current specs:
Asrock 890gx extreme3
Phenom ii x4 955 be
Asus GTX570 dcii
H80 i
Corsair CX600
8GB Ram
120GB HyperX 3k SSD
1.5 TB Green Drive

As said, this system served me well till now. Right now the motherboard is passing. USB3 stoped working and USB2 work sometimes ;) So i have to replace it. There are no resonably priced AM3 boards available, so i thought "upgrading" to intel would be my way to go.

Luckily enough i could get a Gigabyte GA-Q77M-D2H from ebay for cheap (new). I chose this because of OS X compatibility and price.
Most of my rig will stay. I'll get a Bitfenix phenom M when it's available. My PSU, Graphics, HDD's, CPU Cooler will stay.

Now i need a matching CPU. I use it 80% for Browsing, listening to music and watching movies. So things a low end celeron would handle ^^ 20% is Gaming. Currently only Rocksmith and some occasional batman Arkham City. The Performance of my current rig is sufficient, so as long as i match the x4 955 or surpass it i'm happy.
And did i mention i'm tight on budget (As always ;))
Soo, my current thought was i3 3220. This is available for under 100€ and seems to perform better than my current cpu.

Some questions: Will this in any way bottleneck my gpu? Is there a cpu which is worth spending a few bucks more (remember that the 1155 board is on it's way. So no Haswell for me)? I don't need integrated graphics, if this matters. Is there anything else you'd recommend upgrading from my rig?

Thanks for reading this long post and thanks in advance for any suggestions provided.

Rock on
Dominik
 
no reasonably priced am3 boards, are you mad haha there is loads. if you are going to go for an i3 i would say go for an am3 board, and an amd 6300. you will benifit from it and see some yourself saving some cash
 
+1 for the 6300 suggestion. Its a decent, underrated processor. Where do you live by the way? Country wise :P.
 
another +1 for the fx 6300, great cpu.

your current motherboard may be compatible with a am3+ cpu with a bios update, unlikely but some motherboards can

an old uni friend of mine has a fx 8350 on a old asus 790 chipset am3 board.
 
All nice ideas. Thanks guys, but:
1. My current MB is dying (as i wrote) so no chance to reuse it.
2. A 1155 MB is on it's way to me (because of OS X compatibility) so AMD is out of question.

Under other circumstances i would have gone with amd, but the good deal for the MB plus me wish to run a dual boot hackintosh, cancel this idea.
I live in Germany (country wise ;)).

So the question remains. Is (for a low-midrange System) the i3 a good option, or do i better invest a bit more and get something else (also from intel ofc and no haswell because of board)?
 
I would try to push to a quad core if possible, even an old sandy bridge cpu would be good.

a dual core cpu may present problems while gaming in the future.
 
performance gain moving from sandy to ivy isn't really that much, ivys main advantage is improved power consumption.

so yeah a quad core sandy will be better than a 2 core ivy. much more future-proof
 
I just gave it a go and looked up some prices (all new):

i3 3220: 98€
i5 2400: 162€
i5 2500: 182€
i5 3330: 148€
i5 3450: 168€
i5 3570: 175€

This leaves some questions:
1. wtf is a 2500 more expensive then a 3570??
2. why are sandy cpu so uber stable in price?
3. is the 3330 worth the 50€ extra?
4. is i already go for the 3330 aren't the 30€ extra for a 3570 well spend?
5. is the i3 still best bang for buck?

What would you say? Best choice under the idea, that currently all of those are sufficient. The i3 (from benchmarks) outperforms my current cpu. So all those CPU's will work. But which is the best deal?? (And nope, specs or names or balls don't matter to me;))
I swear, this will be m last question^^ Sorry for digging so deep and bugging you with questione ;)
 
I just gave it a go and looked up some prices (all new):

i3 3220: 98€
i5 2400: 162€
i5 2500: 182€
i5 3330: 148€
i5 3450: 168€
i5 3570: 175€

This leaves some questions:
1. wtf is a 2500 more expensive then a 3570??
2. why are sandy cpu so uber stable in price?
3. is the 3330 worth the 50€ extra?
4. is i already go for the 3330 aren't the 30€ extra for a 3570 well spend?
5. is the i3 still best bang for buck?

What would you say? Best choice under the idea, that currently all of those are sufficient. The i3 (from benchmarks) outperforms my current cpu. So all those CPU's will work. But which is the best deal?? (And nope, specs or names or balls don't matter to me;))
I swear, this will be m last question^^ Sorry for digging so deep and bugging you with questione ;)

seriously dude, ask as many questions as you'd like, we are all happy to help.

as for the sandy prices i was kinda suggesting you go for a sandy cpu from the used market.
 
I know. I thought so too, but price from ebay (even used, if you find one) tend to be even higher (no idea why).
If i search on ebay us, i can see that these cpu's follow the normal scheme of getting cheaper. But in Germany it seems CPU's tend to age rather then to get old, like wine they get more expensive with age^^ No idea why...
 
Another thing. How much Performance does a 3570T decrease over a 3570. Is it worth it considering the T if the Price is significantly lower (i've found one for 75€ for example)?
 
Another thing. How much Performance does a 3570T decrease over a 3570. Is it worth it considering the T if the Price is significantly lower (i've found one for 75€ for example)?

that sounds like a great price for a 3570t, if memory serves me correctly its the super low power consumption one. downsides being a lower stock clock (can't remember what it's clocked at though) and a moderate turbo clock (3.3GHz i think)
 
I think i'll test the 3570t. It should still outperform my phenom cpu. If it isn't enough, i can still resell it. At this price i think i won't lose much money if i have to sell it again.
Thanks for your help so far. I'll report back and obviously put some pictures up, when my parts arrive and i start to put everything together.

A special thanks to Watsyerproblem for taking the time to guide me through the large selection of CPU's available nowadays^^
 
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