Fafhrd on 18/10/2009 at 22:05

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What the topic says, really. I've got a bit of spare cash, and it's getting on that time of my PC's life where I'm thinking of upgrading a single component (as opposed to a whole new build), and my question is: Should I go for graphics card, or CPU.

Current relevant specs are: Athlon 64 X2 6000+, Radeon 3870, 4 gigs of RAM.

What I'm considering going for is the Radeon 5870, as they are apparently pretty sexy and should future proof me for a good 2-3 years, what with the DX 11 support and all.

At the same time, a Socket AM2+ quad-core Phenom will run me significantly less, but I'm not sure if I'll see much of a gaming performance increase with it.

Keep in mind that my mobo only supports AM2/AM2+, so any Intel recommendations are entirely worthless to me (and I'm pretty well entrenched as an AMD user, so I'd ignore Intel recs just as a matter of course).

bikerdude on 19/10/2009 at 00:09

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Whats the motherboard make model, as AM2+ allows an upgrade AM3 Phenom X2/3/4 chips as that 6000 X2 may present a bit of a bottleneck to the 5870.

Whats your budget, if you cant afford the £100 for the cpu and the £300 for the GPU. The Phenom II X2 545-3.0ghz/6Mb @£70, Phenom II X3 720-2.8Ghz/7.5Mb @£100, are both very good bang for your buck.

TBE on 19/10/2009 at 05:27

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I'd say if you're only buying one thing to use now and in the future, buy a new video card. Your current processor is adequate to operate the video card you mentioned.

This new processor (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103706) AMD Athlon II X4 620 Propus is a $99 quad core. It runs faster and cooler than your current processor, but requires the AM3 board. So you'd need to upgrade memory, processor and motherboard if you choose this route.

I've got a Phenom II 810 quad core. I can't tell you how much faster this thing is now, compared to the P4 and Athlon 64 +3500 I had. It's a big leap. I bought it at a modding shop here in Salt Lake City, along with an Asus board. Not too impressed with the Asus board. PCI express slots are not spaced well, and my single slot videocard blocks a PCI express X1 slot. No biggy for now.

You need fourth voting option!
(http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0004989/) More like Alyson Hannigan.....am i rite?

Ostriig on 25/10/2009 at 00:11

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I know I'm late to the party here, but if that's the only reason you want to swap the PSU for, are you sure you need it? My 9800GT needs only one 6pin connector, but that's one more 6pin than my PSU has. So I'm running it on a twin Molex to one 6pin adapter, and I can't say I've noticed anything to suggest it's not performing appropriately.

Fafhrd on 25/10/2009 at 21:18

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The part that generates all the heat...In my pants.