Time for an upgrade. What do ya think?

BrooksyX · Dec 14, 2010

So keep in mind that I keeping this rig low profile. I dont have a lot of space so I need to keep it small. I don't game tons but I do play lots of starcraft 2 and encode movies a lot. I also wanna be able to play HL 2 Episode 3 if that ever sees the light of day.

Anyways so I plan on upgrading my rig in the specs with these parts:

I have this card on the way (got for $60 open box): MSI R5670-PD512 Radeon HD 5670 512MB 128-bit GDDR5...

Thinking this motherboard (seen on ebay for about $50): ASUS M4A785-M AM3/AM2+/AM2 AMD 785G HDMI Micro ATX...

And the a cheap am3 quad like the athlon II x4 620. (just the cheapest am3 quad i can find)

So what do you guys think? Will it be a worthy upgrade for about $160 minus what I can get for selling my old stuff?

I also plan on adding a 2x2gb ddr2 ram kit in the next couple months as well and maybe a slim line dvd drive if I can mod the case to fit it because right now I don't have a dvd drive cause I got 3x 3.5" HDDs in my little case

. Everything else in the system will stay the same.

brandonwh64 · Dec 14, 2010

Well you can get that motherboard you listed and newegg has a OEM Phenom II 940BE for 95$ shipped (which is faster than the x4 640 for the same price). Also you can keep your current ram until you can get a 2x2gb kit

Phenom II 940 Black edition

BrooksyX · Dec 14, 2010

brandonwh64 said:
Well you can get that motherboard you listed and newegg has a OEM Phenom II 940BE for 95$ shipped (which is faster than the x4 640 for the same price). Also you can keep your current ram until you can get a 2x2gb kit

Phenom II 940 Black edition

well I plan on getting a total of 6gb of ram thats why i picked a motherboard with ddr2 and 4x ram slots. Also i am limited to a 300w psu so a phenom would be pushing it.

Also wanna go for as cheap as possible here as I am low on funds until jan when my college financial aid kicks in again.

brandonwh64 · Dec 14, 2010

The Chip would be fine with 300W. i ran my Phenom II 940 Oced to 3.6ghz with a 8800GTS 640 (G80) on a 350W Antec for like 5 months no problem

BrooksyX · Dec 14, 2010

brandonwh64 said:
The Chip would be fine with 300W. i ran my Phenom II 940 Oced to 3.6ghz with a 8800GTS 640 (G80) on a 350W Antec for like 5 months no problem

yeah maybe but I got a cheapo psu and I have 3x green tb HDDs maybe plan on adding a laptop HDD and a dvd drive. So dont wanna push it to far.

brandonwh64 · Dec 14, 2010

The extra 30 watts wont hurt it, if it was 140W i would understand but i say 125w and below should be fine

BrooksyX · Dec 14, 2010

brandonwh64 said:
The extra 30 watts wont hurt it, if it was 140W i would understand but i say 125w and below should be fine

We shall see, its a little out of my price range but I got an old am2 3800+ i could use until I could save up for that.

brandonwh64 · Dec 14, 2010

Nice! a 3800+ would do fine for movies and browsing until you get a bigger chip

BrooksyX · Dec 14, 2010

brandonwh64 said:
Nice! a 3800+ would do fine for movies and browsing until you get a bigger chip

well that is considering the board will support it lol. Its not listed on the cpu support list but the board is listed as am2 compatible.

Dent1 · Dec 14, 2010

BrooksyX said:
well that is considering the board will support it lol. Its not listed on the cpu support list but the board is listed as am2 compatible.

The 3800+ X2 should work, the 3800+ X2 is one of the original AM2 CPUs.

Edit: I see you are thinking of the Athlon II X4, well worth it, huge upgrade from the Celery.

Overall the rig will do just fine for Starcraft, should suffice for another year and then ultimately you'd need a new video card once more demanding games come out as it will be the weak link in the chain.

brandonwh64 · Dec 14, 2010

Yes the board will support the x2 3800 with no issue

BrooksyX · Dec 14, 2010

Dent1 said:
The 3800+ X2 should work, the 3800+ X2 is one of the original AM2 CPUs.

Edit: I see you are thinking of the Athlon II X4, well worth it, huge upgrade from the Celery.

Overall the rig will do just fine for Starcraft, should suffice for another year and then ultimately you'd need a new video card once more demanding games come out as it will be the weak link in the chain.

brandonwh64 said:
Yes the board will support the x2 3800 with no issue

Its not an x2 its just a single core 3800+

BrooksyX · Dec 17, 2010

Ok here is what my rig is going to now:

Biostar mobo: BIOSTAR TA790GX XE AM2+/AM3 AMD 790GX HDMI Micro A...
AMD Phenom x3 720BE: AMD Phenom II X3 720 2.8GHz 3 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB...
2x 2x2gb Kingston ddr2 ram (8gb total): Kingston HyperX T1 Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DD...
Msi 5670 512:MSI R5670-PD512 Radeon HD 5670 512MB 128-bit GDDR5...

So what do you think about that now. I am getting a really good deal on all the stuff localy and already bought the video card for $60.

Jamborhgini313 · Dec 17, 2010

Should do for SC2. You could probably unlock that Tri-Core to a Quad and it'll increase your performance in SC2 since from my point of view, SC2 likes CPU more than GPU.

Wyverex · Dec 17, 2010

BrooksyX said:
Ok here is what my rig is going to now:

Biostar mobo: BIOSTAR TA790GX XE AM2+/AM3 AMD 790GX HDMI Micro A...
AMD Phenom x3 720BE: AMD Phenom II X3 720 2.8GHz 3 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB...
2x 2x2gb Kingston ddr2 ram (8gb total): Kingston HyperX T1 Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DD...
Msi 5670 512:MSI R5670-PD512 Radeon HD 5670 512MB 128-bit GDDR5...

So what do you think about that now. I am getting a really good deal on all the stuff localy and already bought the video card for $60.

Looks pretty solid. I'd say your SC2 performance will be pretty good, even with a bit of eye candy

Jamborhgini313 said:
Should do for SC2. You could probably unlock that Tri-Core to a Quad and it'll increase your performance in SC2 since from my point of view, SC2 likes CPU more than GPU.

Unfortunately, Starcraft 2 uses only 2 cores, so unlocking the 4th core wouldn't help at all.
What would help with Starcraft 2 is OCing the CPU and especially OCing the Northbridge (I got ~5 FPS just for OCing NB from 2000 MHz to 2300 MHz) but I guess he's not gonna OC due to his PSU.

Flibolito · Dec 17, 2010

Looks like a good setup for SC2 that cpu will really improve your performance with that new card.

BrooksyX · Dec 17, 2010

I also plan on swapping out the psu with this one in the coming months. Should be a lot more reliable than my current rosewill one.

SeaSonic SS-300TFX Bronze 300W TFX12V v2.3 80 PLUS...

micropage7 · Dec 17, 2010

Wyverex said:
Looks pretty solid. I'd say your SC2 performance will be pretty good, even with a bit of eye candy

Unfortunately, Starcraft 2 uses only 2 cores, so unlocking the 4th core wouldn't help at all.
What would help with Starcraft 2 is OCing the CPU and especially OCing the Northbridge (I got ~5 FPS just for OCing NB from 2000 MHz to 2300 MHz) but I guess he's not gonna OC due to his PSU.

4 cores is investment but for today 2 cores perform more effective. I guess with oc + better graphic card would be better on gaming :toast:

Wyverex · Dec 17, 2010

micropage7 said:
4 cores is investment but for today 2 cores perform more effective. I guess with oc + better graphic card would be better on gaming

Of course the extra core is good, I just stated that it wouldn't matter for Starcraft 2, but it can sure as hell help him with encoding movies and/or for some future games

On that note, BrooksyX, good luck with unlocking the 4th core :toast:

BrooksyX · Dec 17, 2010

Wyverex said:
On that note, BrooksyX, good luck with unlocking the 4th core

should unlock. guy im buying it from said it unlocked but was a little unstabble at stock volts. So maybe ill play around with some overclocking and unlocking with a little voltage bump.

department76 · Dec 17, 2010

SC2 doesn't break more than 40% cpu usage on my quad, so that's not really a good reason for getting one.

I'd say it's a good idea to get an X3 to save $$, then if it happens to stable unlock to an X4, cool. If not, you won't miss any gaming performance.

BrooksyX · Dec 17, 2010

department76 said:
SC2 doesn't break more than 40% cpu usage on my quad, so that's not really a good reason for getting one.

I'd say it's a good idea to get an X3 to save $$, then if it happens to stable unlock to an X4, cool. If not, you won't miss any gaming performance.

yeah i encode a lot of movies too so the multi core cpu is a nice addition. The more cores the better

System Name	Main / Home Media Serever
Processor	Intel i5 2500k @ 4.75ghz / AMD AM3 5200+ x2
Motherboard	ASRock Fatal1ty P67 Performance / Biostar 790GX
Cooling	Xigmatek Dark Knight / XIGMATEK Apache
Memory	12gb of G.Skill Value Series DDR3 / 4x 1gb DDR2
Video Card(s)	XFX Radeon 6870 1gb / Asus Radeon 5450 512mb
Storage	2x Samsung 830 64gb SSD Raid 0 & 750gb WD Blue HDD / OCZ Vertex II 80GB & 10TB of HDD Space
Display(s)	2x Acer 24" LED / Samsung 50" LED
Case	Xigmatek Asgard II / APEX PC-389-C
Power Supply	Rosewill 750w / Antec EArthwatts 380w
Software	Windows 7 Professional x64 SP1 / Ubuntu 14.04

System Name	Main / Home Media Serever
Processor	Intel i5 2500k @ 4.75ghz / AMD AM3 5200+ x2
Motherboard	ASRock Fatal1ty P67 Performance / Biostar 790GX
Cooling	Xigmatek Dark Knight / XIGMATEK Apache
Memory	12gb of G.Skill Value Series DDR3 / 4x 1gb DDR2
Video Card(s)	XFX Radeon 6870 1gb / Asus Radeon 5450 512mb
Storage	2x Samsung 830 64gb SSD Raid 0 & 750gb WD Blue HDD / OCZ Vertex II 80GB & 10TB of HDD Space
Display(s)	2x Acer 24" LED / Samsung 50" LED
Case	Xigmatek Asgard II / APEX PC-389-C
Power Supply	Rosewill 750w / Antec EArthwatts 380w
Software	Windows 7 Professional x64 SP1 / Ubuntu 14.04

System Name	Main / Home Media Serever
Processor	Intel i5 2500k @ 4.75ghz / AMD AM3 5200+ x2
Motherboard	ASRock Fatal1ty P67 Performance / Biostar 790GX
Cooling	Xigmatek Dark Knight / XIGMATEK Apache
Memory	12gb of G.Skill Value Series DDR3 / 4x 1gb DDR2
Video Card(s)	XFX Radeon 6870 1gb / Asus Radeon 5450 512mb
Storage	2x Samsung 830 64gb SSD Raid 0 & 750gb WD Blue HDD / OCZ Vertex II 80GB & 10TB of HDD Space
Display(s)	2x Acer 24" LED / Samsung 50" LED
Case	Xigmatek Asgard II / APEX PC-389-C
Power Supply	Rosewill 750w / Antec EArthwatts 380w
Software	Windows 7 Professional x64 SP1 / Ubuntu 14.04

System Name	Main / Home Media Serever
Processor	Intel i5 2500k @ 4.75ghz / AMD AM3 5200+ x2
Motherboard	ASRock Fatal1ty P67 Performance / Biostar 790GX
Cooling	Xigmatek Dark Knight / XIGMATEK Apache
Memory	12gb of G.Skill Value Series DDR3 / 4x 1gb DDR2
Video Card(s)	XFX Radeon 6870 1gb / Asus Radeon 5450 512mb
Storage	2x Samsung 830 64gb SSD Raid 0 & 750gb WD Blue HDD / OCZ Vertex II 80GB & 10TB of HDD Space
Display(s)	2x Acer 24" LED / Samsung 50" LED
Case	Xigmatek Asgard II / APEX PC-389-C
Power Supply	Rosewill 750w / Antec EArthwatts 380w
Software	Windows 7 Professional x64 SP1 / Ubuntu 14.04

System Name	Main / Home Media Serever
Processor	Intel i5 2500k @ 4.75ghz / AMD AM3 5200+ x2
Motherboard	ASRock Fatal1ty P67 Performance / Biostar 790GX
Cooling	Xigmatek Dark Knight / XIGMATEK Apache
Memory	12gb of G.Skill Value Series DDR3 / 4x 1gb DDR2
Video Card(s)	XFX Radeon 6870 1gb / Asus Radeon 5450 512mb
Storage	2x Samsung 830 64gb SSD Raid 0 & 750gb WD Blue HDD / OCZ Vertex II 80GB & 10TB of HDD Space
Display(s)	2x Acer 24" LED / Samsung 50" LED
Case	Xigmatek Asgard II / APEX PC-389-C
Power Supply	Rosewill 750w / Antec EArthwatts 380w
Software	Windows 7 Professional x64 SP1 / Ubuntu 14.04

Time for an upgrade. What do ya think?

BrooksyX

brandonwh64

Addicted to Bacon and StarCrunches!!!

BrooksyX

brandonwh64

Addicted to Bacon and StarCrunches!!!

BrooksyX

brandonwh64

Addicted to Bacon and StarCrunches!!!

BrooksyX

brandonwh64

Addicted to Bacon and StarCrunches!!!

BrooksyX

Dent1

brandonwh64

Addicted to Bacon and StarCrunches!!!

BrooksyX

BrooksyX

Jamborhgini313

New Member

Wyverex

Flibolito

BrooksyX

micropage7

Wyverex

BrooksyX

department76

New Member

BrooksyX

System Name	My baby
Processor	Athlon II X4 620 @ 3.5GHz, 1.45v, NB @ 2700Mhz, HT @ 2700Mhz - 24hr prime95 stable
Motherboard	Asus M4A785TD-V EVO
Cooling	Sonic Tower Rev 2 with 120mm Akasa attached, Akasa @ Front, Xilence Red Wing 120mm @ Rear
Memory	8 GB G.Skills 1600Mhz
Video Card(s)	ATI ASUS Crossfire 5850
Storage	Crucial MX100 SATA 2.5 SSD
Display(s)	Lenovo ThinkVision 27" (LEN P27h-10)
Case	Antec VSK 2000 Black Tower Case
Audio Device(s)	Onkyo TX-SR309 Receiver, 2x Kef Cresta 1, 1x Kef Center 20c
Power Supply	OCZ StealthXstream II 600w, 4x12v/18A, 80% efficiency.
Software	Windows 10 Professional 64-bit

System Name	my pc
Processor	i5 2500k 5.2ghz @ 1.47v
Motherboard	Asus P8Z68-V
Cooling	XSPC Rasa RS360. Adding an RX240 soon
Memory	8GB XMS 3 1600mhz
Video Card(s)	GTX 580 SLI 1ghz
Storage	Western Digital 320gb Blue Caviar Raid 0
Display(s)	Acer 23 H233H
Case	Antec 1200
Audio Device(s)	Onboard :(
Power Supply	Antec TruePower Quattro 1200w
Software	Windows Vista Business 64bit
Benchmark Scores	49.6k Vantage

Processor	Core i5 4460
Motherboard	Gigabyte Z97-D3H
Cooling	Zalman CNPS10X Optima
Memory	1x 8GB DDR3 @ 900Mhz
Video Card(s)	Gigabyte GTX1660 6GB OC
Storage	Patriot Blast 240GB SSD; Caviar Black 500 GB; Caviar Green 1 TB
Display(s)	Dell U2311H (23'' IPS)
Power Supply	FSP Hyper 700
Mouse	Sharkoon Fireglider
Software	Win 10 Pro 64-bit

System Name	WhiteWalker2020 / LAN Box
Processor	Intel i7 6900K 4.4GHz / 2500K i5@4.5GHz
Motherboard	MSI X99A Krait / Gigabyte Z68-UD3P
Cooling	Full custom liquid / XIGMATEK HDT-Aegir
Memory	G.Skill 32GB DDR4 3000MHz/ 4x4GB G. Skill DDR1866 Sniper
Video Card(s)	EVGA GTX1080Ti SC ACX 2.0, EVGA GTX 1070 SC ACX 2.0
Storage	950 Pro 512GB M.2, 960GB SanDisk Ultra II, Intel 730 480GB and 240GB, 850 EVO 250GB, 17TB Mechanical
Display(s)	39" AMH 399A (no glass) UHD , Wasabi Mango 42" UHD IPS, Samsung 55" 4K
Case	Thermaltake Core x9 / HAF 932 Red
Audio Device(s)	Realtek HD-Audio On-Board
Power Supply	EVGA Supernova 850W / Corsair 650TX
Mouse	2x Logitech 610
Keyboard	Razer DeathStalker / Logitech G910 Orion Spark RGB Mechanical
Software	Windows 10 Pro / Windows 10 64bit Professional

System Name	Fusilli
Processor	AMD Phenom II 965 C3 @ 3.9GHz (200x19.5, 1.51V)
Motherboard	MSI K9A2 Platinum 790FX/SB600 (AM2+)
Cooling	Zalman 9700NT, 2x silent 80mm & 2x 120mm Scythe & Enermax
Memory	4GB Patriot Viper DDR2 @ 1066 5-5-5-15 2.1V
Video Card(s)	Sapphire HD4870 512MB @ 825/1050 (3x heatpipes)
Storage	2x 250GB RAID 0 - Seagate 7200.10 16MB on Promise FastTrak
Display(s)	ViewSonic VX2450 & VX1940
Case	Lian-Li PC60 PlusII
Audio Device(s)	Auzen X-Fi Prelude, Denon AH-D1000 headphones
Power Supply	OCZ GameXtreme 600W
Software	Windows 7 Pro x64
Benchmark Scores	3DMark Vantage - P10909

System Name	micropage7
Processor	Intel Xeon X3470
Motherboard	Gigabyte Technology Co. Ltd. P55A-UD3R (Socket 1156)
Cooling	Enermax ETS-T40F
Memory	Samsung 8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3
Video Card(s)	NVIDIA Quadro FX 1800
Storage	V-GEN03AS18EU120GB, Seagate 2 x 1TB and Seagate 4TB
Display(s)	Samsung 21 inch LCD Wide Screen
Case	Icute Super 18
Audio Device(s)	Auzentech X-Fi Forte
Power Supply	Silverstone 600 Watt
Mouse	Logitech G502
Keyboard	Sades Excalibur + Taihao keycaps
Software	Win 7 64-bit
Benchmark Scores	Classified