going for an overhaul

[keviny1]

Alright so I'm planning and upgrading my cpu to the I5 3.2 ghz but to do this I will also need a new motherboard and possibly new ram aswell. So I was wondering if this upgrade is going to be worth the 400$. And am I going to be able to tell a big difference of not.
Current specs:
Windows 7 64bit
AMD Phenom 9500 Quad-core 2.2GHz
4 GB DDR2
xfx radeon 5770 1gb

[fohfoh]

Depends on your reasons for upgrading.

[x5ga]

That depends on what you use your computer for... if it's just web browsing, music and movies/anime then most likely the difference is not noticeable, but if you use it for gaming or video editing or other CPU-heavy tasks, then yes, there will be a bit of a speed boost. You will definitely need new RAM, since the i5 only supports DDR3. Even though the i5 you are talking about (I think it's the i5-650) has only 2 physical cores (but 4 threads -will show up as 4CPUs in Task Manager- due to HyperThreading), it is faster than the phenom II you currently have. The jump from DDR2 to DDR3 will also make a difference. So... if you use your system for heavy tasks, then the upgrade is worth it, though the i5-750 (which has 4 physical cores) is much better and it's almost in the same price range.

[keviny1]

the one I'm using I don't even think its phenom II. Also the I5 750 is only 2.66 ghz where the 650 is 3.2 ghz does that make a difference? Sorry don't have much knowledge with processors  

also i mainly use my pc for gaming and anime, with a bit of editing for friends skate videos

[datora]

.

The 4 true cores running at lower GHz will outperform the 'virtual' hyperthreading cores at higher GHz .. but, I can't tell you where the crossover is.  Maybe 3.2 beats out 2.6 here, but I'm thinking they're either comparable or the true x4 will still beat out.  Needs research.

As already asked, it'll help a lot if you can give a better idea what you want to do with the machine (how cutting edge are your games? do video editing? Encodes?).  A lot of apps can't really use all 4 cores today, but in the fairly near future x4, x6 and x8 cores will be used more efficiently.  A bit of guess how fast that'll happen, though.  Seems a year or a bit more before it's really common.


Other considerations:

What sort of connectivity do you have between your computer & 'other things?'

If you are currently using SATA 3GB/s drives and USB 2.0, but your upgraded mobo gives you SATA 6GB/s and USB 3 ... that is quite an improvement in transfer speeds.  Maybe it's important to you ..?  Even if not today, it would give you more future capability if the system is still running three years out.

The question is sort of about your money availability, too.  Is $400 a firm number for you, or do you have flexibility for other related upgrades ..?

There are also hard drive options to consider if you're really trying to tweak performance, like jumping to a SATA 6GB/s performance drive, or even an SSD.  But, it'll be easy to blow through a $400 budget that way.



Also, +1 what x5ga said here:

[ ... ] the i5 you are talking about (I think it's the i5-650) has only 2 physical cores (but 4 threads -will show up as 4CPUs in Task Manager- due to HyperThreading), it is faster than the phenom II

 [ ... ]

though the i5-750 (which has 4 physical cores) is much better and it's almost in the same price range.

Even jumping to an i7 if you can.  I assume you're talking i5 due to budget.


If your budget is more flexible, then maybe  ...

If you're going new mobo, and the new RAM is pretty much required, have you looked at the performance from something like:

AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition Thuban 3.2GHz
 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103849

These overclock pretty safely/easily into the 4.0 GHz range.  Don't know how those prices might compare with the performance you're interested in.

I've been eyeing this mobo:

MSI 890FXA-GD70 AM3
 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130274

with either that x6 Phenom or it's kid brother, a x4 core:

AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz
 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103727


[ EDITS: ty00ps & more specific questions on use. ]

[keviny1]

I mostly use my pc for gaming and anime with a bit of video editing for friends skate videos. Also i was hoping to not go much over 400 because of the budget as that is the reason for going with I5 instead of I7 like you mentioned. I find my games run fine for most part but when anything big happens such as a battle in starcraft2 it becomes very choppy and i was told doing this upgrade would fix this as well as make my pc more upgrade friendly with the new mobo.

[datora]

.
Your old mobo + RAM + CPU is a fair, basic core for a system; would be useful to someone if you can find the right someone.  Definitely ask around and see if you can get some cash for it; that might help budget.  Should be worth $100, but check around.  How fast is the RAM and and model of mobo ... does it overclock easy?  Probably an AM2+ socket?  These'll affect used price.

Have you looked at overclocking your current CPU/ or are already?  Does it have high-end cooling capacity?

Since you're not doing rendering/encoding for video, games are really what you're trying to fix here.  SCII is leading edge, but well-written so it's not insane on the resources.

Probably try to swing that true x4 core i5, look for the highest GHz you can afford.  Make sure your RAM also runs at the fastest GHz possible.  You really shouldn't need more than 4 GB, so you don't have to try and buy 8.  If you're running out of RAM, look into how you've got your OS & apps running and learn how to tweak & lean 'em down.

Since you're getting new mobo, try to grab one with SATA 6 GB/s on it and try to get a drive that takes advantage of it.  You might be able to swap in an SSD in a couple of months and that'll really jump things up a bit ... recently saw a 60 or 64GB SSD on a newegg shellshocker for $99 ... keep an eye open for that sort of deal.  Your OS/system disk doesn't need more than 64GB; install your intense apps/games on it and put everything else on your other drives

Might have been this one; I think it was OCZ & the read/write numbers are what grabbed my attention:

OCZ Vertex 2 OCZSSD2-2VTXE60G 2.5" 60GB SATA II
 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227550

Pay attention to the read & write numbers.  These are very excellent:  read up to 285MB/s / write up to 275MB/s.  No need to defrag an SSD, BTW, so performance stays pretty top as long as you keep your registry maintained.


You're bottleneck here is probably/mostly at the CPU, so look for specs that emphasize CPU performance and a mobo that has top communication w/ your video card.  But, if you were able to throw an SSD on the system at some point, you will notice the difference.

[keviny1]

Yes I have thought about selling the old parts I have no use for I also have an old psu, case and video card so I was think about putting that together for another build and sell it that way.

So by upgrading the cpu this will fix the lag in games a bit and make the system run faster?

Thanks for the help BTW

[mgz]

Yes I have thought about selling the old parts I have no use for I also have an old psu, case and video card so I was think about putting that together for another build and sell it that way.

So by upgrading the cpu this will fix the lag in games a bit and make the system run faster?

Thanks for the help BTW

curious when you say gaming what kinds of games do you play and for what periods of time.  cuz playing wow doesnt need nearly the cpu specs that playing say crysis or farcry with gfx up does.

In general playing shooters or games like oblivion with gfx up will use a bit of juice in comparison to the likes of wow so what you are playing makes a difference

[datora]

.
Yah.  Given what I've got to work with in this thread, I'd say I'm ~85%+ confident your issue is processing capability.

There's an i5-760 Lynnfield @2.8GHz for about $15 more than the i5-750 Lynnfield 2.66GHz; about +$30 from an i5-650:

 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115067

I'd shoot for that if I could swing it.  Shop around.  Don't know what websites you check, but clearly I rely on newegg as a place to start, then google about & look for others that seem reputable and can compete.  http://www.tigerdirect.com/ and http://www.geeks.com/ area couple more; hopefull other suggestions will show up here ... I'd like a few more to bookmark for myself.


There's always the possibility that you're configured wrong with your OS.  Look for excessive processes running or high CPU/mem use when you think you've got everything shut down to idle.  However, the CPU you listed is a bit aged, so it just seems like a solid bet.  Sorry I can't issue you a guarantee ... 

But, it's more than processor because you're also jumping up to a more modern mobo and DDR 3 RAM, probably running at 1600 or 2000 MHz, so that should liven things up nicely.  G.Skill, BTW, and its Ripjaws Series, is getting very solid props.  I've used it for a couple of upgrades & it works solid.

 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231303 ($98)

Has outstanding timing numbers for the price: 7-8-7-24-2N, for example.  $3 more and it's even a bit better:

 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231276 ($100 / 7-7-7-21)


Your video card seems pretty solid for what you're doing, but I'm no gamer, so you need advice from someone else on that.


The mobo I listed earlier is only one possibility.  Use it to compare specifications.  I like that one for its many connectors and lots of expansion room.  You could go to a smaller board with that 890FXA chipset & AM3 socket and you'll still be state-of-the-art, maybe find one on special for ~$125-$145 or so.

The one I listed above was $179 yesterday w/ rebate.  MSI is not necessarily the best, but that board reviewed well and was on the lower end of cost.  There's always Gigabyte & Asus.  If you're in no hurry, select several boards that look good for your needs and check once a day on these sites; one of them'll go on special and that's when you grab it and save $20 or $50.

I'm not trying to be AMD evangelical, but that Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition @3.4GHz can be taken up to 4.0 and 4.2 GHz.  In that range, it compares very favorably against the i5 760.  You can shave down costs a bit by getting a board that overclocks solidly ... of course you'll want to google about & do it with a clue.

 - http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2368074,00.asp (Overclocking Guide for n00bs)

Extremetech or tomshardware.com also recently had a solid rundown on AMD mobos; pretty much listed the top five this summer (one of which is the MSI above).  Both good sites to start at; I'm sure they also have something on i5/i7 boards if you search around.

You can learn a lot just reading the comments sections on these products at newegg.  Lots of those geeks post what they did, problems they ran into, gear and workarounds needed, for Intel & AMD.  Saved me from several mistakes, so, one another recommended resource.

[keviny1]

At the moment I'm mostly playing starcraft 2 and borderlands. When done with borderlands I was gonna get farcry 2. Was considering getting cod black ops aswell if it could run as good if not better than on my 360

[keviny1]

Ya everything I've gotten for my pc so far I've gotten from newegg and I found them very reliable. Thanks for the advice I think I will go for the upgrade just gonna do some more research based off your help.

[mgz]

At the moment I'm mostly playing starcraft 2 and borderlands. When done with borderlands I was gonna get farcry 2. Was considering getting cod black ops aswell if it could run as good if not better than on my 360

if you plan on playing doing anything other then single player i wouldnt waste time with CoD on the PC at this point in time its basically the console version with a mouse and keyboard now since they made everything retard friendly

[fohfoh]

I think you should consider upgrading your HDD first and see if the performance gets better.

5400pm vs 7200rpm is night and day. Going higher is even better, not to mention cheaper than going all out on certain parts that might still be bottle necked by the HDD. Raptors aren't bad for the price atm. SSD is even better, but would really eat away at the $400 budget.

Did you ever spend time looking at your windows experience index to see where your weaknesses are before considering your options?

I don't know... maybe it's just me, but what you're proposing doesn't really seem like a total overhaul to me. If I had to go with an i5 or i7 build, I'd go for broke and go brand new for everything instead of reusing. With your setup, I'd consider either HDD, then I believe your mobo should still fit higher end phenom cpus? Less work, you get your performance, and it's cheaper. Not as cool as the i5, but do you really need the i5?

Also, did you consider OCing your processor?
http://www.overclock.net/amd-cpus/336323-help-ocing-amd-phenom-quad-core.html
(This one is your proc I think)

[keviny1]

Well if I did get a new cpu mobo and ram the only thing that would be reused would be one of the hardrives because I have a new case (haf932) gpu is pretty much brand new as well. Also both HDD are 7200.

[rostheferret]

Alright so I'm planning and upgrading my cpu to the I5 3.2 ghz but to do this I will also need a new motherboard and possibly new ram aswell. So I was wondering if this upgrade is going to be worth the 400$. And am I going to be able to tell a big difference of not.
Current specs:
Windows 7 64bit
AMD Phenom 9500 Quad-core 2.2GHz
4 GB DDR2
xfx radeon 5770 1gb

Since I pretty much did this exact same overhaul myself:

The i5-750 I have is overkill. Serious overkill. I run half a dozen active processes (utorrent, WMP, VLC on a separate monitor, chrome downloading stuff) whilst Crysis is being played and I barely use a third of its processing power. With the exception of a handful, games out now don't take advantage of multiple cores, they can only use one so you're probably better off with a dual core with a higher clock speed. Quad core is only really utilised by graphics processing, software rendering and encoding programs. Don't forget you'll probably need a new motherboard as well, else the processor won't fit into the current slot. Personally, I'd save the money here and get an i3 with a high end mobo.

DDR3 is awesome. I'm running 4 gig of G.Skill's "Trident" memory at 2500mhz and its leaps and bounds better than DDR2. Clock speed should be more important than memory size - if you have enough RAM memory, then having more won't improve anything, and a couple of 2 gig sticks has done me fine so far.

If you find your framerate limited, you're probably better off getting a second graphics card and running crossfire tbh. Getting a mobo with an LGA 1156 slot could be worthwhile for future upgrades mind. Tomshardware has done a load of benchmarks (link) so you can see its worth upgrading, but not going that far as its not going to improve it as much as a second graphics card, which should improve things ~80% (again, just search for a Radeon 5770 benchmark on that site).

EDIT: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i3-gaming,2588-9.html

[keviny1]

Thanks does sound like a good idea with the grahpics card but my mobo I got now is m-atx and only has one pci express

[rostheferret]

Thanks does sound like a good idea with the grahpics card but my mobo I got now is m-atx and only has one pci express

Well since you need a new mobo for an i3 (that processor is quite old, and an upgrade is worthwhile, but half the price for the same performance is a no brainer), get something like an Asus or Gigabyte P55 which has two slots and spend the $100 you saved on a second graphics card.

[keviny1]

Thanks does sound like a good idea with the grahpics card but my mobo I got now is m-atx and only has one pci express

Well since you need a new mobo for an i3 (that processor is quite old, and an upgrade is worthwhile, but half the price for the same performance is a no brainer), get something like an Asus or Gigabyte P55 which has two slots and spend the $100 you saved on a second graphics card.

The mobo that I was looking at going with was http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128412 because of the sata 6 and usb 3 with a half decent price. What do you think about this one?

[rostheferret]

HAH that's the same one I got

Worked like a charm once I upgraded the BIOS. Seriously, upgrade the BIOS as soon as you get it. If it ships with one of the earlier BIOS's then it'll randomly decide your graphics card doesn't need any electricity and cause the system to crash. It's dead simple to upgrade though, even comes with a program for it in the bootup screen.

EDIT: Sorry, I have the UD4 which is slightly different. A slightly better but better audio capacity, which the audiophile in me prefers, and better heat dissipation apparently. Tbh, I wouldn't have said there was much in it either way.