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Bang for my buck upgrades for a Phenom 9850 system?

murphy55d

murphy55d

Lifer
So, it's been awhile since I upgraded. Currently running a 9850 Phenom in an Asus M2N-SLI board. 4GB DDR2, Galaxy GeForce GT640. Antec 430 PSU. 300GB SATA hard drive which I think is starting to go. Best buy this week has a 1TB WD Blue drive for $40 which I think I'm going to order regardless whether anything else gets upgraded.

How cheap can I bring this up to date? The only games I really play are Skyrim, Civ5, and Civ5 BE. It mostly runs Skyrim with medium-ish settings and tons of mods.

Also, if I re-sell the current parts I have now, what can I reasonably expect to get out of them?

Thoughts?
 
How much are you looking to spend max?

CPU is not worth upgrading. A GPU upgrade will improve Skyrim but likely be bottlenecked by the CPU in most cases. At this point, you should be looking at a new system, whether an Intel system plus discrete GPU or an AMD APU one, depending on your budget. Trying to keep the AM2+ system updated today will cost money for hardly any benefit.

Also, price checks are not allowed here.

Cheers.
 
An SSD will show far better improvements in loading speed. In-game performance is still largely bottlenecked by your processors however.
 
As others have mentioned, your core CPU/mobo/RAM components are all several (4 or so) generations out of date and can't be effectively upgraded, only replaced. I'm assuming your PSU is also of the same vintage and should be replaced as well.

The GPU is more modern and could be carried over, but is low-end enough that it would significantly bottleneck any new CPU.

And definitely get an SSD if you're looking at improving drive performance, though really that's the least of your worries in gaming.

So really, you're looking at pretty much a complete overhaul at this point, reusing the new HDD and maybe the case.
 
g3258 + 65-ish mobo
hmm..$135 there..
+ RAM..
about $210
$270 'cause you need a bigger PSU..
then you need a GPU
 
SSD (which can be ported over to a new system) and a GTX 750Ti (which can also be ported over to a new system.

The SSD will make your computer feel a lot snappier in general, and the 750Ti will help a lot.

I'd probably want a RAM upgrade too, but buying DDR2 at this point is throwing good money after bad - better to sock it away and save for a new platform. But fast storage and a snazzy new GPU is money well spent, even if you do a complete system rebuild with new motherboard/cpu/ram/case, etc., in a few months.
 
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