Cheap upgrade from an old phenom?

[Jimzz]

I would get a high end 4/6core chip for your current board and wait for Skylake i5.

What board do you have?

 

[NTMBK]

If you're bothered by heat/power consumption, then you won't get any faster on your current platform. An overclocked Thuban would be a big improvement in performance, but would pump out a serious amount of heat.

Hang on for Skylake and get either an i5 or an i3. Should be great performance, and much lower power consumption.

 

[soccerballtux]

ok, if you can hit 4ghz you definitely need to just spend the $30 to get a better CPU cooler just to keep it cool while you play the waiting game. Overclock it to 4Ghz, and overclock the CPU-NB to 2.6ghz (+0.2v should do it) which will give you another 10-15% performance (12% on average) over just the 4Ghz overclock.

Between those two and DirectX12 on the horizon, you'll actually be good until you run out of RAM, IMO. Then when you move to whatever you move to when Skylake comes, you can move the cooler over as well and continue overclocking.

 

[sm625]

I wouldnt even bother trying to find an CPU upgrade for that platform. Nothing you get will be appreciably faster than a 3.6GHz phenom. A used 2500k combo would be another viable option if you dont want to spend $200 on new hardware. I just saw a 2500K with a Hyper 212 Plus for $120 on the bay. Pick up a mobo for $60 and sell what you got for $60 and you got yourself a nice $120 upgrade that will, with luck, clock to 4.4GHz easily.

 

[BurnItDwn]

I've got a phenom 2 965 running stock (not the BE) in one PC, and an i5 2500 in another. Both machines handle everything ok as far as games go, but the phenom 2 takes a lot longer to build kernels or compile anything big, and, the mobo I have uses DDR2 instead of DDR3. It runs things OK, but, even a top end AM3 chip, overclocked is going to struggle compared to any Haswell or newwer i5.

I'd say when you upgrade, go for an i5 4xxx or better (not sure if skylake will be worth waiting for or not, but the wait should not be too long.)

Get better performance overall, and better performance per watt.

I say this even as I still own some shares of AMD stock (should have sold it when it was up to $4 and would have made a tidy profit, now, I'm down about $800 or so, willing to chance losing it all in case they come up with something, but I have been pretty disappointed as of late)

 

[mizzou]

It killed the thread. It only goes up to Phenom I.

So wait to Skylake and go with an i5

Well I finally bit the bullet


I5-6600k Skylake
R9 390
16gb ddr4



I haven't gone this long upgrading in forever...my issues with steamlink pushed me over the edge.

 

[Leyawiin]

Well I finally bit the bullet


I5-6600k Skylake
R9 390
16gb ddr4



I haven't gone this long upgrading in forever...my issues with steamlink pushed me over the edge.

I did a Phenom II X4 upgrade about a year and a half ago. Went with an i5-4690k. Quite the improvement. You'll notice even more I'm sure.