Socket 939 Upgrade Advice

[flyboy84]

I currently have the following basic components:

Athlon 64 3800 (2.4 GHz Venice)
2x1GB DDR
ASRock 939Dual-VSTA
ATI x850xt AGP

I want to upgrade this machine one last time, and I want to do something for the CPU and the Video card.

Right now, I think I'm ready to try and get one last CPU in here, and I'll worry about the video later. I'll probably look to get a mid range geforce 8 series come march to pair with the CPU.

I want to go dual core, so I'm feeling the FX-60 right now, as tiger direct offers the retail processor (I'm not into overclocking and just want to get the default HSF and warranty) with an OEM copy of Windows vista home premium. For an extra 50 bucks you can get an OEM copy of vista ultimate.

Does this sound like a good upgrade path? Is the CPU at a good price factoring in OEM vista HP or Ultimate? Should I spring for the extra 50? Are there any caveats to getting an OEM licence for vista?

 

[techboi]

It would be a waste to upgrade this machine. Not that a FX 60 won't help, surely it will and in some future games make even a huge difference.

But the fact is that you are not gonna buy a FX 60, it must be atleast 150-200$, right?

It would be a much much better idea to upgrade this summer time and save till then. Then you can get a E4300 and oc it to 3.0GH+ speeds and it is surely gonna blow the top off the FX60. Pair it with a 8600Ultra then and you will be good to go.

Your current system should run Vista just fine and with all settings maxed out. I wouldn't say you will run it perfect or even stunning, but decent performance that will easily last a few months.

In fact currently I am running Vista on an almost similar system but my graphic card and motherboard are a lot better. The graphic card shouldn't count much anyways.

 

[flyboy84]

Originally posted by: techboi
It would be a waste to upgrade this machine. Not that a FX 60 won't help, surely it will and in some future games make even a huge difference.

But the fact is that you are not gonna buy a FX 60, it must be atleast 150-200$, right?

It would be a much much better idea to upgrade this summer time and save till then. Then you can get a E4300 and oc it to 3.0GH+ speeds and it is surely gonna blow the top off the FX60. Pair it with a 8600Ultra then and you will be good to go.

Your current system should run Vista just fine and with all settings maxed out. I wouldn't say you will run it perfect or even stunning, but decent performance that will easily last a few months.

In fact currently I am running Vista on an almost similar system but my graphic card and motherboard are a lot better. The graphic card shouldn't count much anyways.

Upon thinking about this a little more, I think you are right. I should just wait for the 8600 Ultra and get a C2D, Ram, mobo, etc...maybe

 

[whatupdet]

That seems unnecessary to me.
Why not get an X2 4200+ or 4600+ and OC it? If you want to upgrade your video card just get a 7950GT ot 8800GTS.
You'll have dual core, despite being slower than the new Core 2 Duo it's still quite fast and it'll save on buying as much.
I recently went from a 3200+ S939 to an X2 4600+ overclocked and it costs much less than an FX-60 or FX-62 processor.

 

[Boyo]

That TIger Direct deal is hard to beat. They have a deal to get an FX-60 paired with an 8800GTX. I would look into that.

 

[Fike]

Unless you have some significant multitasking needs, like photoshop, video editing, compression, don't bother to upgrade your CPU at all--even to dual core. What you have is pretty darn fast. Invest in a video card if you want to improve game performance. The Video card will move with you when you go to the C2D.