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Squeezing more life out of an old system: Sempron 140 -> 965

I

InventorOfEvil

Junior Member
Greetings all,

I originally built the PC that has become my wife's as an HTPC. The specs are the following:

Sempron 140 2.7Ghz

Gigabyte GA-MA785GM-US2H

4Gb G.Skill DDR2-800

(Can't recall the PSU right now)

Geforce GTX 260 Core 216 (Recently upgraded after the old 8800GTX 640 choked)

Normally it's a fine computer, capable of doing everything she asks of it. This weekend, however, it became an issue. It can't run Heroes of Might and Magic VI due to the low end processor. I was considering building her an entirely new Ivy Bridge i3 system, but then realized that this system might have some life left (not to mention, be a cheaper upgrade overall).

At this point, I've been looking into plopping in a Phenom II x4 965, which should only run about $90 from Microcenter. My thinking is that this should be a significant performance boost and really let us squeeze a few more years of life out of the system before we completely replace it. Not to mention, it should be considerably cheaper than the $300 I was thinking of spending on an almost entirely new system.

So, does this seem like a viable upgrade? I know the Phenom II is a bit long in the tooth at this point, but for $90 it seems like it'll be a great upgrade to get us by for the next few years. The only real performance oriented task we want to do with the system is some relatively minor gaming.


 
Tried unlocking a 2nd core on that board? Set (something) to Hybrid, and then enable ACC on all cores.

Edit: I think that the (something) is called "EC Firmware" or something like that in the BIOS. It will actually sit there and say "Flashing" when you change it the first time. Whether this is the mainboard flashing some bootcode, or whether or not it's actually flashing some firmware on the CPU itself, I don't know.
 
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InventorOfEvil said:
Greetings all,

I originally built the PC that has become my wife's as an HTPC. The specs are the following:

Sempron 140 2.7Ghz

Gigabyte GA-MA785GM-US2H

4Gb G.Skill DDR2-800

(Can't recall the PSU right now)

Geforce GTX 260 Core 216 (Recently upgraded after the old 8800GTX 640 choked)

Normally it's a fine computer, capable of doing everything she asks of it. This weekend, however, it became an issue. It can't run Heroes of Might and Magic VI due to the low end processor. I was considering building her an entirely new Ivy Bridge i3 system, but then realized that this system might have some life left (not to mention, be a cheaper upgrade overall).

At this point, I've been looking into plopping in a Phenom II x4 965, which should only run about $90 from Microcenter. My thinking is that this should be a significant performance boost and really let us squeeze a few more years of life out of the system before we completely replace it. Not to mention, it should be considerably cheaper than the $300 I was thinking of spending on an almost entirely new system.

So, does this seem like a viable upgrade? I know the Phenom II is a bit long in the tooth at this point, but for $90 it seems like it'll be a great upgrade to get us by for the next few years. The only real performance oriented task we want to do with the system is some relatively minor gaming.


Click to expand...

I dont know much about mobos, but if it is feasible to upgrade to the phenom 2, it probably would last for a while. That GPU seems grossly overpowered for a sempron, it would be still decent with a phenom 2. A new system would probably be cooler, quiter, and much more power effecient though.
 
Try unlocking the 2nd core and stability testing it if your mobo has a southbridge capable of it.. 710 or higher IIRC. Your mobo is a 710 series so it should be good enough to unlock... probably called Advanced Clock Calibration (ACC) in your BIOS.

http://www.techpowerup.com/101389/Sempron_140_Unlocks_to_Athlon_II_X2.html

Or if you care about stability as a priority, then I'd suggest getting an Athlon II X2 250 or higher (like an Athlon II X2 255, 260, 265, 270). You can also overclock most of those chips fairly easily if your mobo is ok with it. It will be able to play most games just fine because few games can truly max out more than 2 cores at a time anyway. You can get athlon ii x2 270s for about $60 (less when on sale) last time I checked (and athlon ii x2 250s for even less), though 965s go on sale for ~$80 sometimes so it may be worth the extra money if you are not too budget constrained.

You will want to check to make sure your mobo and case cooling in general can handle high wattage CPUs though, particularly if you are overclocking.
 
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Interesting, I'll have to see if I can unlock it when I get home tonight. We were intending to go to Microcenter tonight and pick-up the new processor, but I may very well give the unlocking a go and see if it would perform ok in Heroes VI.

The case the PC in is, frankly, absolute crap. I bought the cheapest case I could when I was building the HTPC and it's terrible; I'm intending to pick-up a new case with the processor. I have no intention of overclocking at the current moment; I've toyed with it in the past on some of my other processors, but never had much desire to go into it after that (even if I have a 2500k in my own machine.)

Thanks for the help, all.
 
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InventorOfEvil said:
Interesting, I'll have to see if I can unlock it when I get home tonight. We were intending to go to Microcenter tonight and pick-up the new processor, but I may very well give the unlocking a go and see if it would perform ok in Heroes VI.

The case the PC in is, frankly, absolute crap. I bought the cheapest case I could when I was building the HTPC and it's terrible; I'm intending to pick-up a new case with the processor. I have no intention of overclocking at the current moment; I've toyed with it in the past on some of my other processors, but never had much desire to go into it after that (even if I have a 2500k in my own machine.)

Thanks for the help, all.
Click to expand...

Case sounds like it might not fit a good-but-cheap tower cooler like a 212+ so cooling could be an issue... also check max CPU TDP of your mobo because the 965 throws off significant amounts of heat even at stock.
 
blastingcap said:
Try unlocking the 2nd core and stability testing it if your mobo has a southbridge capable of it.. 710 or higher IIRC. Your mobo is a 710 series so it should be good enough to unlock... probably called Advanced Clock Calibration (ACC) in your BIOS.

http://www.techpowerup.com/101389/Sempron_140_Unlocks_to_Athlon_II_X2.html

Or if you care about stability as a priority, then I'd suggest getting an Athlon II X2 250 or higher (like an Athlon II X2 255, 260, 265, 270). You can also overclock most of those chips fairly easily if your mobo is ok with it. It will be able to play most games just fine because few games can truly max out more than 2 cores at a time anyway. You can get athlon ii x2 270s for about $60 (less when on sale) last time I checked (and athlon ii x2 250s for even less), though 965s go on sale for ~$80 sometimes so it may be worth the extra money if you are not too budget constrained.

You will want to check to make sure your mobo and case cooling in general can handle high wattage CPUs though, particularly if you are overclocking.
Click to expand...
Good suggestion. I'm running an X2 250 OC'd to 4.0 gigs. Feels snappy 😛
 
I run a Phenom II X4 955 (stock at 3.2GHz) that I overclocked to 3.7GHz (Phenom II X4 980 equivalent) without any difficulty.

The 965 would be a great option to your system and a really nice upgrade.

Go for it!
 
The 965 would be a great upgrade, but if your store has it, you could get a Phenom II X4 B93 (2.8GHz) for only $40. Would put out less heat than the 965, saves you some money, and could still be overclocked. You may need a cooler, though, as your Sempron cooler may not be sufficient.
 
AnonymouseUser said:
The 965 would be a great upgrade, but if your store has it, you could get a Phenom II X4 B93 (2.8GHz) for only $40. Would put out less heat than the 965, saves you some money, and could still be overclocked. You may need a cooler, though, as your Sempron cooler may not be sufficient.
Click to expand...

W.T.F. Okay scratch whatever I said about prices, micro center is practically giving CPUs away apparently.. wtf....
 
965 for EOL greatness and max utility value of existing components, the 965 at stock clocks games with an I3 2100 or better. Plus if something fails it is more likely to retain resale value than other processors.
An AthlonII X2 is Pentium G620 territory. Maybe.
 
AnonymouseUser said:
The 965 would be a great upgrade, but if your store has it, you could get a Phenom II X4 B93 (2.8GHz) for only $40. Would put out less heat than the 965, saves you some money, and could still be overclocked. You may need a cooler, though, as your Sempron cooler may not be sufficient.
Click to expand...
For a drop-in replacement I'd go this route as well and do a bus overclock.

For a cooler Newegg has the Corsair A50 for $10 AR thru the 16th. It has a decent AM3 clip mount.
 
SlowSpyder said:
I play HOMM6. Believe it or not, it uses all six threads on my Thuban.


Nice to see another HOMM fan. 🙂
Click to expand...

My wife and I love the HOMM series. When we first got together, I found out she was an expert at HOMM II and would consistently crush me. Now, with HOMM VI, things are a lot more balanced between us and I have a fighting chance 😛

AnonymouseUser said:
The 965 would be a great upgrade, but if your store has it, you could get a Phenom II X4 B93 (2.8GHz) for only $40. Would put out less heat than the 965, saves you some money, and could still be overclocked. You may need a cooler, though, as your Sempron cooler may not be sufficient.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, we went last night and picked-up the 965! But it's plenty fine, I don't have much desire to OC the system. Maybe the next time she needs a little performance boost, I'll check it out, but until then I think it'll be just fine.

Managed to unlock the second core on the Sempron 140 last night, but it looks like it's faulty.

At any rate, I installed the 965 and everything is running great! Fired hom HOMM VI and it works great, good frame rate and very much playable. A marked change from not even working with the Sempron! My only complaint about the 965 is that it's horribly loud, even at idle. The HSF puts out a significant amount of noise; so much so that I can hear it over my system when, even when gaming. I'll definitely be ordering a better case soon and possibly a better cooler to keep that thing cool and quiet.

Thanks for all the help!
 
Microcenter is a steal for CPUs. I'm so mad that my MicroCenter lost their lease and shut down. The PhII still plays most games at over 60fps so you've made a good choice.
 
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