Upgrade from Phenom II x4 945

[mricks86]

I am currently running a Phenom II X4 945 with 8gb of RAM and a GTX 670. This is the max CPU and max amount of RAM I can run on my motherboard. I have a friend who is looking to get rid of his Intel i7 950 and motherboard (and he's throwing in a couple 1gb sticks of RAM) for under $200. Is this worth the upgrade?

This board is a little further upgradeable for the CPU to the i7 Extremes (it has X58 Express chipset) and has a max RAM capacity of 24gb on 6 RAM slots vs my current 4 slots and max of 8gb. So I would end up with an i7 950 and 10gb of RAM vs my old setup of Phenom II X4 945 with 8gb. I'm just weighing the cost versus the amount of upgrade I'm getting. Any opinions would be appreciated, thanks.

 

[Essence_of_War]

I'm just weighing the cost versus the amount of upgrade I'm getting. Any opinions would be appreciated, thanks.

What sort of stuff are doing on this machine? The presence of a 670 indicates gaming to me?

PII945->i7-950 for gaming is kind of a sidegrade. For ~$200, that's a pretty pricey sidegrade.

 

[Ramses]

sounds spendy for not a ton of up. is the x58 the one people run the cheap xeons in?

 

[coolpurplefan]

I'm not sure it's ideal to mix different brands of RAM together.

The CPU is entirely up to you. I got like twice the performance going from an E8500 to i5-4570.

 

[NTMBK]

I'd go for it. The i7-950 isn't a bad chip in itself, and you can get some kickass 6-core Xeons to go in those LGA-1366 boards really cheap on eBay. What model of motherboard is it?

 

[mricks86]

This computer is mainly used for my casual use, so I do some gaming, and some Photoshop work on it also, I run two 24'' monitors. The motherboard is a SuperMicro X8STE. I talked my buddy down to $175.

From what research I've done the CPU is a little bit of an upgrade, but not a ton. The idea of further upgradeability would be a plus though, especially the RAM.

 

[Blitzvogel]

I'd say wait, and move to a newer quad core like a Haswell i5. It'll have alot more CPU grunt for stuff like Photoshop.

 

[soccerballtux]

I'm not sure it's ideal to mix different brands of RAM together.

The CPU is entirely up to you. I got like twice the performance going from an E8500 to i5-4570.

it's perfectly fine top have different branded RAM

 

[Ramses]

It's fine to wear mismatched socks too but it's not desirable or optimal.
I've done both but not when I had a choice.

 

[AtenRa]

Wait for Core i3/5 Skylake.

 

[soccerballtux]

It's fine to wear mismatched socks too but it's not desirable or optimal.
I've done both but not when I had a choice.

I can't believe you're serious

 

[Ramses]

I never joke about socks.

 

[sm625]

i7-950 is hardly a sidegrade from a phenom X4 945. It would be 50% more multithreaded performance and 30% more single threaded performance. You might get better overclocking performance by disabling HT. Ask your friend what clocks he had it running at and if he can guarantee a 3.6GHz overclock.

 

[Lyfer]

I would do it for $50-$75. He's asking too much.

 

[Ramses]

i7-950 is hardly a sidegrade from a phenom X4 945. It would be 50% more multithreaded performance and 30% more single threaded performance. You might get better overclocking performance by disabling HT. Ask your friend what clocks he had it running at and if he can guarantee a 3.6GHz overclock.

Feels like a sidegrade for the money might be more accurate.
For a hundred bucks or so maybe it'd be a good upgrade.

 

[coolpurplefan]

i7-950 is hardly a sidegrade from a phenom X4 945. It would be 50% more multithreaded performance and 30% more single threaded performance. You might get better overclocking performance by disabling HT. Ask your friend what clocks he had it running at and if he can guarantee a 3.6GHz overclock.

The first time I learned how to build a computer I had a horrible experience where I literally switched mobo/CPU/RAM three times in a matter of months because I was continuously unsatisfied with the build. If I remember correctly, it was Unreal Tournament 2004 that was really challenging my machine. The benchmarks I saw maybe could say 50% improvement but the real-world experience was only slight improvements.

For another example, year later I later compared an Athlon 5400+ and Intel E8500 with Camtasia 7, I noticed I could record at 30fps with the E8500 but only 15fps with the 5400+. The movements were smoother with the E8500 but still a little twitchy. The i5-4570 gave me what I wanted, totally smooth movements in videos and takes less than half the time than the E8500. The difference between the 5400+ and E8500 was 50%. The difference between the E8500 and i5-4570 was about 100%.

This is just my own personal opinion but overall, I believe you need a 100% improvement in CPU performance for an upgrade to be worth it.

 

[mizzou]

If you are able to OC your chip as far as you can...it still keeps you pretty much at the middle road of gaming CPU's out today.

The most recent CPU's out are just efficiency gains...nothing real substantial in power.

Mine is running at 3.6ghz right now and I could probably do 3.8 or 4.0 if I want to push the life out of it...but not really worthwhile.

Me...I'm going to wait a year or so before I do a full upgrade.