Upgrade Question: 720BE to 1090T Worth it?

[Farmer]

Is this even worth the $200?

Thinking about upgrading a 2 year old computer, 720BE -> 1090TBE, HD4870 -> GTX 460 or 6950, Caviar Black -> Crucial SSD for boot.

I am currently on a 790GX AM3 mobo, so I'm just swapping out the CPU. The current 720BE on a mild overclock (3.2GHz on the OEM HSF).

Gaming will be the primary resource consuming task.

 

[Mopetar]

Is this even worth the $200?

Thinking about upgrading a 2 year old computer, 720BE -> 1090TBE, HD4870 -> GTX 460 or 6850, Caviar BE -> Crucial SSD for boot.

I am currently on a 790GX AM3 mobo, so I'm just swapping out the CPU. The current 720BE on a mild overclock (3.2GHz on the OEM HSF).

Gaming will be the primary resource consuming task.

Probably not. The 720 should be fine for most games and you'll get more mileage from upgrading the graphics and hard disk. If you want a CPU upgrade I'd go with SB if you want it now or wait for BD or IB if you want to upgrade later.

 

[richierich1212]

Well the SSD will improve general OS tasks. What games are you playing? And at what resolution?

 

[Farmer]

1680x1050. I play SC2 mostly, looking forward to Crysis 2 and Shogun Total War.

My current card is suffering from some overheating issue, as it likes to dump me out of SC2 after a few rounds. It also overheats to game crashing the few times I've played NFSHP.

I'm leaning towards no change on the CPU front and 6950 on the graphics. However, I would like a cooler graphics card on a more stable driver set. I've always had intermittent heat and driver stability issues with ATI/AMD (two cards, X1950XT and HD4870, both Sapphire make).

 

[ensign_lee]

Well if your graphics card is overheating, I'd replace that first.

 

[Farmer]

Well if your graphics card is overheating, I'd replace that first.

That's not necessarily a graphics card issue, could be any number of things, like software, case.... Idk.

I'd like to discuss upgrade options here in this thread.

 

[Rhoxed]

Farmer, having both a 720 BE and 1090T it is not worth the upgrade for gaming.

The only improvement in games I noticed was from the clock speed boost, and it was a few FPS at most. (my 720BE runs quad @ 3.6ghz 24/7) (my 1090T runs @ 4.1ghz 24/7)

Since *most* games don't use more than 3 cores you should be fine till you can get a more robust CPU upgrade (ie: ivy bridge or BD if it stacks up)

If you plan on doing any encoding or any heavily threaded workloads, the 1090T is a great upgrade.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/146?vs=83

 

[Vette73]

No the 6 core is not best for most games. I am sure there is 1 or 2 but that is more rare than common.

I would just try to overclock a little more and wait till early next year, or late this year, to see what AMD/Intel has.

You can get a SSD now and carry that over same with the video card.
But I am waiting for the SSDs to come down some more and also get the 2nd gen controller chips.

 

[exar333]

4---> 6 core upgrade for gaming would be marginal, at best. As some others said, wait for BD or go with a whole new SB system right now. If you used more multi-threaded applications, then the hexacore would be a great upgrade option, or just for an extended epeen...

 

[Farmer]

OK, well I'm going 6950 and a new CPU cooler to bump the overclock. Thanks for the replies.

 

[Arkaign]

OP didn't specify if the 720BE was unlocked?

Anyway, I don't think the 1090T is worth it at $200. If you can find a deal on say a 955BE for ~$135-145ish, I think that'd be a decent upgrade once you resold the 720, assuming you couldn't unlock the 720 to 4 cores already, and then hit about 3.6ghz or so. That would pair nicely with a new video card.

3-core 720 at 3.2ghz is getting fairly marginal pretty quick. Even the 955BE and 1090T will soon become a bit marginal themselves, but a bit less so.

Ideal would be to go to even a low-end SB system, doens't have to be the K series, even the 2300 or so would flat dominate any of that stuff.

 

[bryanW1995]

OK, well I'm going 6950 and a new CPU cooler to bump the overclock. Thanks for the replies.

of course, nobody mentioned that sc2 actually benefits from the extra cores even though most games don't. I agree that the 6950 + new cpu cooler is your optimal solution, however. check on case fans as well.

 

[Cerb]

Your CPU puts you in the same class as those of us with mid-to-late Core 2s: there's faster, but the upgrade cost is just a bit too high for the real benefit, at the moment. If you changed to an Intel, and got a nice SB, for $300-400, you could have a very nice CPU upgrade. $200? You technically can get faster AMD CPUs, but you'd be better off with a 1156 i3 and cheapish OC-friendly mobo to OC the bejeezus out of it with, than to swap to a faster AMD (unless you can make good use of the extra cores, that is).

If such a CPU upgrade is over budget, hold off a little on that, and buy when you can afford a greater leap in performance. OTOH, if moving to a 6850 or 6870 would open up enough free cash to move to SB, especially if you could somehow swing a K chip, that would be the best way to go. FI, a Sapphire 6850 w/ MIR would free up almost $100 by itself, requiring $30-60 more (depends on if you can live w/ 2 RAM slots or not) to get a decent mATX mobo and a 2500K. At 1680x1050, even w/ plenty of AA&AF, a 6950 would be more than you'd need, and SC2 would be especially starved, v. a bit lesser video card, and a real CPU upgrade.

 

[Farmer]

Thanks for that response Cerb.

The cost difference between a 6950 and 6850 is acceptable to me. Swapping to Sandy Bridge i5 is also acceptable to me, cost-wise. Any sub-$1000 computer is essentially fine to me financially. I just feel that I would not benefit too greatly from the increased processor speed, or at least, not as much as I would from a faster graphics card.

I think I will go with the more powerful graphics card now, see how the system performs, and once the P67 B3 mobos are more plentiful, reconsider the possibility of moving to Sandy Bridge a few months in the future. I definitely like the idea of a K SB, and will make sure to get a beefy cooler now that I can swap over.

That would be my first Intel desktop CPU since the Northwood P4, but BD doesn't look like its going to be the next Athlon. That would be a total platform upgrade anyway, so it's in the same boat as switching to Intel.

Thanks for the help.

 

[Zap]

I think I will go with the more powerful graphics card now, see how the system performs, and once the P67 B3 mobos are more plentiful, reconsider the possibility of moving to Sandy Bridge a few months in the future. I definitely like the idea of a K SB, and will make sure to get a beefy cooler now that I can swap over.

:thumbsup:

Both those upgrades (graphics card, CPU cooler) can be moved to your next platform so they are money well spent. Also, in a few months we may (or may not) know more about how BD will perform, thus you may be able to make a more informed decision.

 

[Xellos2099]

TBH.... I jump from phenom II x4 940 to I5 sandy 2500k and I see a huge performance boost on sc II and mmo...

 

[soccerballtux]

of course, nobody mentioned that sc2 actually benefits from the extra cores even though most games don't. I agree that the 6950 + new cpu cooler is your optimal solution, however. check on case fans as well.

no, that game is coded to favor Intel and >4 core CPUs, otherwise how does going from 3 cores to 5 net you 0% performance gain but 5->6 and you gain 15%? Heh. Right Blizzard, we believe that. For the same reason having 8 threads lets you do even better!! Never mind that cores/threads 3, 4, 5, and 7 aren't doing anything.

Reminds me of when Blizzard moderators were talking back and forth about how great Intel CPUs were because of Turbo increasing one CPU core's speed by 133Mhz...

Sorry this stuff just makes me bitter.

 

[perdomot]

I considered this same thing last year and opted for a i5-760 upgrade because even with a large megahertz advantage and two more cores, the 760 beat the X6 on most benches. The new SB chips are even faster so I would opt for a P67 combo myself. Here is the article with the benchies:http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/cpu-benchmark-highend.html

 

[BD231]

Yeah the Phenom II's EOL (end of life) right now, it's only saving grace the fact that console's haven't been updated in over five years making it a viable gaming platform.

Certainly not worth the upgrade, save your DDR3 for a new next gen chip and motherboard, you'll get a lot more for your money.