Worth $204 to upgrade from Athlon 64 X2 6000+ to Pheno II 940?

[geepondy]

I currently have an Athlon 64 X2 6000+/Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H combination. At Newegg I see they currently have a Phenom II 940 / BIOSTAR TA790GXB A2+ AM2+ combination for $204 in which it seems essentially they are almost throwing in the mb for free. Would it be worth my money to do that upgrade? Not so much for gaming use although that would be nice as well, but in every day app usage? Specifically what I notice with current system is that still even with the dual core, when I run a CPU intensive program such as decompressing a series of RAR files, it still multitasks quite slow. Also would my current DDR2 800 memory limit the Phenom II's performance?

 

[WildW]

For system responsiveness it could well help. I always remember my first dual-core Athlon64 X2 as an example - at 2.2GHz it was flat out faster than the machine it replaced, a 2 CPU Xeon system (basically 2x 3GHz Pentium 4), at processing, but when it was at full load the machine was sluggish compared to the old brute. Those Xeons were hyperthreaded, so I got 4 threads in task manager, and it seemed to make all the difference to system responsiveness.

Naturally other factors like hard disk speed will have a noticeable effect too, but even over your relatively quick (for AMD) dual core it should feel like a nice upgrade. I wouldn't worry about your DDR2-800 slowing things down - the effect shouldn't be noticable from what I hear people saying. DDR3 is still for ultra-high-end stuff and bragging rights before it makes much difference.

 

[heyheybooboo]

While you are spending the bucks might as well move to AM3 for the extra cost of new RAMs.

Phenom 720BE / Asus 790GX AM3

 

[crisium]

The 940 is the last AM2 CPU ever, so it may be better to move to the newer socket (even though many mobos can take AM3). As for the triple core that guy recommended, it depends on what you want to do. Most new games now are optimized for 3-cores, not 4, making the 720BE a fine choice. As long as you are not using significant CPU power on your desktop while you game, you cannot notice any difference between 3-core and 4-core for gaming. But since you said gaming is not too much a consideration, non gaming applications can definitely take advantage of a fourth core, including encoding and yes even WinRAR.

The advantages of the 720 / Asus combination is that the motherboard is AM3, Asus, and even has x-fire. You can always upgrade to Quad Core (or higher?) in the future since AM3 should be supported for some time. The Biostar's latest drivers support AM3, but who knows for how long.

But if you don't want to buy new RAM, don't mind Biostar and 1 PCI-e slot, and want the better CPU right here and now then get the 940 deal. The next time you'd want to upgrade there may be a better socket than AM3 anyway so you might want to live for the moment since besides X-Fire considerations, the 940 deal will perform faster and be cheaper (no new RAM). So I'd grab the 940 and run with it for a couple years before thinking too much into the future.

Just make sure you read reviews on the motherboard to make sure it is up to your standards in features.

 

[geepondy]

Thanks for the helpful advice thus far. Just curious, current Gigabyte mb has AMD 690G and SB600 chipset. Should I upgrade to either the mentioned Biostar or Asus mb, do you think I could just do a hot swap or would I have to reformat and reinstall Windows XP?

The 940 solution sounds more appealing to me then the 720 (live for the moment for a couple of years) but I really would hope to see a noticeable improvement. Originally I had Athlon 64 X2 4800+ and then saw a good deal on the 89W 6000+ so swapped out CPUs but noticed not really that much of an apparent speed boost. I would hope the 940 would do more for me. I'm also hoping my 9600 GT video card will suffice for awhile.

 

[Denithor]

You've got a choice of

1) X3 720 (2.8GHz) on AM3 board ($185AR) + 4GB DDR3 ($64) = $249
2) X4 940 (3.0GHz) on AM2+ board ($204AR) + your RAM = $204

I've not seen benchmarks showing any significant benefit to AM3/DDR3 versus AM2+/DDR2. So you're getting three slower cores and new memory for $45 more than a faster four-core chip and your existing memory.

I know which I'd choose.

 

[Gikaseixas]

it is worth it, get the 940 and keep your DDR2 ram (savings) or get a 945/955 with new DDR3

 

[soonerproud]

Yes it is absolutely worth it. I upgraded from a X2 4400+ to a X4 955 and the speed difference was quite noticeable in about every task I do except web browsing.

My advice if you don't upgrade your PC frequently and you don't game is to get the X4 940 deal and use your existing system memory. The X3 720 is a processor I would only recommend to a gamer on a really tight budget. I certainly would never recommend it over a X4 940 which is clocked higher and is a cheaper upgrade when using your old memory. If you are the type that sits on a PC for a few years, then you should take advantage of this very cheap upgrade for the next few years.

 

[starfireone]

Go with an Intel board and Intel CPU if you are looking for better performance. Intel always out performs AMD. Besides, you can get an Intel combo deal for around the same bucks you are planning to spend. Just my two cents!

 

[Eureka]

Originally posted by: starfireone
Go with an Intel board and Intel CPU if you are looking for better performance. Intel always out performs AMD. Besides, you can get an Intel combo deal for around the same bucks you are planning to spend. Just my two cents!

A 940 and motherboard for $190... I'd like to see an equivalent Intel deal.

 

[Gikaseixas]

Originally posted by: starfireone
Go with an Intel board and Intel CPU if you are looking for better performance. Intel always out performs AMD. Besides, you can get an Intel combo deal for around the same bucks you are planning to spend. Just my two cents!

WOW

 

[faxon]

Originally posted by: starfireone
Go with an Intel board and Intel CPU if you are looking for better performance. Intel always out performs AMD. Besides, you can get an Intel combo deal for around the same bucks you are planning to spend. Just my two cents!

lmao i would love to see a combo deal with a similarly performing intel CPU (Q9550) for this price, considering the intel CPUs alone cost more than this.

 

[geepondy]

Back to one of my earlier questions. Current mb has AMD 690G and SB600 chipset while the Biostar has 790GX/SB750. Are they close enough so I could do a hot swap and XP would still run ok or will I have to do a reformat? If I have to do a reformat and reload, maybe better to wait until Windows 7 comes out so I won't have to repeat the process just a few months from now.

 

[Eureka]

Originally posted by: geepondy
Back to one of my earlier questions. Current mb has AMD 690G and SB600 chipset while the Biostar has 790GX/SB750. Are they close enough so I could do a hot swap and XP would still run ok or will I have to do a reformat? If I have to do a reformat and reload, maybe better to wait until Windows 7 comes out so I won't have to repeat the process just a few months from now.

For such a drastic change I'd recommend reformatting anyway, you might be able to save your installation if you remove all the drivers and then install the new ones.

I don't know why so many people hate reformatting.

 

[geepondy]

It's reinstalling the 30 or more apps and games. Some of them are time consuming such as MS Office.

Originally posted by: Eureka

I don't know why so many people hate reformatting.

 

[Eureka]

Originally posted by: geepondy
It's reinstalling the 30 or more apps and games. Some of them are time consuming such as MS Office.

Originally posted by: Eureka
I don't know why so many people hate reformatting.

MS Office takes about 10 minutes to install or less. I reformat every season and it doesn't bother me much...

 

[Denithor]

Try this.

Otherwise download the Win 7 RC and use that for a year free then upgrade to Win 7. Or simply wait a few months until Win 7 launches.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

Originally posted by: Crisium
The 940 is the last AM2 CPU ever, so it may be better to move to the newer socket (even though many mobos can take AM3).

Eh, not true. AM3 Phenom II processors will work in AM2 boards. The Phenom 955 does.

 

[hans007]

Originally posted by: heyheybooboo
While you are spending the bucks might as well move to AM3 for the extra cost of new RAMs.

Phenom 720BE / Asus 790GX AM3

wait why would he spend more money to get ddr3 which isnt really going to do much and get a 720 be instead of a 940...


Also an SB750 from an SB600 would require no reinstall of windows.


People who think its a "dirty" install, are pretty ill informed, as it will just reinstall your LAN drivers and sound card .

the driver stack for the chipset is still catalyst so it would probalby jsut redetect it automatically.

Maybe it'd be slightly more of a dirty install if say you have an nvidia chipset , but even then you basically never have to reinstall a system these days unless you actaully corrupted the install (with say faulty memory or o/cing)

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: geepondy
Specifically what I notice with current system is that still even with the dual core, when I run a CPU intensive program such as decompressing a series of RAR files, it still multitasks quite slow. Also would my current DDR2 800 memory limit the Phenom II's performance?

Buying a new processor won't fix this. The reason you're having slow downs is because you're not assigning the correct CPU priority to certain tasks. Without telling Windows what to do, it just assumes that your file decompression is as important as reading your email, so it will try to share performance between them. Even if you have the absolute fastest processor in the world, it will still lag because of this.

To get around this problem, go to Task Manager. Click on the "processes" tab and look for the program that is using the most CPU power (divx encoding, file compression, other). Right click on the process, put the mouse over "set priority", select "low".

If the system still sucks, it's probably due to a lack of ram. You can run nearly infinite tasks at "low" priority without any slow downs as long as you have enough memory. My computer has 3200mb usable, so I regularly do things like encode xvid in the background while I'm playing Fallout 3. This works great as long as you have enough ram.

edit:
I should also say that assigning bad CPU priority will cause horrible slow downs as well. For example, if I run an infinitely CPU hungry task like file compression and assign it to use only 1 core, the computer will still freeze if I give it realtime priority. You can't just say that adding more cores allows more tasks to run at one time since that simply is not true. Locking up 1 core can bring the entire system down, regardless of how many cores you have. (the system will unfreeze itself when the compression is finished).
A similar lag is seen if certain games are assigned high CPU priority. Quake 4, for example, has horrible mouse and keyboard lag at high priority, but the game runs great at "above normal" priority.

 

[hans007]

file decompression also uses hard disks. you cannot block i/o ports and expect your system to not slow down at all for all tasks. your disk will be a bottleneckno matter what cpu you have.

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: hans007
file decompression also uses hard disks. you cannot block i/o ports and expect your system to not slow down at all for all tasks. your disk will be a bottleneckno matter what cpu you have.

That's the other problem seen on older computers. One of my friends is still using an Athlon 2400+ with a GeForce 4 MX video card and 2gb of ram but the only part that's too slow is the hard drive. I'm very certain his computer would run like a champ if it had a high end hard drive like a raptor or RE3.

It also helps a lot if you have a second hard drive. Running something like bit torrent on the main hard drive can cause major slow downs, but running it on the secondary hard drive can have little or no effect on system performance. This is one of those cases where RAID 0 does absolutely nothing, but 2 separate hard drives does lots.

 

[WaitingForNehalem]

Your board supports the AM2+ P2's, but your HT will be downgraded to 1.0.

http://www.gigabyte.us/Support...l.aspx?ProductID=2579v

http://www.gigabyte.us/Support...el.aspx?ProductID=2554