Worth upgrading to 990FX or 970 and DDR3?

[blackphoenix]

I've been tossing and turning lately, I've come into some cash and want to upgrade my desktop. I already know I'll be upgrading my video card, likely to a 560TI or 6870, but I honestly don't know if its worth upgrading to the 990FX or 970 AMD motherboard and DDR3.

Currently:
-AMD 1100 x6 @ 3.7ghz (stock voltage)
-4x 2gb OCZ HPC-Reaper DDR2-800
-Gigabyte MA770-UD3 (710 Southbridge)
-PNY 9600 GSO 768mb GDDR3
-Crucial C300 64gb SSD (Boot)
-Corsair Force 115gb SSD (Games)
-Corsair 650w PSU, Can't recall the model but has Single 12v Line.

Anyways, from what I've read I'd obviously gain some SSD performance on the C300 going to native 6Gbps SATA, but is the 950 Southbridge any better than my 710 in general for SATA performance? More so, enough gain to warrant replacing the Motherboard/Ram?

Or would it be more worth my time grabbing a second C300 64gb and doing Raid?

I'm not a high end gamer, friends and I largely stick to games from 2009ish. The 9600 GSO is hold up, but I've had to turn off some of the flashy effects.

Thanks!

 

[dpk33]

If you're getting a new motherboard, I suggest you should get a new CPU as well. AMD isn't doing so well at the moment, and Intel blows AMD out of the water with their Sandy Bridge. If you can, get a cheap p67 motherboard and 2500k.

And btw, i'll be more than happy to take that 9600 gso off your hands

 

[blackphoenix]

Well I'm sure I'd see some performance gains from going to the 2500k, I wouldn't imagine the gains would be worth the added CPU cost. $200 or so for the 2500k.

Besides wouldn't the Z68 be the better chipset?

Why would you want the 9600GSO? I would have thought they're largely subpar cards at this point...

 

[dpk33]

Yea.. it is quite a big and expensive upgrade. Well, I hear the 990fx chipsets have no real benefits over the 890fx/790fx other than supporting the unreleased bulldozer, which most people believe won't turn out so well.

And the only thing the Z68 has over the P67 are integrated graphics and ssd caching, if it's important to you.

And I just need to find a cheap card that can play League of Legends so I'd be glad to take it off your hands unless you have other plans for it.

 

[StrangerGuy]

A DDR2 to DDR3 "upgrade" is absolute worst thing you can ever do, even with DDR3 now at rock-bottom prices.

Just stick with what you have now, no point upgrading to things you won't utilize.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Wait until bulldozer comes out to see if its worth your money, since you have a pretty nice build

 

[blackphoenix]

Yeah, I wasn't upgrading for DDR3 specifically. I thought the newer SB950 would give me better SATA performance. No biggie.

Should I still consider the 560/6870 upgrade?

 

[Spikesoldier]

A DDR2 to DDR3 "upgrade" is absolute worst thing you can ever do, even with DDR3 now at rock-bottom prices.

Just stick with what you have now, no point upgrading to things you won't utilize.

this.

OP I would go with a 460, 560ti, 6950, or 6870 like you mentioned.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

depending on your resolution, your GPU choice will also change

 

[Puppies04]

+1 for the 560TI, my MSI twin frozr 560 ti is cool quiet and overclocks by about 20% (running it back at standard atm though and it chews BF2)

 

[jhansman]

FWIW, I faced the same choice a while back, and as you can see in my sig, I went with the 890FX for the reasons stated-no real gain in opting for the 990FX, and it was less $$. My previous system was an X4 810 and DDR2, and contrary to what has been said here, I can definitely see a difference in overall performance, but then I also running an SSD drive for my OS and select apps.

I look at it this way: I can move up to BD if it proves worthwhile, or stay where I am, which is more than enough system for now. I am glad, however, that I am not confined to USB 2.0, SATA2, and DDR2. I am particularly glad I was able to to this and not give a penny to the evil empire.

 

[mfenn]

this.

OP I would go with a 460, 560ti, 6950, or 6870 like you mentioned.

Thirded.