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Would it be worth jumping ship right now?

SonnyDaze

SonnyDaze

Diamond Member
I currently have a GA-EP45-UD3R mobo and a Q9400 (runs @ 3.4). I have someone locally who is wanting an upgrade themselves and have offered $275 for my combo (which I think would be fair market considering price drops). Btw, this IS NOT a price check it is a sanity check on my own part.

I considered this offer and was thinking of dumping the 775 socket (EOL maybe?) and going to AMD AM3 side (considering x3 720 or x4 955).

I know it's hard to say where the AM3 will go and some will say the 775 still has years ahead of it. I'm not looking to future proof but I think this just might be a way out for a socket that is nearing EOL.

Thoughts? Am I nuts? 😕

Notes:
Purpose of current build is gaming (mainly RTS but do a bit of FSX flight sim)
Monitor is Dell 23" @ 1920x1080
VC currently 4830 but moving to a 4890
Yes I do overclock. 🙂
 
socket 775 is EOL. it has 0 days 0 months 0 years ahead of it. It's fast and cost effective, but EOL. intel has nothing in the pipeline that'll be 775 compatible (even the atom has an iMCH on its way), but they will continue to manufacture the current lineup of CPU/chipset parts for some time.

AM3 will be longer-lived, but i'm not sure how much longer, seeing as there's so much talk of socket G34 for sao paolo/magny-cours derived products. G34 is, however, the replacement for Socket F. The enlargement of the socket has to do with the move to quad-channel DDR3 and a wider hypertransport bus. These refinements have already made their way into the consumer segment with AM3, so perhaps AMD covered that base early.

At any rate, you could help your friend out, and you'd have enough money to move to a nice AM3 setup. Personally I'd wait for intel P55, though. You'd be in for higher performance and higher overclocks and all we can say is that socket-1156 will last at least as long as AM3. Unless you take the callisto-unlocking route, you're going to be getting a 945/955 which is going to put you in the lynnfield price range. it's definitely something to consider because lynnfield is architecturally superior and performance data exhibits this.
 
The only socket that we can expect to offer good upgrade options a year from now is LGA 1156, which releases in a week. At the very least, 32nm processors will be available for that socket, and those will attain higher clocks than 45nm parts available today.

LGA 775 will never offer anything that isn't currently offered; it is EOL, so the best LGA 775 machine you can make now is the best LGA 775 machine that will ever be.

AM3 is just an open question. Given that AMD is behind on the performance curve, only having recently caught up in the lower price segment (what, a year and a half after phenom debuted?), I wonder whether a move to a better socket will be an important architectural move for them.

Core i5 will cost $375-400 as a starting point for a basic board, 4GB RAM and a 750 model proc. Given what you've got, that's the only sensible upgrade I can recommend. AMD machines costing $275 probably won't get you your current performance, so you're really just gambling on whether there's an AM3 CPU that's better a year from now. If you're going to spent $275 now so (maybe) there's a better $150-200 CPU a year from now to upgrade to, just upgrade to a socket 1156 intel next week and spend the $400 now.
 
I have to agree. You could make the AM3 upgrade possible for $275, but the risk would be that your callisto either can't unlock or can't hit ~3.7GHz to match your present system. And even if it does, it won't be anything like a 4 ghz lynnfield. You could easily make the lynnfield happen for $375, so you'd only be in for an extra $100.
 
As I understand it, the x4 955 isn't going to give you much of a perf boost over an o/c 9400, you may not even notice it.

And after the sale, you'll spend around $100 to switch, plus the days needed to rip apart your machine and put it back together, then re-install Windows, service packs, criticals, apps and utilities, app patches and their criticals, games and game patches, configuring Windows, etc. Then you get started on over-clocking the new proc, make a few mistakes, work to get it stable, blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, I think yer nuts.
 
Like was said above, if you decide to sell, move to an i5 setup. It's about the only way to be sure your upgrade path is viable for more than a year....esp. given AMD's recent history in constantly changing sockets, despite their claims that the latest one will be longer lasting than the last. Heard that with 754, 939, AM2, AM2+, and now AM3. Each, outside AM3, lasted approx. 2 years. What do you want to bet there will be a replacement for AM3, basically making current AM3 cpus, obsolete within a year or so? Not a gamble I'm willing to take.
 
Originally posted by: Slugbait
Yeah, I think yer nuts.
Click to expand...

Yeah I think so too. 🙁 Well I figured if I went to the AM3 X4 and didn't notice a difference there wouldn't be much lost and I would still have a some what upgradeable path later (though that's always a gamble too)

Don't want to jump into i5 just yet either. Don't want to get stuck experimenting BIOS with a new platform. And i7 is a bit pricey for me still.

Well I'll just hang onto the Q9400 and see where it goes. It's not like I'm needing a performance uprade. Guess the bug just bit me for a second there. 😛

 
Sounds like a lot of work for questionable performance improvements. Are you having speed issues with the Q9400?

You can keep your current rig for another year and STILL sell the components (especially the Q9400) for at least $200. I wouldn't want to go to the trouble and time and expense to buy new components and re-install the OS (and maybe the whole system) for the minimal gains you'd see. A year from now you can better decide whether you want to go Intel or AMD.
 
the only way this makes sense is because your yorkfield isn't going to be worth $275 in a year. it isn't even worth that right now. it's just nice that you have a friend who'll take it off your hands for a good price so that you can upgrade to a 100% new/upgradeable platform for only $100. a q9400 at 3.4 is nothing like an i5 at 4.0. there will be significant gains, but based on your usage you may never see them. it's still worth it because you can dump your lame duck system for some cash.
 
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