Worth the processor upgrade?

Here's my custom-built system:

Athlon II X3, 3.0 Ghz OC'd to 3.47 ghz
4 GB Kingston Hyper-X DDR3 RAM 1333 (@1286)
Radeon HD 5770
Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid HDD
ASUS AM3 Motherboard, ITX form factor

I'm considering upgrading the processor to a Phenom II X6, probably the 3.2 ghz Black Edition one, and overclocking it as well. Anyone have any advice as to the worthiness of this upgrade? Would I notice it in things such as games or general Windows performance?

Either CPU is fine really, but the x6 would be the winner. The rig is gonna kick like a mother, so no, you wont be short on performance.

I just upgraded my system from:

Intel E8600 Core2 Duo 3.33GHz
Intel DX38BT LGA775 Motherboard
4GB Corsair 1333MHz RAM
AMD Radeon 5850 1GB Video Card
Samsung 500GB Hard Drive

to:

Intel Core i5 2500k (Quad) 3.33GHz
Gigabyte P67 B3 Motherboard
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB Hard Drive

The upgrade definitely made a difference in games that utilize more than 2 cores, I was playing Rift at the time and my framerates jumped up going from 20-36fps to roughly 40-60 fps. Of course software that uses multiple cores showed a lot of improvement, Handbrake encodes went from 1.3 hours to .4 hours per movie, PhotoShop and Blender lots more zippy.

However, given you have 3 cores and would be going to 6, I'm not sure how much benefit you'll see in gaming. I would think a video card upgrade might give you more bang for the buck. Best to have a look for benchmarks, like from Tom's Hardware or AnandTech hopefully there's something that has the 2 processors so you can really see what the improvement will give you. That's what I did. I was considering going to the Core2Quad instead of the Core i5, but the architecture was the same... so only games that used all four cores would actually improve performance as the individual processor performance is (obviously) the same between a Core2Due and Core2Quad.

Hope that helps!

Thanks for your input thus far. Btw remember it's not just going from 3 cores to 6, it's going from Athlon II to Phenom II, so I'd be getting a processor with L3 cache. (whatever that means, anyone know?)

Well, it sounds like you should see some benefit then. As I said, apps should definitely benefit... games, well, depends on the game.

Here's a comparison from Tom's Hardware.

If we are only talking games then you won't see any difference in most games.

Radeon HD 5770 is just to slow.

To see a difference with a processor upgrade you need a gtx560ti or a AMD 6870 or better. Still the small difference in clock speed between the x6 and x3 makes little difference.

My Rig:
AMD Phenom™II X6 1090T OC'd to 4.00 ghz
Asetek 510LC Liquid Cooling System
8GB DDR3 RAM 1600 A-Data Gaming Series
Radeon HD 5870
GigaByte GA-890GPA-UD3H
64 GB Kingston 2.5 inch SATA Gaming MLC Solid State Disk

"Would I notice it in things such as games..." - with this upgrade alone...a little...maybe ~5-10%, mostly due to the cache and chip arcitechture and slightly better clock speed

or general Windows performance? - with this upgrade alone...I think a little more...maybe ~25%

Benchmarking is your best bet...I use 3DMark to benchmark

GW doesn't need a powerful rig to play....If you are gonna try Aion, Crysis, etc...well that's a different story

That would depend upon the game etc. In theory it should allow you to run games at faster frame rates and higher graphics settings, but if you are already playing games at 60fps and max settings, then there obviously won't be any change.
A better video card would make more of a difference (not that the 5770 is a slouch in any sense).
Not much - can you tell when a window opens in 0.4 seconds instead of 0.43 seconds? An SSD would be better at improving Windows performance.

Overall, a faster CPU in this case, would show up more in CPU intensive tasks like large spreadsheets, video editing, etc.

I game at hi res where performance is 95% dependent on the GPU anyway...

My current gaming rig specs are:
- Windows 7 64-bit
- AMD Phenom II X6 1090T (3.2 GHz)
- ATI 5970
- 8 GB Memory
- ASUS M4A79T Deluxe motherboard

Last upgrade to the system was going from an AMD Phenom II X4 3.2 to the X6 -- which I bought on the day it was commercially available locally. (Had to flash the BIOS before my MB would recognize the X6 processor. )

After this upgrade I never really noticed any real difference with GW FPS-wise. However, it's a different story with other games and apps (such as handbrake) that made more use of the extra cores.

But going from 3 cores to 6 cores, I'd say you may notice more of a difference (but likely not that much in GW).

Maybe I'll buy a SSD instead...

Save your money and buy a "proper" upgrade at some point, I doubt you'll see much of an improvement from what you are considering.

This kind of response isn't very helpful since money isn't an issue for me.

have you considered trying to unlock your x3 or it didnt work?

Ok sorry, I assumed it was.

If money isn't an issue get an Intel motherboard and an i7-2500k cpu like sc2071 suggested.

Unfortunately it didn't work. The other X3 I built for a friend though is now an x4...


If you read the OP you'd realize this also doesn't answer the question.

Then why are you considering a minimal upgrade like the a x3 to a x6?
if money was no issue you should get a i7 or wait for a bulldozer and grab a HD6970 (or 2). Also grab a ssd while you are at it.

Which would be what this guy calls a proper upgrade where things will feel faster. Unless you tell me you are doing video encoding the x3 to x6 upgrade is useless.

Really depends on what games you're playing.

My last setup wasn an AM2+, first with an Athlon II X3 425 @ 3.45 GHz (not unlocked), then a Phenom II X4 955 @ 4 GHz. The only real benefit was in Bad Company 2 which is fairly heavily threaded. The only advantage of 6 cores over 4 or 3 is apps that are very heavily threaded.

In Jan I replaced that with a 2500k @ 4.8 GHz which simply crushed the Phenom II. The Thuban (X6) Phenom II's generally do overclock a little better than other AMD chips, and of course have a core advantage but per clock cycle the i5 / i7 are more efficient and the new Sandy Bridges are ridiculously easy to overclock.

I'd say if you want an upgrade either go with Sandy Bridge or buy one of the newer AMD mobos that has an AM3+ socket (they are block sockets, for example this) and keep using your Athlon II until Bulldozer comes out. Mind you AM3+ support on the 800 series chipsets is unofficial though.

It kinda did, get a proper upgrade = not worth it, I would even go so far to call it a complete waste of money.

*Sigh*

Yes I realize I could basically get rid of my computer and buy a new one with entirely different processor, RAM, GPU, HDD, mobo, and PSU. Why do you feel the need to say this when it's so stupidly obvious and therefore completely meaningless? This thread is about upgrading from one point to another...

I do play Civ V which I think uses 4+ threads... And also I'd be going from a processor with no L3 cache to one with it... And I could probably overclock a Thuban a bit higher than the x3 (it's a Rana 440 btw). With these elements in mind I think it's a valid question. But your opinion of "just get a whole new computer" is duly noted, lol...

Incidentally I do have my eye on the June 11th Bulldozer release date. I think they'll drop into AM3 boards right?

No they won't, it has an extra pin and needs an AM3+ socket. There are a few boards out now with AM3+ sockets (again they are black sockets) but support is unofficial for the 800 series chipsets (900 series comes out with Bulldozer).

The L3 cache with Phenom's doesn't really make that big of difference for gaming either, i.e. an X4 Athlon II @ 3.4 GHz would be almost identical to a Phenom II X4 @ 3.4 GHz. The only difference is black edition Phenoms are simpler to overclock.

Yeap, I'm behind the times on this info. Late last year the web was buzzing with compatibility fantasies.

Being simpler to overclock isn't much of a benefit to me as I'm content to fiddle with conventional BIOS-level oc'ing till my eyes hurt. The benefit of unlocked Blacks is mostly in not overclocking the RAM at the same time as the CPU, right?

an AMD BE CPU has an unlocked multiplier; what that means is that to achieve a nice respectable OC you merely have to raise that multiplier. It makes it easier and faster with higher headroom for those extreme Overclocks. It's worth the premium if you intend to OC at all imo.

Basically yes, and it's easier. Since you are overclocking with the multiplier it keeps the FSB fixed at 200, which in turn keeps the memory at a standard clock since that is set as a ratio of the FSB. That's a plus for stability and simplicity but a negative if you want to squeeze more performance out of your memory (which is usually negligible outside specific benchmarks).

Elder is technically right too, higher FSB and hyper transport speeds can boost performance slightly but again it's usually a negligible amount outside benchmarks. Somewhere on the overclockers.com forum there is scientific analysis of optimum FSB and HT settings, and by optimum I mean an advantage of a fraction of a second in benchmark or fraction of frame in an actual game.

Oh and the AM3 / AM3+ business. I think AMD wanted to make Bulldozer backwards compatible with AM3 sockets but needed the extra pin for a new power management feature that can turn off idle cores. Considering how small the enthusiast market is and how many people would actually take advantage of backwards compatibility, and that they make money producing chipsets (new mobo = chipset sale) it didn't really make sense in the end though. Power efficiency is a very big deal in enterprise environments and is becoming more important in consumer level products too.