# Should I?



## ZentratheFox (Sep 29, 2009)

Okay, I've been eyeballing the new PhII 965 (for sale for $215 w/ promo code), and I'm getting more and more tempted to upgrade to it, an AM3 board, 8GB DDR3, etc. I'm already grabbing some 5870s in the near future.

The question is: is it worth it?

This is my current rig. Would it be worth scrapping all that and going AM3/DDR3 for the 5870s? (would be replacing mobo/proc/ram/video)

Note: other option is always to put the processor in my current board. Could do that, but I don't know if that will give me any significant gains...


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## Runefox (Sep 29, 2009)

Short answer: No.

Long answer: Well, it depends. Do you have any need to upgrade, or do you just have some cash to burn? In either case, it's not going to give you much in the way of the significant gains you're looking for, except in terms of RAM capacity, which might give you a bit of wiggle room in the coming years.

The processor alone most certainly won't be a huge increase in performance, while the video card definitely will absolutely blow the current config away, as well as being fully prepped for the new DX11 stuff that's just around the corner.

I guess it depends on what motherboard you're looking into getting. I know MSI is a little bit of a middle-of-the-road company as far as high-end motherboards go (at least, it has been in my eyes), so if you were to grab a high-end Gigabyte or ASUS with a 790FX chipset and all the bells and whistles, you might see some general performance increase. I haven't been looking around at the offerings in any serious capacity, myself, so I'd need to do some research into the current stock to really give any input on that.

In the end, it comes down to how much money you have to spend, what you intend to do with the extra power, and what sorts of limitations you're currently facing - And how old your parts (motherboard specifically) are currently, how hard you've been driving them, and what their expected life cycles are. From what I'm reading, your MSI is pretty much the MSI equivalent to my (ill-fated) ASUS M3A32-MVP Deluxe, feature-wise and chipset-wise. While a proper AM3/DDR3 motherboard would set you up for better upgradeability in the near future, you also have to take into account the fact that a motherboard like that would be nearly the same as what you have now, more or less, except lacking the DDR3 support.


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## Carenath (Sep 29, 2009)

You know, I still have my 7 year old dell, and it still runs great to this day. It still does what I want it to... so unless you're obsessed with having the latest-and-greatest, if the system you have does what you need, dont waste your money upgrading..

If I had money to burn... I'd be eyeing up an i7 or dual Quadcore Xeons.. but that's just me.


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## ToeClaws (Sep 29, 2009)

My first reaction on seeing your current rig: WTF!? :shock:

Answer: NO!

Your current rig is both powerful and modern, and there's no reason that you should need up grade anything other than _maybe_ your video card for another 3 or even 4 years!  The gains you'd get from going AM3 and latest Phenom are so negligible that you're just throwing money away.

You know what my main rig is?  An Athlon X2 3800+, 3G of RAM, Socket 939, 512M Radeon HD38050, X-Fi sound.  It's probably about 1/3 the power of your current rig.  Do I have any plans to replace it yet?  Nope; I don't need to.  It runs any game that I want to play on it without any problems, does everything I need it to do.  Will I eventually replace it?  Yeah - because I can't do anything more for the video card since it's AGP.  If it were a PCI-E, I'd probably be content with it for another couple years.

Don't get pulled into the notion that you have to update your system on a constant basis to be able to do stuff.  80% of what video games need comes from the GPU, and unless you're doing some very CPU-intensive stuff on the application side of things, even the most basic CPU on the market today is more than most people need.  Save your cash dude - don't upgrade until you actually NEED to.


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## ZentratheFox (Sep 30, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> Socket 939,



I always had a soft spot for S939. :3 I'm still trying to get my Opty 180 back from Grif and Var.

And as far as upgrades, okay fine I'll wait.  I'm at least going to get the 5870s though.


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## ToeClaws (Sep 30, 2009)

ZentratheFox said:


> I always had a soft spot for S939. :3 I'm still trying to get my Opty 180 back from Grif and Var.



Ooooo, yeah that's a sweet one.  My 939 can go up to the Opteron 182, but trying to even find one let alone one at a remotely affordable price is impossible.  Ah well, matters not anyway - the system will eventually just be replaced.



ZentratheFox said:


> And as far as upgrades, okay fine I'll wait.  I'm at least going to get the 5870s though.



*chuckles* Yes, and honestly, that's the best thing to do.  The CPU is rarely the bottleneck anymore.  If I could change my video card, I'd probably still be able to run the 3800 X2 for years to come, but the fastest AGP card is the one I have, and there's no choice to but to upgrade the architechture if I one day find my card is no longer fast enough for current games (as it stands now though, it seems to tear through them without straining).  

You'll have to let us know how scary awesome the 5870 is when you get one. :mrgreen:


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## Aurali (Sep 30, 2009)

Question: Why? You seem like my roommate: her processor can no longer run "insert new game" in ultra ultra high, so she needs to upgrade. I've made and sold 3 sets of PCs just from her old parts XD


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## Irreverent (Sep 30, 2009)

Eli said:


> I've made and sold 3 sets of PCs just from her old parts XD



Eli rooms with a robot? :shock:

OP: Unless you've got high end rendering planned for the future, or are doing some massive data modeling for a thesis or post-grad, I'd keep what you have and run it into the ground.


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## Aurali (Sep 30, 2009)

Irreverent said:


> Eli rooms with a robot? :shock:



Ya know. Sometimes I wonder...


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## net-cat (Sep 30, 2009)

... going for that extra three frames per second, eh?

I'm going with don't bother.


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