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Crusherbad64 sent me a PM with a few questions on a PC upgrade. This is just my advice. If youre into PC builds take a listen and tell me what you think. If you arent into PC builds youre going to want to skip this one! The Athlon II and Phenom II are the two mainstream lines of current AMD processors. They are both built on a 45nm die, use the latest AM3 sockets and are designed to run both DDR2 or DDR3 memory depending on the motherboard. Remember Athlon II and Phenom II CPUs both come in X2, X3 and X4 variations. This "X-number" represents the amount of cores used on the CPU. Athlon II could be X2, Phenom II could be X4 it just so happens in this case we are comparing the Alhlon II X4 and the Phenom II X2. The main difference between an Athlon II and a Phenom II is that the Phenom II has an extra 6MB of L3 cache.
hey bird, can you please advise if this config is ok for this money and how much do you think it would be ok w/o the need for an upgrade
ULTIMATE HQ1058-G1000
AMD PHENOM II X6 2.80GHz 3MB L2 6MB L3
GIGABYTE MA770T-UD3
4096 MB DDR3
1000 GB HDD
HD5850 ATI RADEON 1GB DDR5
7.1 sound
DVD+/-RW DL
10/100/1000 Mbps
8xUSB 2.0
Firewire
COOLER MASTER HAF-922 BLACK CASE
COOLER MASTER GX-550W
1333MHZ
approx 950 EUR
@BRGxRandomHero Well you’re wrong. For $300 he got the quad core CPU, new Gigabyte 785G motherboard and 4GB of RAM and his computer has been rocking since. You can’t get a dell with a quad core or motherboard that good for $300! The only thing he reused is the case, power supply and drives. There’s nothing "too old" about reusing the case and power supply when he already had a decent power supply and SATA drives.
for 300 bucks you could get a decent starter computer from dell outlet, this pc is too old to be upgraded cheaply
@MN12BIRD thaks for the reply , I will let you know if it gets sorted,
@paulspydar Wow I seriously have no clue what’s up with that. I would head over to techpowerup forums and ask on there. Someone on there should know!
hi I am asking you on the offchance , I have an issue with my win7 that I have never seen before, I am havving applications completely dissapear from my harddrive, the folder is still left behind in the start window but is empty, even if I click on the apps desktop icon & open properties, the file path is greyed out confirming its gone! Im useing a 64bit so its not a rootkit, I find nothing in AV scans, & so far I have not seen the issue if I run a vertual box, wtf is going on?
@MN12BIRD thanks 4 the info dude.
@paulspydar Ahh okay so you can actually use the RAM but you should definitely look into a tri or quad core if you mobo will take them. Check your board for any labels of the manufacture and model number (like Asus M2N78-M) or something like that. Most of the websites for the manufacture will have a CPU support list witch also shows the BIOS version you might need to update to support a certain CPU.
@MN12BIRD im useing win 7 ult 64bit , I do use virtual machines and do 3d graphics rendering /modeling map making and need to save time in the rendering as its very cpu intensive,
@stewie17 No idea. Don’t have a Wii. Probably just so you know it’s connected?
@MichaelOKeefe2009 I would if I had one… but I don’t
@paulspydar What OS, 32 or 64-bit? What do you do on PC? You don’t need over 4GB RAM unless you do heavy HD video editing, RAW photoshop scripts, Virtual Machines etc. Normal use, internet etc you will NOT use over 4GB. You only have a single core and chances are you aren’t even coming close to using the 6GB you have now. Your motherboard might support a quad core like this Athlon II x4 630 for ~$100 but you have to find motherboard model and check manufacture site CPU support list.
@MN12BIRD hi thanks for your reply , I want it for multi tasking as I dont use the PC for gameing , How do I double check ? I have never done any hardware tinkkering other than install HDD , CD rom drives , ram and pci cards that just bolt on & plug and play, is there a quad core in the range I could go for? and is there a way I can install more than the 8gigs ram I can max out at at the moment? (I reallise its not easy without seeing the PC)thanks for your help.
@paulspydar Well do you game or just want more speed for multitasking? The 1660 is only a single core so you could upgrade to a dual core like an Athlon II 240 3.0GHZ dual core they are only like $65 and your board SHOULD support it (but double check) and if you play games get a decent video card. The 3200 is onboard graphics and it’s good for onboard but it’s still not meant to run modern games.
Hi I have an AMD Athlon 64 LE-1660 with 6gb ram (allows max 8gb) and a ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics , what would you recomend for an upgrade, I just want to generally speed up my pc all round, I can spend about £150 ( I think about $250ish?? might be more) thanks
@whiteswamfromthesful You’re still right in the fact that it can make a difference. But it wont be a huge difference. Between the two CPU’s Crusherbad64 is choosing the quad core with less cache is going to eat the dual core with more cache for breakfast in video encoding. I’ve already checked CPUbenckmark for the Adobe Premiere CS4 HD video tests and the Athlon II x4 630 was WAY faster than the dual core Phenom II x2 555.
@whiteswamfromthesful Your components don’t store memory in the CPU cache. The L3 cache is shared between cores to help keep random program instructions organized. When you encode a video it’s linear. The program starts at the begging of the video and rips on through frame by frame to the end. It doesn’t need a lot cache to keep track of instructions like other programs might. Like I said the amount of L3 cache and the difference it can make really depends on the type of programs you run.
well you beleave your right
fine im happy how my computer works and it never brakes
and it run ever thing fine
change your computer ever five years to match the software on market
@MN12BIRD what about the graphic card after you run the video
how muh memory do you think it take’s or the bord
the more component you have run on the chip the slower it go"
@whiteswamfromthesful Hahaha yeah okay how about you look up hard drive benchmarks for Seagate Barracuda 500GB 7200.11 model with 32MB cache and the newer model 7200.12 with only 16MB cache. Both 500GB, the newer model has less cache but beat the older 32MB model in EVERY SINGLE BENCHMARK! Why? Single 500GB platter, higher bit density = more data under the head per rotation = faster Hard Drive. My point was just because one hard drive has more cache doesn’t automatically make it faster.
@whiteswamfromthesful Not too sure why you’re trying to say but how much cache you have on a HD has nothing to do with the CPU. HD cache can help with seek times but just because one HD has more cache that another doesn’t always make it faster. Also video will not be "more clear" because of any of that. It just takes longer to encode the video on slower PC. It wont effect the quality one bit. But I think you might have been trying to explain something else and it got lost in translation.
@rubbara im running a 4870 and never had an issue like that, interesting.
@Aaronage1 We kinda gave up on the HDMI audio thing. Just bought a pair of cheap Logitech speaks with a sub-woofer, they are better than the TV speakers anyway. I was just lending my 2 cents on the HDMI audio deal as far as the 3 series goes as I never bothered testing it with the 4 and 5 series, mainly because I don’t own any.
well i buy amd phenom x4 9650 if your motherbord can take the chip go mfg to find out
or buy new motherbord with intel i7
ther borth no good
phenon x2 is better only if you have hard drive with high cache
and 6 to 8 cache dose help when decodeing becouse faster and video will be more clear becouse information is not layed easy flow information no lag