AM2+ vs AM3 Performance

T

TankerHC

New Member
Hello. I am currently running an MSi 785GT-E63 MB with an AM2+ Phenom II X4 CPU, 8 GB Kingston Valuram DDR2 PC2-6400 800, GForce 210 1GB Video, and on-board sound. I have a couple of questions.

If I were to replace the current CPU with an AM3 Athlon X4 would I see any noticeable increase in performance?

From my understanding there is RAM of the same specs (PC2-6400 800) that is faster than others. I am considering finding a better (Not necessarily brand), but a better type RAM at those specs. I have thought about upgrading to PC2-8500 but the cost is prohibitive at the moment. Would I notice any considerable improvement by buying better RAM of the same type, say replace the Valuram with Corsair XMS2 Xtreme or Kingston HyperX?

Would upgrading from a 1GB video card to a better 2 GB card make any difference? I am running dual monitors (One 32 inch and 1 21 inch)?

The motherboard has built in OC. Does built in OC on these motherboards actually work. I ask because I really see no difference. I understand the AMD Phenom CPU's are easy to overclock, would that increase noticeable performance ie. Make the computer run faster?

Thanks in advance for input.

Jeff
 
You wouldn't see any increase in performance, actually it would be slower (as above, the Phenom is actually better). Upgrading to faster RAM will make very little difference, and there's a good chance you wouldn't even notice. What exactly do you need better performance for? For gaming, the 210 is atrocious - if bad performance in games is the problem, you should be looking at getting a new graphics card (can't really help on which one though, but I can tell you that getting one with simply more VRAM does not help).

What exactly do you use your computer for? If you are absolutely certain that you're simply lacking CPU power and you use heavily multi-threaded programs, the only viable upgrade could be a Phenom II X6 (you'd have to make sure your board supports it, though).
 
hackapelite said:
What exactly do you use your computer for? If you are absolutely certain that you're simply lacking CPU power and you use heavily multi-threaded programs, the only viable upgrade could be a Phenom II X6 (you'd have to make sure your board supports it, though).
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The primary things I use it for are Video editing, (I transfer peoples VHS to DVD but edit them before burning), Photoshop and general surfing. So a better 1 GB Video card would increase video performance. Thats what Ill go with.
 
i don't think a new vid card will help too much with that compared to a new cpu cuz that stuff, the en and decoding, relies heavily on the cpu.
 
TankerHC said:
The primary things I use it for are Video editing, (I transfer peoples VHS to DVD but edit them before burning), Photoshop and general surfing. So a better 1 GB Video card would increase video performance. Thats what Ill go with.
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A better video card will improve gaming performance. I'm not sure what you mean by "video performance" - for photoshop and video editing, you'll generally want more CPU power (I don't know to what extent these can be GPU accelerated or what software you use for editing, but I would make sure that you can use actually use your GPU for them before buying a new one if that's what you want it for).
 
I personally think your looking for more cpu power, not video card power when it comes to tasks that you have mentioned.

Why not check out and see how much of a load your cpu has? that would tell you if that is having trouble or not, you can also check you ram and GPU usage as well, what ever is straining the hardest is your bottleneck.

upgrade that component.
 
Worse performance with Athlon II.

What model Phenom II do you actually have?

The best upgrade you could do is go intel, they are much faster than AMD at this point for what you are doing. But they are not cheap, an I5 2500k quad core goes for around $200-220 but would cut your encoding time in half most likely.
 
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