Possible System Upgrade

Hey GS,

I've decided I might be upgrading my system some time soon. Here's what I'm looking at right now:

• Upgrading my ASUS M3A79-T to an ASUS M4A89GTD PRO
• Upgrading my AMD Phenom 9950 Black Edition (2.6ghz stock, 3.0ghz OC) to a Phenom II Deneb 3.4 ghz (which i can probably get up to 3.8 or 4.0 OC)
• Upgrading my existing 2x2gb sticks of DDR2 1066 RAM to 2x2gb DDR3 2000 G.skill Trident RAM

I'm not sure wether to get these ($490.96 after shipping and tax) or wait for something else.

As a quick sidenote, I currently have a Radeon HD 4870 1gb card and I'm not sure wether I should upgrade that as well. Any tips?

EDIT: I also need a good aftermarket heatsink, I've got a ZALMAN CNPS9700 that I'm not sure will work with my new CPU/mobo and I know that I'm going to be OCing.

-Rakan

upgrading the ram is a true waste of money. why u ask? well ok ur going from 4gb to 4gb ok? u say the mhz is more, but look at the cas ur going from 5 to 9, that is a truly noobish mistake. also wait 1 more month for new hexa cores and just go staright to those.

upgrading the ram is a true waste of money. why u ask? well ok ur going from 4gb to 4gb ok? u say the mhz is more, but look at the cas ur going from 5 to 9, that is a truly noobish mistake. also wait 1 more month for new hexa cores and just go staright to those.

Wildedge93

You make a good point about the hexa cores, but the CAS latency increase is to be expected when going from DDR2 to DDR3. The latency is going up but the clock is almost doubling, which I think is a pretty good tradeoff. Also keep in mind that with my current rig, I can't run the RAM in dual channal at 1066mhz, but with the DDR3 on that mobo, I'm pretty sure I can get dual channel DDR3 1600, which would give close to the same latency *in theory*.

[QUOTE="Wildedge93"]

upgrading the ram is a true waste of money. why u ask? well ok ur going from 4gb to 4gb ok? u say the mhz is more, but look at the cas ur going from 5 to 9, that is a truly noobish mistake. also wait 1 more month for new hexa cores and just go staright to those.

rakan959

You make a good point about the hexa cores, but the CAS latency increase is to be expected when going from DDR2 to DDR3. The latency is going up but the clock is almost doubling, which I think is a pretty good tradeoff. Also keep in mind that with my current rig, I can't run the RAM in dual channal at 1066mhz, but with the DDR3 on that mobo, I'm pretty sure I can get dual channel DDR3 1600, which would give close to the same latency *in theory*.

[QUOTE="rakan959"]

[QUOTE="Wildedge93"]

upgrading the ram is a true waste of money. why u ask? well ok ur going from 4gb to 4gb ok? u say the mhz is more, but look at the cas ur going from 5 to 9, that is a truly noobish mistake. also wait 1 more month for new hexa cores and just go staright to those.

Wildedge93

You make a good point about the hexa cores, but the CAS latency increase is to be expected when going from DDR2 to DDR3. The latency is going up but the clock is almost doubling, which I think is a pretty good tradeoff. Also keep in mind that with my current rig, I can't run the RAM in dual channal at 1066mhz, but with the DDR3 on that mobo, I'm pretty sure I can get dual channel DDR3 1600, which would give close to the same latency *in theory*.

Wildedge is right; due to the tighter timings of your DDR2 memory, gaming performance is actually identical or very similar between it and higher frequency DDR3 memory. And since you already have 4GB, any performance differences would be minimal if you were to go DDR3. I would suggest saving that money, or increasing your spending budget for another component, like a new video card.

My recommendation would be to keep your current board (it's a 790FX, which is still a good chipset compared to what AMD has to offer atm), flash the BIOS, and get the X4 955 instead. They're both Black Editions, and overclockability has been pretty much identical across the board between the two processors. As for your video card, it depends on your budget. If you can afford the HD 5850, then go for it. If not, then stick with what you have. Lastly, for your cooler, the AM3 socket is virtually identical to the AM2/AM2+ sockets, so it'll work.