Is it time to upgrade?

I have a Phenom II 965 BE. It's been running well for a couple of years now, but I have the itch to replace it.

What I do with the PC:
I play some games including WoW and occasionally Diablo III or Starcraft. I might end up playing some racing games or some FPS as well. I do normal Excel and Word stuff. Nothing too complicated. I DON'T do any sort of rendering or encryption with it.

My current rig:
Phenom II 965 BE @ stock
ga-990fxa-ud3
16gb DDR3
GTX 650 Ti
512GB Crucial MX100 SSD - OS and games
512GB Hitachi 7200 - Storage
27" Samsung LED
Windows 7 64 HP

Questions:
1. The mobo will take a 3+ chip so would a newer AMD CPU make any difference for me?
2. Would doing a full upgrade to an i7 really make any difference for me? (for the money I'd have to spend)

My thoughts:
It seems to me the best thing I could do without a full rebuild would be to get another SSD and run RAID 0 with the one I have, get a larger storage drive (3-5 TB depending on what my mobo can handle), and get a GTX 970 to improve graphics.

I am also considering changing over to a closed loop watercooling system like the H80i or H100i. (open to suggestions)

Thanks in advance for any thoughts or suggestions.

What's your budget?
I would say to get some good cooling and an FX-6300 then OC it

What cooler do you have now?
If you go AIO grab an H220-x or Glacer 240L. They'll spank anything Corsair makes.

I have a Xigmatek Gaia II set up in a push/pull. My budget is flexible, but I don't want to spend extra money that won't get me a big performance jump.

MMO's are pretty CPU intense, but the question really is: are you having any issues doing what you do right now?

The Gaia is a good cooler, you should easily do 4.5GHz on a six core FX with it.

Why not OC your current CPU?

ATMINSIDE said:

The Gaia is a good cooler, you should easily do 4.5GHz on a six core FX with it.

Why not OC your current CPU?

Click to expand...

I think the upgrade to an FX-6300 or FX-6350 would be a better option in this case.

The Phenom II x4 965 doesn't really overclock that well, so at best one would be looking at 3.9-4.1GHz with good air or water cooling. So, not that much of a performance gain over the stock 3.4GHz. Mine hit a wall at 3.9GHz and wouldn't go any higher, and had to run quite a bit of voltage to keep it stable (1.47v).

Plus the 6300 and 6350 have a lower power draw than a Phenom II x4 965, and can overclock much higher. So, lower annual energy cost to run the PC (if that's a consideration), and better performance at stock speeds with more headroom for an overclock. Upgrading seems like a win-win to me in this case, as long as it's within budget to do so.

Tech Tweaker said:

I think the upgrade to an FX-6300 or FX-6350 would be a better option in this case.

The Phenom II x4 965 doesn't really overclock that well, so at best one would be looking at 3.9-4.1GHz with good air or water cooling. So, not that much of a performance gain over the stock 3.4GHz. Mine hit a wall at 3.9GHz and wouldn't go any higher, and had to run quite a bit of voltage to keep it stable (1.47v).

Plus the 6300 and 6350 have a lower power draw than a Phenom II x4 965, and can overclock much higher. So, lower annual energy cost to run the PC (if that's a consideration), and better performance at stock speeds with more headroom for an overclock. Upgrading seems like a win-win to me in this case, as long as it's within budget to do so.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestion. I have run my 965 @ 4gh before without an issue but it's just running stock right now. It looks like the FX6300 is 95w and the 6350 is 125w just like my current chip. Would I get any gains out of an 8350 compared to the 6350 for an extra $50?

Tech Tweaker said:

I think the upgrade to an FX-6300 or FX-6350 would be a better option in this case.

The Phenom II x4 965 doesn't really overclock that well, so at best one would be looking at 3.9-4.1GHz with good air or water cooling. So, not that much of a performance gain over the stock 3.4GHz. Mine hit a wall at 3.9GHz and wouldn't go any higher, and had to run quite a bit of voltage to keep it stable (1.47v).

Plus the 6300 and 6350 have a lower power draw than a Phenom II x4 965, and can overclock much higher. So, lower annual energy cost to run the PC (if that's a consideration), and better performance at stock speeds with more headroom for an overclock. Upgrading seems like a win-win to me in this case, as long as it's within budget to do so.

Click to expand...

TT, notice that my first post suggested to get an FX.
I just wanted to ask about overclocking the current chip since he had it listed as stock.

ATMINSIDE said:

TT, notice that my first post suggested to get an FX.
I just wanted to ask about overclocking the current chip since he had it listed as stock.

Click to expand...

Yes, I saw that, I was agreeing with your previous post.

And expanding the topic a bit on your second one.

Tech Tweaker said:

Yes, I saw that, I was agreeing with your previous post.

And expanding the topic a bit on your second one.

Click to expand...

Yep, I read it wrong from my phone. The way it read to me earlier seemed like you hadn't seen my first post... carry on

Tech Tweaker said:

I think the upgrade to an FX-6300 or FX-6350 would be a better option in this case.

The Phenom II x4 965 doesn't really overclock that well, so at best one would be looking at 3.9-4.1GHz with good air or water cooling. So, not that much of a performance gain over the stock 3.4GHz. Mine hit a wall at 3.9GHz and wouldn't go any higher, and had to run quite a bit of voltage to keep it stable (1.47v).

Plus the 6300 and 6350 have a lower power draw than a Phenom II x4 965, and can overclock much higher. So, lower annual energy cost to run the PC (if that's a consideration), and better performance at stock speeds with more headroom for an overclock. Upgrading seems like a win-win to me in this case, as long as it's within budget to do so.

Click to expand...

Depends on what you're doing with it. Performance in not based on just CPU speed. FX needs to be roughly 5 gig to get the same performance of a 4 gig Deneb. The OP is doing only light gaming/surfing/office programs, all of which there would be no significant improvement with a change to the FX CPU. IMO, the CPU switch isn't worth it.

reading this, the 6300 is the way for you to go, the am3+ socket is dead but i don't see you listing anything you do or play the screams for a jump to intel right now.
a bump up in cpu and another bump in the gpu to a 970 and you're set for a while, don't even bother looking at an 8 core, most games can only use four or less right now and into the future a bit.

- - - Updated - - -

he has the "itch"

( the automagical worked)

I ended up getting a new GPU (EVGA 04G-P4-3975-KR GTX 970 SSC) and a 4Tb hard drive for storage. The difference in games is great! On my next upgrade I'll probably do a full system, but for now, I am pretty darn happy with this.

The 970 is an awesome GPU, enjoy!

Very nice, you should be set for at least another year or so on that setup.