Upgrade advice please

Hi, i'm looking to upgrade my pc, either cpu or graphics card and would like suggestions on which upgrade will give me the best value.

My current setup is


Corsair XMS3 DHX 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600C9DHX Twin3X (TW3X4G1600C9DHX)
AMD Phenom II X3 Tri Core 720 Black Edition 2.8GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail
Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard
Geoforce GTX 260 896MB (625mhz gfx clock)

Ideally i want to keep the m/b the same to avoid cost, and i think the memory is ok.

so i'm thinking of either upgrading the cpu to phenom quad 965 black or the graphics card to a ati 5830, both upgrades are around the same cost but its one or the other.

I use the pc mainly for light gaming, e.g. Wow, Starcraft 2 etc, no heavy business use.

Running windows 7


thanks for any advice.

i say go for the new cpu or grab a 5850
5830s are only a little better then a 5770 which is close to what you have now

i'd say if you want to upgrade the cpu get the 1055T.

Have you OC'd that 720BE?

White_Pawn said:

i'd say if you want to upgrade the cpu get the 1055T.

Have you OC'd that 720BE?

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Nothing beyond amd overdrive on novice mode, you think o/c'ing the proc might give me a good benefit anyway, compared to buying new ?

I could swap out the stock heatsink for something better and try oc'ing it.

The 1055 is certainly very similar price to the 965

Kaine2010 said:

Nothing beyond amd overdrive on novice mode, you think o/c'ing the proc might give me a good benefit anyway, compared to buying new ?

I could swap out the stock heatsink for something better and try oc'ing it.

The 1055 is certainly very similar price to the 965

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I'd recommend getting a decent cooler, doesn't have to be fancy, and try for the core unlock + OC. That will give you a nice processing power boost. Then save up the rest.

White_Pawn said:

I'd recommend getting a decent cooler, doesn't have to be fancy, and try for the core unlock + OC. That will give you a nice processing power boost. Then save up the rest.

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Any good o/c articles you recommend, and anything i need to do to unlock the core, its a black edition.

My local retailer is http://www.cclonline.com/ no idea which heatsink is any good ?

Kaine2010 said:

Any good o/c articles you recommend, and anything i need to do to unlock the core, its a black edition.

My local retailer is http://www.cclonline.com/ no idea which heatsink is any good ?

Click to expand...

lurk the AMD and cooling forums. Read the stickies. Takes a bit of time and practice. I'm outta the loop in terms of what is best nowadays.

unlocking is VERY easy
idk what it is exactly on a gigabite board but basically you go to cpu configuration the go down to enable advance clock calibration set that to auto then either set to all cores or auto on. on the gigabyte board it might be hybrid
heres a video once unlocked see if you can boot into windows if you cant raise the vcore to say 1.4. if that doesnt work one of the cores is bad. if you do boot into windows run prime 95 for a good 6 hours. then run a game or something( my unlocked 550 was stable on prime for 6 hours then i played a game and noticed extreme tearing turned out my 4 core was messed up)

Thanks for the help, after a little messing around and ending up in hybrid mode, 2 reboots later i seem to have a 4th core unlocked.

I'm going to let it run today and see how stable it seems then i might try and see if i can oc it.