Athlon 64 x2 6000+ upgrade advice

[A-Dub]

As the title says, I am currently running an Athlon 64 x2 6000+ in an ASUS m2n-e motherboard, with 4gb of corsair ddr2 800 ram and an nvidia 9800gt video card. The new Phenom 2's have me pretty excited to upgrade, especially the 955 which just became available today. How much of a performance boost will I see upgrading to a phenom 2? I run photoshop, play WoW, HL2, etc. Will my current motherboard (socket AM2) support a phenom cpu? I don't have the cash to drop on an entirely new rig at the moment, but if I would see a significant boost from a new cpu I would go for it.

Thanks.

 

[BG-0]

Phenom IIs will be quite a leap in performance definitely. Most propably the best part to upgrade, as you don't play (at least didn't list) any hugely graphics intensive games...

Can't realyl say about compatibility, Asus site gives me an error:

Server Error in '/' Application.
The resource cannot be found. 
Description: HTTP 404. The resource you are looking for (or one of its dependencies) could have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.  Please review the following URL and make sure that it is spelled correctly. 

Requested URL: /products4.aspx

, but I would pretty surely say it is not supported. Old nForce chipset, bad sign.
Gigabyte GA-MA780G-UD3H or GA-MA790X-UD4(P for DDR3) would be good mobo upgrades, if you have an OS disk handy. 790Xs overclock a bit better, nothing wrong with the 780G otherwise.

FWIW, 780G or 790X paired with a x3 720 BE, way to go, then upgrade to 955 or even Bulldozer when the prices have dropped/when BD is out. Keeps the costs reasonable too.

 

[A-Dub]

Thanks for the reply, after doing some digging, I have found mixed results of people using AM3 chips in the m2n-e. A few people on the ASUS boards have gotten their system to boot with the p2's, however it shows up as an unknown processor, and overclocking features do not work. Others can not get the system to post with this chip. It seems a bios update would get these cpu's to work with am2 boards, but it doesn't appear ASUS has any plans to update the bios on a board this old. It looks like I can pick up a 720 and an am3 board for about what the same price as the 955, the 720 overclocks pretty easily to ~3.2, correct?

 

[nzaneb]

I'm not sure where you were getting that information... Your board is an AM2 socket, not an AM2+. An AM2+ board is required to run a Phenom I chip, and with a BIOS update most will run AM3 Phenom II's that have both AM2+ and AM3 IMC's. AM2 sockets support Athlon singles, Athlon duals, and Semprons, AFAIK.

 

[BG-0]

720 overclocks pretty easily to 3.2+ GHz with mild voltage raises, yes. If you're really lucky, might do so even as a quad-core.

 

[A-Dub]

I have found two threads over at the ASUS forum. Some are able to run phenom 2's in their m2n-e board, others report it won't work, even with the same bios version. It appeards ASUS's official stance on the matter is:

Dear Valued Customer,

Thank you for contacting ASUS Customer Service.

My name is Chelsea and it's my pleasure to help you with your problem.

As you mentioned, the motherboard can't support Phenom 2 cpus, but Phenom cpus, due to the chipset limitation, the motherboard can't support 45nm cpus, please don't use Phenom 2 cpu in your motherboard.

http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx...131799&board_id=1&model=M2N-E&page=1&count=15

http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx...board_id=1&model=M2N-E&page=1&SLanguage=en-us

It appears at least one person has a pretty good overclock running as well.

I have a 720 running @ 3600 on this board all onboard stuff working great but we need a bios that recognizes the phenom II.

I just might try it, the worst that can happen is I need a new mobo.

 

[ChanceCoats123]

Thanks for the reply, after doing some digging, I have found mixed results of people using AM3 chips in the m2n-e. A few people on the ASUS boards have gotten their system to boot with the p2's, however it shows up as an unknown processor, and overclocking features do not work. Others can not get the system to post with this chip. It seems a bios update would get these cpu's to work with am2 boards, but it doesn't appear ASUS has any plans to update the bios on a board this old. It looks like I can pick up a 720 and an am3 board for about what the same price as the 955, the 720 overclocks pretty easily to ~3.2, correct?

Just about any 720 will do 3.2 on LESS than stock volts...

 

[QuietIce]

to OCF!


I don't believe ASUS supports even Phenom I with the 570 chipset. The oldest chipsets I've seen support them (from anybody) are the 7xx.



Have you tried OC'ing your 6000? If not, I'm sure you can get more performance out of your existing system ...

 

[Malakai]

Any Phenom II with a 790GX/FX mobo will do quite nicely.

940BE are quite nicely priced. 920 if you are on a tight budget, they oc about the same but you will need to fsb oc. 955BE should be widely available soon but is more pricey.

I still like a 790gx/fx with cheap ddr2 over ddr3 right now, the ddr3 speeds out atm are not that much faster.
The diff is ddr2 is about dead, ddr3 has a ways to go in speed upgrades.

 

[A-Dub]

Have you tried OC'ing your 6000? If not, I'm sure you can get more performance out of your existing system ...

I can't get mine past 3.2 , but I've had this system for ~2 years, I just think it's time for an upgrade. It's served me well though, I'll give it to my friend that is still running a single core system

 

[danbroke]

I had a m2n sli-deluxe and the max on it was the 9950 last i saw. ?

 

[ChanceCoats123]

I can't get mine past 3.2 , but I've had this system for ~2 years, I just think it's time for an upgrade. It's served me well though, I'll give it to my friend that is still running a single core system

Yupp, I am aroudn there, but I know I can go higher, I'm just too lazy. They normally top out around 3.2-3.3 on air.

 

[A-Dub]

So I just finished building a new system for my gf. I set her up with a phenom 2 710 and an ASUS m4a78-e. A huge upgrade for her, she was running a 4 year old dell laptop. I'm impressed with the performance, I think I would be pretty happy with an oc'ed 720. She picked the case, I picked out everything else.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811226025

 

[ChanceCoats123]

Bahaha! Women...

 

[Malakai]

So I just finished building a new system for my gf. I set her up with a phenom 2 710 and an ASUS m4a78-e. A huge upgrade for her, she was running a 4 year old dell laptop. I'm impressed with the performance, I think I would be pretty happy with an oc'ed 720. She picked the case, I picked out everything else.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811226025

LOL owned