Overclock or upgrade?

[amdfan442]

Alright, so i'm 17 and i'm just getting into computers. i just got my families old desktop (hp a6700y) and i'm looking to upgrade it because i'm a gamer. my question is i have the amd quad core 1.8 ghz processor (phenom x4 9150e) and i;m wondering if i could overclock this enough that i would notice a difference or if i should upgrade. the only problem i have with upgrading is my motherboard has the am2+ socket which can only handle up to 95 watt processors. What can i do? also if i should overclock, how should i go about it?

 

[RGone]

Most of those major brand 'ready-builts' have n0 option in the bios to overclock the cpu. That leaves upgrade to quality overclocking components as the only option really if you plan to overclock.

 

[mammut]

Is the computer using integrated VGA or a discrete card? The stock hp a6700y seem have integrated VGA only, which is severely lacking gaming capability.

 

[LoneWolf121188]

I had a similar prebuilt machine when I was about your age. I tried to OC it...ended up FUBARing the whole motherboard. Somehow managed to permanently mess up the BIOS.

Only OC computers designed for OCing.

 

[Alaric]

Just to finish it off , that chip belongs to a family of notoriously lousy overclockers-trust me on this. If your BIOS even lets you OC that chip it will teach you finesse and how to streamline your boot times.....
There are still some CPUs out there for that mobo , though. Like these
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...00007671 600005853&IsNodeId=1&name=Socket AM2

and they're cheap!

 

[amdfan442]

Thanks for the replies. I want to keep this mother board and im using integrated graphics currently but I will me buying a corsair power supply and a msi Radeon graphics card pretty soon. So what im swing is upgrade would provide a better performance increase?

 

[mammut]

For that board the only thing that just might work is nvidia system tools.
It provide access to some OC parameters, and if you would have an nvidia GPU then a few more.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/nvidia-system-tools-6.08-driver.html

In the nvidia control panel you will need to accept a user question and then it will show the params and Performance tab.

 

[amdfan442]

If I got the dual core athalon 2.6 ghz processor would the performance increase or decrease because of the reduced cores.

 

[Alaric]

Maybe someone could jump in and tell if this http://www.ecs.com.tw/ECSWebSite/Pr...x?DetailID=685&CategoryID=1&MenuID=21&LanID=9 would help with the locked BIOS issue? Then this could be used: Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual-Core 6000+ , 3100 MHz

 

[jazon1]

If I got the dual core athalon 2.6 ghz processor would the performance increase or decrease because of the reduced cores.

i haven't messed with amd in along time but i would assume a dual 2.6 would increase performance on single threaded programs,but the quad would probably do better at multi tasking and multi threaded programs.
honestly if you cant afford a newer machine i would consider trying to find an old motherboard that is compatible with you cpu that is not locked before even trying to do any kind of OC with the locked bios probably cost you like $20 at most.