Upgrading -- Please Review

Hi,

I'm currently wanting to do an upgrade for my computer.

I am thinking about getting the following parts:

• CPU - AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+
• MoBo - DFI LANPARTY DK 790FX-M2RS
• Memory - OCZ Reaper HPC Edition 2x 1GB
• Video - XFX PVT84JUDD3 GeForce 8600GT <-- Not very high priority.

I do not know much about PSUs. Right now I have a OCZ ModStream 450W.

Would this PSU be enough for the upgrades?

I currently have a AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (Socket 939) with a GeForce 6600GT 128MB video card. I don't play any high end video games (only WoW) so I'm not very concerned on having the cutting edge in graphics. However I would like to speed up my system and be able to do better multi-tasking with a dual core CPU.

Thanks for the help in advance.

Thats not quite an upgrade! Thats like a whole new system... buy yourself a cheap HDD another 400~500watt PSU and download a copy of Ubuntu and you've got yourself a nice cheap secondary system out of your old parts!

As to your question. I think a 450w should cut it ok. What kind of peripherals and drives are you planning on running? With 1 HDD and 1 DVD burner and your normal assortment of USB keyboard and Mouse you shouldn't have problems.

Depending on how long you've been using that PSU you might want to replace it just for the sake of the longevity of your new parts. Old PSUs can die or short out unexpectedly... their max power output slowly drops overtime as well... A new decent PSU (if you're not concerned about noise levels) shouldn't set you back more than $40 or $50... so it might be a smart investment.

EDIT: on second thought... that CPU you're planning on using is quite the monster. 125watts? damn... You might want to think of using a more eco (and power bill) friendly Core 2 Duo (usually around 65watts)... (or perhaps even a Celeron M or Pentium D if you want to save some $). I'm all for supporting AMD, but not if it means my electric bill doubles. 125 watts is a big chunk of your 450 watts... it should still be ok, but... just something to consider.

The processor is a bit of a hog, but the rating is not absolute. As you can see here (toward the bottom) an ENTIRE pc equipped with that X2 6000 (along with a power hungry 8800GTX), at idle consumes about 190w, and at full processor load its about 315w, so even with full CPU and GPU load you'r gunna be "ok" with your current 450w modstream, but as shimo mentioned, it wouldn't be a bad idea to purchase a new one given the pricing of quality units and the fact that units can degrade in output over time. Again, it should work fine, especially since the 8600gt you chose is pretty low power compared to the 8800GTX used in the review above.

But also note in that review, the Phenom X3 performance. The 2.1ghz X3 8450 is about $140 these days and there are plenty of situations where the lower clocked triple core chips out perform the higher clocked dual core chips, and the power consumption will typically be lower than the X2 6000. Just food for thought I suppose And note that multi tasking on a triple core will be superior to that of a dual core. The more you do, the more multiple cores will pay off. For example Im often encoding video, scanning mpegs, copying large files over the network, and playing my favorite games at once, going to a quad core over my previous dual core (Phenom X4 9500 vs Athlon64 X2 3800) was a big boost for me.

And I would also note that even though you mentioned you dont NEED a big GPU, the HD3850 can be had for $100 or so, and as you can see here, it is far superior in terms of raw power, and you can see here in the 3d speed charts from digit-life, the performance difference between the two cards is VERY significant...and if you were to perhaps pick up a copy of Age of Conan as your next MMORPG title, the 3850 will be very smooth, while the 8600GT will struggle to play the game at any decent frame rate.

Thank you two for your help. It has really helped.

As a matter of fact, I am looking to making a second Ubuntu machine out of my old parts. However, as a college student, I don't have the budget to make the upgrade in one single payment. Which is why I'm looking to upgrade the MoBo/CPU/RAM first and then the GPU and PSU.

I had chosen that CPU because of the L2 Cache, I said to myself "If I'm going Dual-Core I might as well get the better one" However, Phenom is still pretty new to me. So, if the AMD Phenom 8450 Toliman outperfoms the X2 6000 I think I would rather go for that and try new technology.

As for the GPU, I like the ATI that you showed me. If the Phenom and the 3850 would perform well, then I think I will go for that.

What do you think the Overclocking potential of the Phenom is? And is it worth it?

The phenom, being newer technology, most definitely will be better in the long run, imo. I don't know AMD that well anymore, but from benches i've seen on the internets, it tells me that it is a much better platform than previous offerings from amd.

sort of off topic... but I really hope that AMD can pull off their price cutting to encourage purchases scheme this time. Perhaps the phenom is a product that people will be willing to take the risk on this time... Things sure have been slow coming out of the AMD camp in the past 2 years or so. I was pretty much forced to choose Intel when I built my rig a year and a half ago for lack of any good offerings from AMD.