Quick CPU & RAM upgrading question

[KaiserJoe]

Alright you magnificent TWC basement dwelling denizens, I just need a quick few moments of your time to help me pinpoint a new CPU and some RAM for my little brothers computer.

I told him around $200, if there's not a way to get noticeable change from that just tell me now and I'll fix that .

The RAM to be replaced;
Patriot Signature 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820220569

The RAM I'm potentially looking to replace it with;
Mushkin Enhanced Redline 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820226179
$69.99
I really like Mushkin, I bought it on a whim for mine and works fine. Loaded timings and all that without ever having to go into BIOS.




The CPU to be replaced;
AMD Athlon II X4 640 Propus 3.0GHz Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103871

The CPU I'm potentially looking to replace it with;
AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103727
$124.99, with a $10 gift card, so I'd buy this first and get $10 off the RAM.

(I'd like to keep it AMD if possible)



The Motherboard it's going on;
ASUS M4A87TD EVO AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131647


Would there be noticeable change with replacing those two things? Is there something better I should be looking at?
Any words of wisdom, advice or guidance is greatly appreciated.

[Crazyeyesreaper]

in all honesty no point really upgrading what you have

the phenom ll is a bit faster for sure and the mushkin ram might be more up your alley but neither is worth the investment

aka 8GB to 8 GB same speed is worthless why? because Athlon II series and Phenom II series dont benefit from high performance ram aka 1333mhz at CL7 is faster then 1600 mhz CL9 for AMDs older chips

top that off a Phenom II quad wont magically improve performance athlon II x4 and Phenom II x4 chips are pretty much the same the difference is L3 cache l3 cache and clock speed might give you a 10% boost, but thats about it, changing memory would do nothing for your performance,

if your board supports it, you could try getting a Phenom II x6 1045T and a better cooler but in all honesty it wont make much of a difference

cheaper and most effective performance boost would be a Coolermaster Hyper 212+ if it will fit in the case and overclock the Athlon II x4 to 3.4ghz call it a day, $25 and a give around 8-10% better performance with the NB getting an overclock as well memory performance will improve, should give another 2% give or take, but yea swapping to a Phenom II x4 or x6 wont give much of a performance boost unless your brother is doing serious multitasking or encodes ALOT of videos

[KaiserJoe]

That's what I need to know, still learning about all this stuff. So if changing memory would do nothing and I could spend up to $200 on a new processor would there be anything worth buying? Or would it again be pointless?

And thanks .

[Crazyeyesreaper]

pretty much pointless,

AMD Phenom II x6 1100T is the fastest CPU the motherboard supports and again unless your brother is running a $300 gpu does alot of multitasking video encoding or 3d rendering he wont see much of a difference

$25 and overclocking the Athlon II x4 would give you the most bang for your buck, but tahts about it, upgrading to anything Phenom II is pointless the chips are now 3+ years old. and the FX series chips your motherboard doesnt support but even then they arent THAT much faster then Phenom IIs aka barely with the Phenom II x6 still beating the FX series unless its an 8 core chip, eitherway pointless because your motherboard doesnt support FX series CPUs.

your brothers pretty much stuck with what hes got. Its not bad by anymeans, maybe invest in a better GPU if hes a gamer, but it comes down to what he is using the PC for, if its gaming theres no point messing with ram or cpu, gpu maybe, but that depends on the PSU etc.

in terms of Operating system responsiviness maybe an SSD + HDD combo would be nice but if hes not use to installing apps on a secondary drive it can become a pain due to lack of capacity on SSDs

honestly put the $200 away save more as it stands the DDR3 and just about everything but cpu and mobo could be reused for a faster Intel rig later on, aka $160 i5 quadcore + $90 mobo would be a nice upgrade combo but again comes down to needs / wants

[KaiserJoe]

Yeah it's for gaming, the PSU is...it's either 600W or 750W...I forget which. We both have 5770, I'm looking at buying a new card from a friend soon and was gonna put my old one into his and crossfire em.