Should I upgrade?

andy1027

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The setup I currently use is:

AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition
Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P (Sata II Connections, yeah I know right)
120GB SSD SATA III
ASUS GTX 680 Video Card
8GB DDR3 RAM

Two Monitors

Dell U2515H 2560x1440
and another 1920x1080


Applications I use:

Office 365 - Outlook most of the time
Adobe Master Collection - Illustrator etc.
Google Chrome - sometimes lots of tabs
Spotify


Having upgraded to SSD a few years ago there has been a significant performance improvement as you might expect.
But I do notice a slowness about the system even when using Facebook on Google Chrome...

The motherboard and CPU are the only two components that were part of the original build when I built the system back in 2010.


Should I upgrade the CPU and motherboard?
 
If you want to keep your RAM, remember you have DDR3, so your options are limited. You can either get an FX (not recommended), or a Haswell, which could be a viable option.

You should check your RAM usage. If you are using it all, your system can get very slow, and has nothing to do with your CPU. Try using the PC normally and monitoring the RAM and CPU usage with the task manager. You can know if something is overloaded, and then decide what to upgrade.

Edit: Your CPU is good for your needs.
 
If you want to keep your RAM, remember you have DDR3, so your options are limited. You can either get an FX (not recommended), or a Haswell, which could be a viable option.

You should check your RAM usage. If you are using it all, your system can get very slow, and has nothing to do with your CPU. Try using the PC normally and monitoring the RAM and CPU usage with the task manager. You can know if something is overloaded, and then decide what to upgrade.

Edit: Your CPU is good for your needs.

Thanks for the response.

It is definitely the CPU that is struggling slightly at times. RAM usage is generally okay.

I'd probably change the RAM.

Any thoughts on the new AMD Ryzen?
 
Thanks for the response.

It is definitely the CPU that is struggling slightly at times. RAM usage is generally okay.

I'd probably change the RAM.

Any thoughts on the new AMD Ryzen?

The CPU struggles with Chrome?

If I were you I wouldn't get a Ryzen. You would probably be better of with an I3-7100, or even a Pentium. Ryzen is more Gaming and content creation oriented.
 
The CPU struggles with Chrome?

If I were you I wouldn't get a Ryzen. You would probably be better of with an I3-7100, or even a Pentium. Ryzen is more Gaming and content creation oriented.

But like I said I use Adobe Master Collection.
 
That's a pretty poor quad core CPU. I'd go Intel.

In comparison:

AMD Phenom II X4 - CS=3.4 Ghz - Passmark=4219

My PCs:

Intel i3-2105 dual core - CS=3.1 Ghz - Passmark=3732

Intel i5-3570 quad core - CS=3.4 Ghz - Passmark=7024

I used to an AMD guy til I tried a Celeron for a budget build (before I got the i3). I was impressed with this $50 CPU.

Intel Celeron G540 dual core - CS=2.5 Ghz - Passmark=2205
 
Since you'll have to format if you upgrade the mobo and CPU anyway, I suggest clean formatting you current system. I feel something went wrong with the OS. Any quad core should be good for such normal uses. That's unless you use Adobe professionally and want to take advantage of every single second then an upgrade is a good idea.
 
Since you'll have to format if you upgrade the mobo and CPU anyway, I suggest clean formatting you current system. I feel something went wrong with the OS. Any quad core should be good for such normal uses. That's unless you use Adobe professionally and want to take advantage of every single second then an upgrade is a good idea.

If he uses Windows 10 and has linked his PC to his Microsoft account, he should be able to switch motherboard and cpu and then run Win10's troubleshooter for activation.

Reactivating Windows 10 after a hardware change
 
I'm having in mind the drivers not the activation problem. In all comps I replaced the mobo, let alone with the CPU, Windows got screwed and typically had BSOD. They are not that many comps, but all did.
 
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