Need a new processor, not sure which one is compatible with my computer

Cpt Tenacious

Cpt Tenacious

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Ok, so recently I got a new computer and it's been all good. Except, I think I'm going o get a new processor. Current one is pretty low in GPU.

System specs are

Processor: AMD Phenom(tm) 9550 Quad-Core Processor (4 CPUs), ~2.2GHz

Memory: 5886MB RAM

Video card: NVIDIA GeForce 9100

If you need anymore info I can tell you. Any and all help is very appreciated.
 
Well the 9550 is an AM2+ Socket, so anything like that would be compatible.

It seems like you would do better to actually upgrade your GPU, rather than trying to upgrade your CPU to help your GPU.
 
Acepilotf14 said:
Well the 9550 is an AM2+ Socket, so anything like that would be compatible.

It seems like you would do better to actually upgrade your GPU, rather than trying to upgrade your CPU to help your GPU.
Click to expand...

Alright, I'm kind of retarded, so how would I go about doing this?
 
Yeah it's a desktop, Do I have to open the case to know what sort of slot I have?

EDIT: Yes, that is my computer.
 
If that's desktop or you can find the listing from where you did buy it, it'd be much more helpful.
 
You didn't edit yours before my post

ANYWAY WHAT IS YOUR BUDGET YOU NEED TO UPGRADE YOUR GRAPHICS CARD!
 
If your comp is the one Ace linked to then yes it has the slots for a video card. The PCIe 16x is the one that's important.
The Radeon 4850 is probably the best card for you to get. If you want to save a little you can get the 512MB version. In most titles you won't notice the extra ram anyways.

Anything more powerful than that will likely get bottlenecked by your cpu anyways.
 
Get the Ati 4870 (and not just any one, but a highly regarded/rated version). It should be getting really cheap by now. Prepare to be blown away! There are no current games that won't run well, most will run full spec. You want at least 512MB of video RAM, but if you have more, you can run better textures in newer games.

Are you sure you have 5886MB of RAM? That seems an odd number, maybe I'm mistaken. Wait, maybe you have 6GB of RAM and your on-board video card is using some of it.

EDIT - 4870: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...PA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=4870&x=0&y=0
Runs Crysis Warhead on max without a hiccup (22" monitor). Love this card.
Click to expand...

EDIT2 : you'll almost surely need a better power supply as well, though you shouldn't have to spend too much on it.
 
It rounds off to 6gb, but usually the number is a bit odd. I have 3072mb, for instance.

And yes, the 4870 is a wonderful card.
 
The 4870s surely are great cards but don't perform $70 better than the 4850s.
Again, they are exceptional but the pricing for them is a bit off right now. That's my opinion anyways.
 
Cpt Tenacious said:
So if I were to get this card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...m_re=radeon_4850_512mb-_-14-131-162-_-Product
What type of power supply would I need? Although to check my current power supply I have to open up my comp don't I?
Click to expand...

Depending of how and where you got your PC, you don't have to open case, you can view specs and OEM site. You can find stuff like make and model of your MB, type of PCIe, installed RAM, PSU type and spec, etc.

A bit of advise: It'll be little overspending to buy a PCIe 2.0 type VC for PCIe 1.0 type supporting MBs. Though, PCIe 2.0 VCs are faster than PCIe 1.0 VCs, and also backward compatible, installing PCIe 2.0 VC in PCIe 1.0 MB is unwise: The performance will be just the same as PCIe 1.0, yet expensive. ;)

Good Luck.
 
Barney Fife said:
A bit of advise: It'll be little overspending to buy a PCIe 2.0 type VC for PCIe 1.0 type supporting MBs. Though, PCIe 2.0 VCs are faster than PCIe 1.0 VCs, and also backward compatible, installing PCIe 2.0 VC in PCIe 1.0 MB is unwise: The performance will be just the same as PCIe 1.0, yet expensive. ;)

Good Luck.
Click to expand...
PCI Express 2.0 cards are not expensive because they are 2.0 vs 1.0.
And 2.0 cards (like the 4850) do not perform faster on 2.0 slots. Meaning they are not bottlenecked or show any kind of noticeable improvement. They have more bandwidth available to them but it goes unused for the most part. (So it wouldn't matter if you put a 4850 in a MB w/PCI Express 16x V1.0 slots) Although SLI/Crossfire with fast cards can use the extra bandwidth (2 cards being used at the same time in their own slot). So if you are thinking of a 4850 it just happens to be a V2.0 card and it doesn't matter right now at this performance.

You can see here the 5870 (ATI's newest fastest single DX11 card) and there is basically no difference when it runs on PCI-Express v2 @ 16x vs 8x. FYI V2.0's 8x has the same bandwidth as PCI-Express 16x version 1.
 
Wow, that beast of a card is still operating at 95% efficiency at PCIe 2.0 4x, even. (PCIe 1.0 8x) So that's good news for people who bought the i5's and the like and want to run 2 cards at 95% or 1 of these cards @ 98%).

Asus, I've got the i5-750 and a PCIe 2.0 motherboard; as you probably know, this CPU has the PCIe controller on die, and is limited to PCie x16 bandwidth (shared). Do you know if this is 16x PCIe 1.0 or 16x PCIe 2.0 bandwidth?
 
So I have twice as much bandwidth than I previously thought. That's just fantastic. :D

If you found a link let me know.

Back on topic, some info.
PCI-SIG announced the availability of the PCI Express Base 2.0 specification on 15 January 2007.[9] The PCIe 2.0 standard doubles the per-lane throughput from the PCIe 1.0 standard's 250 MB/s to 500 MB/s. This means a 32-lane PCI connector (x32) can support throughput up to 16 GB/s aggregate. The PCIe 2.0 standard uses a base clock speed of 5.0 GHz, while the first version operates at 2.5 GHz.

PCIe 2.0 motherboard slots are fully backward compatible with PCIe v1.x cards. PCIe 2.0 cards are also generally backward compatible with PCIe 1.x motherboards, using the available bandwidth of PCI Express 1.1. Overall, graphic cards or motherboards designed for v 2.0 will be able to work with the other being v 1.1 or v 1.0.

The PCI-SIG also said that PCIe 2.0 features improvements to the point-to-point data transfer protocol and its software architecture.
Click to expand...
 
Im confused, thread title asks for CPU, and everyone responds with GPU advice?
 
Ravioli said:
Im confused, thread title asks for CPU, and everyone responds with GPU advice?
Click to expand...
No, you're not - you're Ravioli.

His CPU is a quad core Phenom, and he's got on-board graphics. Maybe if you read through the thread you wouldn't be confused!
 
Ravioli said:
Im confused, thread title asks for CPU, and everyone responds with GPU advice?
Click to expand...

His CPU is perfectly fine, but his GPU was what was really limiting him. So we gave him helpful advice.
 
Asus said:
PCI Express 2.0 cards are not expensive because they are 2.0 vs 1.0.
And 2.0 cards (like the 4850) do not perform faster on 2.0 slots. Meaning they are not bottlenecked or show any kind of noticeable improvement. They have more bandwidth available to them but it goes unused for the most part. (So it wouldn't matter if you put a 4850 in a MB w/PCI Express 16x V1.0 slots) Although SLI/Crossfire with fast cards can use the extra bandwidth (2 cards being used at the same time in their own slot). So if you are thinking of a 4850 it just happens to be a V2.0 card and it doesn't matter right now at this performance.

You can see here the 5870 (ATI's newest fastest single DX11 card) and there is basically no difference when it runs on PCI-Express v2 @ 16x vs 8x. FYI V2.0's 8x has the same bandwidth as PCI-Express 16x version 1.
Click to expand...

I guess I'm lagging behind on my studies. One would wonder though: If there isn't the need for v2.0, why are we buying em? I mean performance-wise is not even that much different on PCIe 8X v1.0.
 
You could but it would be better just to start with a better one. Not that that one is a weak card by any means, it's quite good, but for the price of that comp you could get a much better one.
 
Your CPU isn't bad, and you have 6 GB of RAM. You don't need to spend $1200 dollars on a new computer and new video card.

Just buy these:

Power supply:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139008


GPU:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150351&cm_re=4850-_-14-150-351-_-Product
It runs every game out there with ease. the card is big so keep that in mind.
Click to expand...

Or even better:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814129139&cm_re=4870-_-14-129-139-_-Product
Solid, solid card. Excellent performance. It's really amazing what the extra graphics RAM can do. Coupled with this powerful card, I've pretty much forgotten what graphics lag is. Even with that, I have no cooling issues, completely stock. I'm happy.

Cons: None that I have observed.

Other Thoughts: Huge card. I know it's expected these days with a card this powerful, but it doesn't change the fact that it's a behemoth.
Click to expand...


So the only thing you have to do is figure out if you think the card will fit. I can't really help with that since I don't know the dimensions of either.

You might need to do this to enable the graphics card once you install it:
http://www.wikihow.com/Install-a-New-Video-Card-in-Your-HP-Pavilion-6630
 
I thought it was 440 watts. I need glasses.

17144.png

CF = CrossFire

This test heavily loads the GPU while being very light on the rest of the system so that we can get as clear a picture of relative GPU power draw as possible. Playing games will incur much higher system level power draw as the CPU, memory, drives and other hardware may also start to hit their own peak power draw at the same time.
Click to expand...

Another bench
power-consump.png


Wow the 4850/4870 are power hogs. I always heard great things about these cards, but I never actually looked at benchmarks.

Here's his CPU:
20027.png


He says he's got a Phenom, but newegg says he's got an Athalon IIx4, if this is actually his computer, like he says. (AMD Athlon II X4 630(2.8GHz))

I don't know if those cards fit. No idea.
 
Barney Fife said:
Its always a great idea to have plenty of headroom on PSU.
Click to expand...

Well, you don't want to under-power your system, that's for sure, but a high quality "400" watt PSU is going to outperform a "1000" watt cheap PSU.

I've seen it before where a "50 watt" amplifier makes those so called "1000 watt" amps look stupid. High Current. It's all about amps.

I think a good 450 watt power supply will be perfect for a single GPU setup, and you don't need double that - 900 watts - just because you have 2 GPUs. Take into account all of the other components are already covered. So you're looking at about 650w for SLI/CF. It depends on what else you've got, like, you will need more if you have 8 SATA drives.

Anyway -

Basically, you want a little extra, but they tend to be inefficient if they aren't being worked.

I mean, it's not like everything in your system will all be operating at peak power consumption all the time.
 
If you have an PSU with low amps on the +12v (old style) then 400 is definitely not enough. If it's a unit with a low +5v and +3.3v and high +12v then 400 will work depending on the hardware. A 450w would be more flexible like adding extra HDDs or having a higher power GPU.
But those wouldn't be upgradable to a future large GPU (fermi) or SLI with todays card but very stable with a CPU (dual or quad) and single current GPU.

4850 isn't a power hog. Being hot because the fan speed is low is mixing issues with high power usage. The 4870 is higher although other GPUs take the cake. The higher clocked versions of GPUs always have less performance per watt since the clocks drastically drive up power. But going across generations it seems power usage is not rising much but a huge increase in performance. Those new ATI 5000 cards, holly crap those are nice performance per watt cards. A little extra power usage for the 5850 vs 4850 but a ton more performance.
Check out the ATI 3800 on those power charts. Moving up to the 4850 and you get a ton more performance with a small added power usage. And GTX 260 compared to the 8800 Ultra (hot tamale 8800 ultras are high!).

Barney Fife said:
I guess I'm lagging behind on my studies. One would wonder though: If there isn't the need for v2.0, why are we buying em? I mean performance-wise is not even that much different on PCIe 8X v1.0.
Click to expand...
Why did we buy DDR3 at first when it was a little slower (high timings) than DDR2 at the time?
They have to make the same GPU for those who just are going to run it by itself and those who are going to pair it up Crossfire/SLI. And crossfire (maybe SLI too) can be cross generation so that GPU might get matched up with a future GPU. Would be nice to have them all V2.0.
 
I'm waiting for the 5890, which - well, from memory, it's something like twice as powerful as the 5870 - or something ridiculous - but with something like 45w idle. It could really change the game, at least as far as idle power consumption.

But that's all on paper, so who knows if that's the truth. It probably won't come out for a long time if Nvidia doesn't bring some competition.

If it's as good as people say it will be, I'm really looking forward to one of them. I wish it would hurry up and come out, as it is, I'll end up waiting at least a year so that it will actually be affordable.

Anyway, the 5870 may turn out to be the better value, of course.

EDIT: wait what? I may even have my model numbers mixed up -

One big improvement also championed with the HD 5970 release is in power efficiency. Though when fully engaged the HD 5970 will no doubt suck power like a zombie does brains, the HD 5970 is promised to have an extremely low idle power drain -- the astounding figure of 42W has been thrown about.
Click to expand...
In our chats with AMD, they made much out of the extremely low idle power state. In our testing, we just didn't see it. Don't get us wrong -- the idle is great, but it is not ground-breakingly low; just compare it to the GTX 295 above.
Click to expand...
Aw, that's disappointing. I really like power efficiency. I often leave my computer on 24/7.

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/hd5970launchreview/17.html

EDIT again - this is interesting here:
test system:
Intel Core i7-920 @ 3.33GHz
Click to expand...
Have you ever wondered about what point Far Cry 2 becomes CPU limited? Well now we know. The 5850 in Crossfire manages to turn in the same score as the 5870 in Crossfire: 75fps. We’re CPU limited even at these high resolutions and settings.

Meanwhile the 5850 hits the mark AMD is shooting for, coming in some 20% higher than the GTX 285 and overshadowed only by the 5870 and multi-GPU setups.
Click to expand...

I just want the most powerful single card that will compliment my i5-750 without wasting its potential by being CPU limited. However, I don't think 'this' single video card is available yet. But whatever it is, that's probably what I'll get.

No sense spending more for a better GPU if I won't see the difference. I'd also like that for under $220 please. No, it's OK, I'll wait. Mean time, I might pick up a good cheap one here this year, just to get by.
 
The reason I said “Plenty of headroom” is because PSU's so-called “Peak Wattage” isn't most of the time reached, therefore not so true. Meaning, it would be a fraction of a second a PSU will reach the maximum wattage. It is also true, over time, that this fancy thing called “peak Wattage” will gradually deteriorate, due to the fact of ever-fluctuating temperature (Both inside and out) and MTBF.
HEAT: Heat dictates the performance of any PSU. As you'll see it , this transistor can deliver up to 24a when working at 25º C (77º F), but as soon as temperature increases, the maximum supported current decreases: At 100º C (212º F) the maximum current of this device is 15a, a 37.5% decrease of efficiency.
Of course, some manufacturers (Decent Ones) will declare the temperature in which the PSU's peak wattage was achieved on either their site, or on the unit, along with PSU's MTBF, and the percentage of efficiency, usually around 80% and higher.
As far as +12v, +5v and +3.3v is concerned: Well, everything that glitters is not gold: The main positive outputs (+12v, +5v and +3.3v) share some components. Even though, each output has an individual maximum output, this maximum output can be reached only when no power is being pulled from the other outputs. Some units may show an updated project on label. Meaning, more power is pulled from +12v rail than +5v and +3.3v (More wattage in total is contributed to +12v than +5v and +3.3v).

In Conclusion: In addition to quality and performance, its also wise to have a headroom when dealing with PSU.
Here, are four of top reasons:
a) Unit's headroom will always play a major role on the ability of the unit, and the overall stability of the system. Like a 200/mph top-end vehicle driven at 100/mph.
b) As long as we are PC, we will add on new, maybe better stuff to system, whether higher preforming component/s, or just a simple fan.
c) MTBF: The more the stress, the shorter the MTBF, regardless of what label says.
d) Efficiency: If your PC is consuming about 400w but your PSU is pulling around 500w from the grid, your PSU is over 70% efficient. A true Fact. Which in return greatly effects PSU's overall heat, it's MTBF and your wallet. Also a PSU will achieve its highest efficiency when delivering between 40% and 60% of its maximum capacity. Another true fact. In other words: You should look at it for how much power you like to draw from it not how much power its offering to you. If what you need is 450w and unit's top peak is 750w, you've got 300w of leg, back, head and butt room. The only place where there's no room will be your wallet. It also has been a phenomenon, that just about efficient PSU would cause Prime95 fail the systems.


When I calculated Cpt Tenacious' 9550 and the 4850 that was recommended, according to eXtreme Power Supply Calculator he needs 441w. And that is just two components.



Take Care.
 
I selected the 9550 CPU and 4850 and got 210watts using that calc...
Don't select "4 physical CPUs" as that means 4x of whatever CPU you selected (4x9550's or 16 cores). To select a single quad core CPU just do "1 physical CPU" and the model (9550).
 
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