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Yes, you are right that the Phenom is better clock for clock than the Athlon II. However, the overall architecture is the same, minus the L3 cache. You might wanna read this:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/athlon-l3-cache,2416.html
Phenom is a bit better than the Athlon II. I was...
No, GPUs don't "take advantage" of CPUs directly, they do work indirectly together.
Say there is a game you're running. The game software determines what the CPU should calculate and if the game is multi threaded, will split the work load among the cores of the CPU. Then, at the same time...
I just looked up the X3 440, and if I'm not mistaken, it's 3GHz? The Phenom X3 740 is also 3GHz, so you'll find more improvement from Phenom X3 740 to X4 940, only on multi threaded applications.
That may happen depending on the game. If you're avging 60fps in one game with all the settings maxed with 1 460, adding another 460 might bring it up to 70fps. Your CPU will limit these the 460s big time in this case.
However in another game that is a lot more graphically demanding, 1 460...
Yes, the x3 760 will not give you a better gaming experience 99% of the time. Sure, you might get like 110fps over the x3 440's 105fps.
I just looked up your motherboard, and it can only support these models for quadcore...
Your mobo seems like it can OC. It's probably your ram that isn't stable.
I'll tell you what: Try OCing your CPU. If you don't like it, upgrade! There's no harm in that, right? Also, if you're gonna upgrade, go for a X4. The 1055T X6 is really good too.
Some tips to OCing: Try keeping your...
Generally, PSUs are at their peak efficiency around ~50% of their rated capacity. As long as you're not at the extreme (like 50W or 700W), you really have nothing to worry about for efficiency or noise. Both PSUs are excellent, just pick whichever is cheaper.
Your brother might want to check this out:
http://www.frostytech.com/top5heatsinks.cfm
Having that intake fan in there or not probably won't affect the temps any. Does the case have any other intake? As long as he have an outake fan, it's fine. Just monitor the temps to be sure.
By "noticing", if you mean you won't notice, say 100fps vs 120fps, then yes, you won't notice the difference. Generally, when you increase the graphics settings in the game as high as possible, it's the video card that's gonna be the bottleneck. Upgrading to a better CPU may get you a slightly...
Depending on what you play, it may be a bottleneck.
The more important question is, will it affect your gaming experience. After all, you're not gonna notice 80fps vs 70fps or something similar. So unless you're playing a game like Crysis, generally, you won't notice a difference.
When I look for vidcards, OCing is not the top priority. Their original performance is more important to me. After all, OCing is different for every card, and you might get unlucky and get a card that doesn't OC at all.
That said, are you happy with the GTX 460's performance without you OCing...
Before I started building my own pc, my friend had his ATI (9800 I believe) die in roughly 2years. I think I got the bad impression of ATI cards from then.
My first video card I ever bought was a BFG 6800, and it worked well. I'm now on a 8800GTS 320MB which I am really satisfied with. I may...
Yes. Even if the card can run without them, the extra heat will kill a card like the 9800GT faster.
Having a heatsink vs nothing at all is a huge difference.
I only heard about FIAT's woefulness, never owned one. I hear they are much better now, but I probably won't buy a FIAT. I like their new FIAT 500 which is to be released in the US under the Chrysler brand tho.
But I do understand. To me, it's like getting a GM car. Back in the 60s-80s, they...
Generally, if anything is wrong with any electrical part in the pc, I'd replace them instead of fixing them. PC components are relatively cheap nowadays.