Upgrade CPU??

[bobhowell]

I have a Gigabyte GA-MA770-DS3 with a 4800X2 and 4 g 800 speed Ram.

I've been running XP but am upgrading to Win 7.

I was planning to upgrade the CPU to something like a Phenom II X3 720 2.8 GHZ, for $119 at New Egg, but I find it hard to judge the benifits.

I use this for Photo editing with Photoshop CS2 and playing music.

In the past an operating system upgrade ment a cpu upgrade was necessary, but is that true now? What can we expect down the road? Also, will it be hard to upgrade the cpu in a year or so with Win 7 installed? Can I just pop it in or will I have to reinstall Win7?

Note: I have MB ver. #1. Gigabyte shows it to be compatible with this chip with latest Bios, which I just installed.

I have lost track of the status of all these things so help!

Thanks

Bob Howell

 

[Headcase]

Well it depends.
If I'm not mistaken, the 4800 dc is a 64 bit CPU. It would be able to run W7 64 bit fine, no problem. I have a friend that runs that same build that you have just about. The upgrade isn't necessary if you don't really want to spend money (Since all you are doing is photo editing), but if you are looking to do more (more gaming, etc), your CPU could use a touch up. The Phenom II will help with photoshop to a certain degree, but not enough of a degree for you to spend the money on a new CPU, IMO.

If you're looking to upgrade anyways, go for it!

 

[450]

(Since all you are doing is photo editing)

Photoshop can be quite demanding depending on the size and complexity of the document.

OP: You can upgrade to Windows 7, either x86 (32-bit) or x64 (64-bit). I'd use x64 though, since you have 4GB of RAM and your CPU supports it. Once you have Windows 7 installed, you can install your new CPU - it should be fine.

 

[dinlee23]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...103706&cm_re=athlon_II-_-19-103-706-_-Product

heres a Athlon II X4 for only $110 with tax and it has free shipping too. id say your better off with this than that phenom 2 X3. since its a quad u can take advantage of multithreaded apps and the like itl also significantly improve your loading time, or if u game or edit videos those as well. u cant beat the price since its a quad core.

ur prolly guna need a new mobo but amd mobos arent really all that expensive u can get a good quality gigabyte mobo for sub $80 and the cheapest ones out there are $50 below but theyr only mATX though and have only 2 RAM slots

if u dont want to change mobos heres a REALLY good cpu for u

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103471

cant beat its overclockability.

 

[sirmonkey1985]

if your doing photoshop on a regular basis.. then i recommend getting the faster cpu.. you will notice a difference and especially with w7..

also if you have a gfx card with cuda support you may want to look into getting PS CS4 since it has gpu acceleration due to the cuda support..

you should have 0 issues changing hardware while still having the original w7 installed.. they have fixed a lot of the problems where windows xp was picky about what hardware you changed..


edit* go with dinlee's suggestion..

 

[gwarren007]

If thats all your doing, then really you don't need anything more than the basic quad core. An athlon 620 or 630 will be just fine-

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103704&cm_re=630-_-19-103-704-_-Product

 

[Repeater]

ur prolly guna need a new mobo but amd mobos arent really all that expensive

Hmm... looks like the Rev. 1 MA770-DS3 doesn't support any Phenom IIs or Athlon IIs officially. Just first-gen Phenom models and Athlons.

So yeah... OP might need a new board before doing anything, anyway...

The Rev. 2 board, however, seems to support the whole array of Phenom IIs and Athlon IIs. OP will have to check his board!

Oh, and you can use Anand's Bench beta utility to compare E-Peen benches with CPUs. Here's the X4 620 vs. the X3 720. Mix and match - find the CPU that works best in the apps important to you.

 

[bobhowell]

Thanks for the helpful replies. I see I can put off an upgrade till I see I need it. Also, 64 bit Vista was said to be a hassle with little real benifit to most folks. Has that changed with Win 7? Also, can I upgrade to win 7 64 bit later without having to reinstall everything?

Bob