Would this make for a good upgrade for my system?

Yes but you may want to look at the e series like the 8370e. They seem to be a bit more power efficient and cheaper. Also you WANT/NEED to get a good cooler for the CPU. 8 core FXs make a lot of heat , more than the phenom 955.
 
Ok, Changed to the 8370e

As for the Heatsink/Fan The current Cooler Master Hyper N 520 touches the sidepanel fan. It is suppose o be 141mm tall what would be a good Heatsink to upgrade to?
 
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I'd go with the 8320e. It's on Amazon for ~$130ish.

It's only 100mhz slower base clock, but turbos to 4ghz against the 8370e's 3.6ghz. The 8320e is also known as a far better overclocker than the 8370e, so you could easily adjust a multiplier and have a faux 8370e on your hands with likely 0 effort and $40 or more saved to go into a nice(r) HSF / AiO cooling setup.
 
Do you have to build this year? Your current rig is still fast enough and they are done with am3+ and bulldozer. Next year the chips are supposed to be 40% faster and on an entirely new architecture.

I say wait for am4 and zen with ddr4.
 
Do you have to build this year? Your current rig is still fast enough and they are done with am3+ and bulldozer. Next year the chips are supposed to be 40% faster and on an entirely new architecture.

I say wait for am4 and zen with ddr4.

Do I have to upgrade, Well no, but I feel like I am needing more power from somewhere. Games seem not to run very well. WoW is laggy as heck with FPS averaging 20fps. Maybe its time for a new GPU maybe?
 
well that too. but you have to consider that some boards as old as yours now don't work well with newer GPUs, sometimes. Although my wifes 965 BE plays wow easily @60fps with a 7770.
 
If you're overclocking then definitely yes. I went from a Phenom II to a 8150 to my current 8350 and they were always sizable upgrades for me. You could shave off a few bucks by getting a 8350 or 8320 and Sabertooth for mobo. That alone would save you $50 or so.

You could also do this combo for about $100 less.
Sabertooth, 8350 and 8GB for $387
 
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Would this be a good upgrade for me? Current system in sig.

PC Hound Part List

CPU: AMD FX-8370E ($179.79 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z ($219.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.SKILL 16GB (2 x 8GB) Ripjaws X Series ($79.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $479.77
Price may include shipping, rebates, promotions, and tax
Generated by PC Hound

The PCHound link for the memory is wrong. (It actually links to a 2 x 4GB memory kit.) Otherwise, I would be interested in picking up 2 of those kits at that price.
 
Do I have to upgrade, Well no, but I feel like I am needing more power from somewhere. Games seem not to run very well. WoW is laggy as heck with FPS averaging 20fps. Maybe its time for a new GPU maybe?

Humm yes your video card could be the main cause of that... Amd is dropping new cards this year I have an am3 mobo I put an r9 270x in and it worked great you should be able to pick up a 280x for pretty cheap. Alternatively amd is pushing out the r9 300 series in the next 3 months you could pick one of them up pretty soon and then wait till zen to upgrade the rest.

also the amd apu the a10-7850k benches close to your current cpu and it does very well with current games.
 
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why the crosshair v? its a great board but really intended for the big overclock+multi gpu crowd. you'd save over $100 (if you want to stick with the 990fx chipset) by switching to the gigabyte ud3 board. you'd save an additional $25 by switching to the 970 chipset gigabyte ud3p board. $125 savings plus the ~$50 you'd get by selling the hd 6870 means you can afford a really nice hold over card like an r9 280.
 
why the crosshair v? its a great board but really intended for the big overclock+multi gpu crowd. you'd save over $100 (if you want to stick with the 990fx chipset) by switching to the gigabyte ud3 board. you'd save an additional $25 by switching to the 970 chipset gigabyte ud3p board. $125 savings plus the ~$50 you'd get by selling the hd 6870 means you can afford a really nice hold over card like an r9 280.

A 970 board sounds about right if you are not going for heavy overclocking or stacking of several videocards.

The board and the ram is something you would need to take a look at not to many AMD boards allow certain 8gb sticks sometimes it can be tricky to get the right ram from vendor.
 
I'd go with the 8320e. It's on Amazon for ~$130ish.

It's only 100mhz slower base clock, but turbos to 4ghz against the 8370e's 3.6ghz. The 8320e is also known as a far better overclocker than the 8370e, so you could easily adjust a multiplier and have a faux 8370e on your hands with likely 0 effort and $40 or more saved to go into a nice(r) HSF / AiO cooling setup.

I agree with this chip, save some cash for a good video card.

good mobo to look at for the price, If you don't mind open box Link

You should be fine with 8 gig of memory, not sure 16 gig will make a difference if your just gaming.
 
Agree with the 8GB suggestion. I keep wanting to buy a 16GB kit just to scratch the "buy something new" itch but hell I never use half of the 8 I got it seems even while gaming. Maybe if I did some RAM intensive shit like video encoding or something but just for games, 8 is plenty. Hell my boy's rig is running 4GB and its running fine.
 
I've changed my upgrade path for now. Now I am thinking of getting a new AM3 Motherboard and DDR3 Memory. And putting my current CPU into this new MB. The Case may be put on hold as well because of budgeting. Later in a couple months I will pick up a new CPU and Cooler, followed by a Video card.
What MB and Memory should I look at if I have a $200 budget, there's just so damn many to consider.
Thanks for your help!

[edit]
Just found this, ASUS SABERTOOTH 990FX R2.0, newegg has a refurbished unit for $109.
 
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I've changed my upgrade path for now. Now I am thinking of getting a new AM3 Motherboard and DDR3 Memory. And putting my current CPU into this new MB. The Case may be put on hold as well because of budgeting. Later in a couple months I will pick up a new CPU and Cooler, followed by a Video card.
What MB and Memory should I look at if I have a $200 budget, there's just so damn many to consider.
Thanks for your help!

[edit]
Just found this, ASUS SABERTOOTH 990FX R2.0, newegg has a refurbished unit for $109.

Are you going to heavily overclock? If not, I have just purchased an MSI 970 Gaming that runs cool with my FX 8320 set to 4Ghz and a little undervolted. $99 for that board and it works great. I am uncertain when it comes to refurbished boards though.
 
Are you going to heavily overclock? If not, I have just purchased an MSI 970 Gaming that runs cool with my FX 8320 set to 4Ghz and a little undervolted. $99 for that board and it works great. I am uncertain when it comes to refurbished boards though.
I aint going to use LN2 or anything like that but I will push it to its stable limit. I can't get my current CPU above 3.6 no matter what I do, but at 3.6 it is rock solid.

The benchmarks support it, but I am a bit of a AMD/ATI Fanboy. In my personal computers I have not had anything but AMD except for the Celeron 300a and no video cards other then ATI except for the Geforce 4 ti
 
The sabertooth 990FX R2.0 was probably the best board I used when I had a AM3+ setup. Not sure what all comes with the refurbished MB's, but it worked flawlessly for me. Still runs my Plex server operating 24/7 without issues.
 
Fanboyism with computer electronics makes no sense to me. It's not a car, a stereo system, a phone, or even a girlfriend. It's a computer chip you never see with a purpose to perform the fastest possible, and that's it.

But I won't crap your thread. If it makes you happy, it's all good. :cool:
 
I would save save yourself $100 by not getting that motherboard, most 990FX boards can be had for $100-$120, what does the Formula Z give you over those?
 
Humm yes your video card could be the main cause of that... Amd is dropping new cards this year I have an am3 mobo I put an r9 270x in and it worked great you should be able to pick up a 280x for pretty cheap. Alternatively amd is pushing out the r9 300 series in the next 3 months you could pick one of them up pretty soon and then wait till zen to upgrade the rest.

also the amd apu the a10-7850k benches close to your current cpu and it does very well with current games.

I believe you would be amazed by the difference with a better GPU. The 6870 only has 1Gig and is very old in the tooth compared to anything moderately current. I have a Phenom 2 X4, also at 3.6, paired with a GTX660 and am very happy with the performance. I also just upgraded my sons GPU. He had a Q6600 paired with a 6670. We changed it out for a 270x and saw a 80-100% increase in pretty much every gaming benchmark.

I really believe if you spent that much money you will be disappointed with the increase in performance because the GPU is holding everything back.
 
I upgraded my sons PC from a 6870 to a R9 280 and it was a large improvement, the rest of his PC is in my sig, i'd upgrade the GPU first then go from there.
Do you have any 3Dmark Fire Strike, Cloud Gate or Sky Dive scores? my sons PC all stock settings where (PC in Sig) Hopefully might help a bit.
Fire Strike 5936
Cloud Gate 11547
Sky Dive 13231
 
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