Ok I have ASUSM3A78-EMH HDMI mobo wich will only handle up to a 95watt cpu max, A 64X2 3.0ghz 6000+ and X4 2.4 9750 thats the max cpu I can use from what Ive been reading so are either worth the money from a 64X2 2.4 or am I better off getting a new mobo like a M4A78 PRO which will handle up to a 140watt cpu then my option are not so limited with cpu.

I don't think you'd notice much of a difference between the two CPU's and the amount you'd pay vs the speed difference you would see upgrading the motherboard and CPU at this point probably isn't worth it.

Have you overclocked any of your hardware yet? It might be just what you need in getting a bit more speed on what you have and then saving the money for a more substantial upgrade.

so my mobo and a quad 2.4 from a dual 2.4 isnt worth the upgrade? instead im better off with a new mobo and lets say a Athlon64X2 3.26400+ or a 920 2.8 or 940 3.0 Phenom II X4 remmber im running a Athlon 64X2 2.4 on a M3A78-EMH HDMI mobo now, and if looking on a budget side to go with a M4A78 Pro $149.00 and a Athlon64X2 3.2 6400+ $134.00 would be a good choice or just better off spending the extra for a Quad 920 or 940?

If gaming is your main concern and not 3d rendering, movie editing or running distributed computing clients than no, it's not worth it.



For the first option you'd be spending $283 for a minor upgrade at best in my opinion, which just isn't worth it. The Phenom II's are fairly interesting chips when it comes to their flexibility in being able to be paired up with older motherboards and DDR2 memory but since you'd still have to upgrade your motherboard in order to run one that takes away a lot of their appeal in this situation.

Are you dead set against Intel btw? A Core 2 Dou/Quad might be a decent upgrade for the price if someone was selling a pair used. Otherwise I would say hold on to what you have for a bit longer until it will make more of a difference.

I did the swap from X2 6400/2gb ddr2 6400 to a X3 8750/2gb ddr2 8500 on a gigabyte board with a similar limitation.At stock clocks on both the system benched 3DM06 within 200 points of each other.So stepping down from 3.2ghz to 2.4ghz but raising the memory speed basicly equaled out.

That or the benchmark was bottle necked by your video card.

I seem to remember CPU scores in those tests not going towards your final score and just something for interest but I really only used 2001/2003 and things could have changed in the newer ones.

if you have an X2 now then there's not much point in going to a first generation Phenom X3 or X4, but going to a Phenom II may be well worth it. also, your board should be able to support the AM3 cpu's which will meet the 95W requirement in both the X3 and X4 varieties.
i'd actually recommend the Phenom II X3 720 if your motherboard supports it and then overclock that.

@Flama
The 9800GT OC may have been a bottleneck but i also tested my games with Fraps.Again framerates were within 5fps.

Thats what i thought to that my board would support it but only the M3A78-EM is listed not the EMH and the Phenom II was what i was looking towards wich means they either offer support for my board or a new mobo is instore.

I would think games are less likely to be bottlenecked by a videocard when compared to 3dMark's but it still could be the card... I was actually about to say "Newer 3DMark's" but I just remembered 2006 was 3 years ago.

Anyways, the point of what I was getting at is that I'm not saying the swap of CPU/Memory didn't equal each other out, but when it doesn't have much of an effect you have to consider there could be a bottleneck somewhere.

grab a x2 7750 black edition and a biostar T790GX128M mobo and you unlock it to a quad via ACC. i just grabbed it for my htpc and its great, o/c's to about 3.4ghz as well.

wait what. u can turn a dual core chip into a quad core.

Sometimes it seems you can.
http://www.techpowerup.com/92330/Athlon ... -Core.html

gotta be a biostar TA790GX or an asrock 790GX based board to work from what I have read.