Upgrading Desktop Computer One Step At A Time
I will explore the benefits and performance increases of upgrading an older AMD Athlon 64 X2 system one step at a time to defer costs of that new computer over a period of time.
I wanted to show in real results that you can actually see the benefits of upgrading a desktop computer one step at a time, results will be using both synthetic benchmark test and games using frame rates. Over the past few months I have been upgrading several of the computers in my home and wanted to write a few articles to show how you can also do this one step at a time.
Many want to play games or work on a newer computer but just cannot afford to buy a new system all at once, you can with a little luck upgrade your computer one component at a time over several months. This way you can keep the cost spread out over several months or a year's time and upgrade things one component at a time.
To start my upgrade I first had to make sure my AMD AM2 motherboard could handle a new processor so I went to the manufacturers website and checked out their latest firmware updates. Many AM2 motherboards that can take the Athlon 64 X2 series of processors can also be upgraded to AMD Athlon II and Phenom processors but you need to make sure.
Out of the four motherboards I have available (2 Asus, an ECS and a Gigabyte) three of these could be upgraded and use the Athlon II X3 or X4 processors. To find the motherboard make and model it is usually right on the motherboard on larger stamped or printed letters.
After getting the model number and manufacturer go to their support site using the model number and you will find the firmware bios updates. Your bios version appears on a brief screen when starting your computer unless a splash screen from the manufacturer of your computer.
If you can't catch your bios information just press F2 or the Delete key during the start up routine to go into the bios program and you can find it there. If you are still having problems you can search the internet for help in getting into and finding out bios version information.
Once I found out that the bios version I was using on the one computer I wanted to use was a good version for my upgrade I went about finding a new processor. If you need to update your bios the motherboard manufacturer will have information on this as well as ways to update it and the programs or tools to use. Often now you can simply update bios while in Windows and a simple restart will get the final update completed but some motherboards require a USB drive or disc to run the bios update from.
The motherboard manufacturer will have all the necessary information and the ways to update but if you need more help forums from places like Tom's Hardware or AnandTech are great places to look. I then purchased an AMD Athlon II X3 processor because it was a good price at $75 and has gone down ten dollars at Newegg since I purchased it.
I then received two processors from AMD, my thanks go to Damon Muzny and AMD for the AMD Athlon II X3 and X4 processors I used in performing my testing. The three processors are all in the AMD Athlon II line with frequencies at 2.9 and 3.0 gigahertz and draw 95 watts of power.
The AMD Athlon II line is a midrange to budget line of 45 nanometer processors that was released along with the Phenom as a lower costing processor option. The direct upgrade from the socket AM2 to the AM2+ and AM3 on motherboards means that you can sometimes use the same motherboard with only a firmware update.
You need to make sure your motherboard can go from the AMD Athlon 64 X2 line to the Phenom or Athlon II line of processors before continuing your own upgrade as some motherboards are not made to handle the newer technology. Mostly the older motherboards do not have the direct link for HyperTransport between the memory and the CPU but I am sure there are other technical aspects as well.
The main difference of AM2 to AM2+ on an existing motherboard is in HyperTransport technology and the 2.0 to 3.0 upgrade that the AM2+ motherboard comes with. If your using an AM2 motherboard and updating it to an AM2+ you will be set at using HyperTransport at the 2.0 version.
HyperTransport is the communication bus that links the processor to the memory directly instead of having to go through the front side bus. A better version from the 2.0 to the 3.0 means you will have a faster link between your computers processor and memory for faster computing and processing all around.
While moving from one motherboard to a newer one makes things run faster and allows you to have all the newest generations of technology cost is usually a factor. For this upgrade to an AM3 motherboard it means not only buying a new motherboard and processor but sometimes other components as well such as memory and a power supply. If your upgrading this much you might as well get the latest operating system and a good current video card but this all costs a lot of money.
If your budget does not allow a large payout at once you can do things step by step if you have an upgradeable AMD motherboard and over time upgrade components and the operating system. Check your motherboard manufacturers website to see if your motherboard can handle a new processor with an upgrade to an AMD Athlon II from the older AMD Athlon 64 X2 series.
I have an Asus M2A-VM HDMI and an Asus M2R32-MVP, an Elite Computer Systems KA3 MVP and a Gigabyte GA-M57SLI-S4 motherboard that I could possibly upgrade and decided to use the full sized ATX ASUS M2R32-MVP for testing the four processors. The ECS KA3 MVP is the motherboard that does not allow the better Athlon II processors because it was built before some of the newer technology came out.
The ASUS and Gigabyte motherboards can all handle the upgrade from the AMD Athlon 64 X2 processor to the AMD Athlon II processors just fine with and without a firmware update. You should check both user forums and the manufacturers website to see if an update of your specific motherboard firmware is needed and available.
I say both user forums and manufacturers websites because a few times I have upgraded the firmware of a motherboard to find I did not solve any problems. A couple of times I actually found new problems with the newest update and had to revert to the previous one because of the new problems.
What I suggest is going to the forums of the manufacturers website if they have one or to sites like Toms Hardware or AnandTech to see if the current firmware update has any issues or problems from people using them. A simple Google search will also turn up these kinds of problems which is a good recommendation before doing the drastic step of upgrading firmware on your motherboard.
Updating the bios will not only allow use of some newer processors but can update other parts of the motherboard but it is the heart of your computer. Once your sure your motherboard can handle a new processor and the upgrade to a Phenom or Athlon II you need to decide which processor you want to go with.
In my testing I used the three processors mainly because I received the two from AMD and because I did want to upgrade at least one of my systems to a better computer. I purchased the best option for me at the time and had not heard back from AMD so just bought the one processor then they send me two so I have results for all three.
The three processors I am comparing are the Athlon II X3 435 2.9 GHz, Athlon II X3 440 3.0 GHz and the Athlon II X4 635 2.9 GHz with all three processors rated at 95 watts. The upgrade from a two core to a three core and four core processor will be most obvious in things like multiple programs running at the same time. Other times programs and functions like internet browsing, email programs and processor intensive programs like Photoshop or file compression software like 7-Zip or WinZip will show the improvement.
I decided on the tests I would run from researching other testing as well as getting a mix of both easy to run tests, ones I either had or were available without having to purchase. All the tests give a good example of common uses and a variety of computer tasks that will show the benefits of upgrading in both benchmark tests and real world tasks that are also measurable.
My test system is the Asus M2R32-MVP motherboard with American Megatrends Inc. BIOS 1105 with 4 gigabytes of memory in Crucial DDR2-800 PC2-6400 memory sticks. I have a Thermaltake Toughpower XT 750 watt PSU and a Zotac 8800 GT video card with a Western Digital 7200 RPM 500 GB hard drive.
My system is using Windows Vista Business for the operating system and is fully up to date along with all programs and software I am using for testing.
I will be using the following tests on the CPU's:
PCMark Vantage and 3DMark Vantage from Futuremark
7 Zip file compression test
X264 HD Benchmark v3.0 video encoding from graysky
Cinebench R10 video and image processing benchmark from Maxon
World In Conflict benchmark test from Sierra
Microsoft Flight Sim X frame rate test using FRAPs
Modern Warfare 2 frame rate test using FRAPs
All test are performed three times and averages are figured using all the latest drivers and restarts between each test, yes it took a long time for all of these. I wanted to use a variety of tests that show a good broad range of computer tasks and ways to check things both using benchmark tests and tests that show real examples of things a computer can do.
PCMark and 3DMark Vantage are suites of tests that check a wide range of computer tasks using sets of tests that give results that are comparable against themselves. Each test runs the various parts of a computer through tasks such as image and video rendering, webpage rendering, gaming and hard drive testing.
The 7-Zip compression test is a benchmark of a compression program that takes a 128 megabyte file and compresses it for easy emailing. The H264 encoding test takes a video clip and encodes it into a high definition video format H264 using a 2 pass encode.
Cinebench R10 is a video and image rendering benchmark that records the time for image and video rendering that tests both the graphics and computer processor. The other three gaming tests are an internal test for World in Conflict and video gaming using two different game types and frame rates recorded using the frame rate test program FRAPS.
My results are as you would expect with each processor being better than the previous and all the results are pretty much a great improvement over the first AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition processor. I have included charts to show my results but for my final results the percent change from the initial AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ to the others tells it all.
Going from the Athlon 64 X2 5000+ to the Athlon II X3 435 showed a performance increase of 32.76 percent for all the tests I ran and going to the Athlon II X3 440 showed an increase of 53.09 percent. The increase for the two Athlon X3 processors are mainly due to the small jump in frequency between the two processors of 100 Mhz.
My final move to the Athlon II X4 635 showed an increase of 69.64 percent with its quad cores showing the best results as you would expect. The quad core also improves the use of multiple programs all running at the same time as the more processors you have the more programs can make use of them depending on your system and the programs.
Using my testing and a little math I found that the increase in performance for my testing makes for a cost per percent increase of $1.95 for the Athlon II X3 435. The cost per percent for the AMD Athlon II X3 440 is $1.41 and the cost per percent for the Athlon II X4 635 is $1.43 making both the X3 440 and the X4 635 both a slightly better buy than the X3 435.
Upgrading to a new CPU takes a little homework and a little luck or prior planning on your previous motherboard purchase in making sure your AMD AM2 motherboard can take a newer processor in the AM2+ series. Checking the website of your motherboard manufacturer will give you information whether your motherboard can handle an upgrade in processors to the newer Athlon II or even a Phenom processor.
I wanted to use the lower costing Athlon II series as they are more affordable and still give good enough upgrade options from the previous Athlon 64 X2 series. Upgrading your CPU can be as easy as making sure you can, ordering one from a computer parts supplier like Newegg and popping it in.
The lower costing Athlon II series will probably not require an upgrade in CPU coolers as they do not get too hot as long as you don't overclock them. As long as you're not overclocking the CPU the stock cooler will probably be sufficient but you can always purchase simple yet efficient cooler from the same place your buying the processor.
If you are interested in overclocking I have had a pretty good result from all three processors and overclocking but did not test them other than to ensure stability. I did get at least a .5 Ghz increase from all three processors on my Gigabyte motherboard but not the Asus as the BIOS for the Asus motherboard is just not overclocking friendly.
Overclocking, increasing frequency using the BIOS or a software overclocking program, is a good idea if you want to get a little performance boost without paying for a better processor. The downsides of overclocking are more heat, it may decrease the life of the CPU some and it is a bit difficult to perform.
If you want to overclock there are a few websites that specialize in this like overclock.net and overclockers.com that also has information about unlocking the extra cores. The two and three core processors are actually the four core processors with the cores locked for a variety of reasons, usually just that one or two of the processor cores failed testing.
While it is a benefit to be able to unlock an extra core or two from a processor many have found that it is about a fifty percent chance of being able to. You can find more about core unlocking at the sites I mentioned and other sites on the internet but I really don't recommend it personally.
I wanted to show the performance increase of upgrading an AMD Athlon system from the now outdated Athlon 64 X2 series to an affordable Athlon II X3 or X4 processor and my results are very encouraging. For as little as $65 you can expect an increase of about 32 percent in gaming or other programs but this will vary at least some depending on other factors.
Things like your power supply giving you enough wattage to run the extra load of the processor is also important to check out and you can do this from sites that figure your power supply needs according to what is in your system at Antec.com or Newegg.com. These programs will list components in your system then it will figure out the minimum wattage power supply your system needs, just search PSU calculator.
If you want a good increase for the value I would recommend the Athlon II X3 440 as a good processor at the low price of $75 but for the top processor, the X4 635 would give you the four core option for an even better performance boost. Performance increase in my tests are one way to realistically measure the results but when talking about general use the newer processors are great.
You can see a big difference for web surfing and program use like Photoshop with the better processors in both responsiveness when using them and even opening the programs. Web pages open faster, programs respond faster when using them and games are much smoother when using the better processors.
A few of my results were a bit backwards, the graphics tests from Futuremark either did not see much improvement or in one case went backwards a little. When upgrading the processor the graphics did not improve which was not a surprise but you can upgrade your video card later.
My next upgrade will be to Windows 7 from the Windows Vista I am now running to show the performance increase the newest Microsoft operating system can give you. I will also see how much of a benefit more memory that the 64 bit operating system can give you when you increase from 4 GB to 6 and 8 GB of RAM.
I would like to again thank AMD for the review samples and recommend you check out the cost and performance benefits of upgrading your system by simply replacing your current CPU.