What component to upgrade? :)

[BlackmistZA]

Im looking to upgrade but im not sure what i should upgrade at the moment. I was thinking either an SSD or a FX-6300. This is my current specs:

• CPU – Phenom II x2 565BE
• Motherboard – MSI 760GM-P23(FX)
• RAM – 4GB DDR3 Transend
• GPU - Gigabyte HD7750 Clocked at 880Mhz
• HDD – Seagate barracuda 1Tb
• Power supply – Corsair CX500 v2
• Chassis – No name((to old to remember no tags)superficial ATM)

I have R2000 max 2500 to spend right now, I was thinking about the CPU but id like to future proof as best i can, and AMD is going to be releasing steamroller next year possibly and who knows if they will stick to AM3+. So should i just get the SSD right now or should i go for the FX-6300 i dont want to get a nice AM3+ MB then AMD releases AM4 for steamroller unless you guys think a hexa core will last +-3 more years on AM3+. I game on a 20inch so the GPU is fine for my liking, but i mostly play LoL, WoW and BF3 occasionally. So any help or ideas is welcome which component do you think i should upgrade right now?

 

[Wesley]

Well there are several things that could be upgraded here. First thing to note is that most 565 Black Edition owners were able to unlock an extra two hidden cores, as they were cut-down Phenom quads. In your motherboard's BIOS, under the option "Cell Menu" there's two settings called "Unlock CPU cores" and "Advanced Clock Calibration" or ACC. Enable the first setting and reboot and then enable ACC for all cores. That should give you an extra two cores to play with.

At worst, it'll unlock two cores but only one will be stable, which you can disable. Trying this out doesn't void warranties and won't damage your computer. If the BIOS locks up because the other cores are unstable, its easy to re-set it.

If you're fine with performance as it is, I'd say a SSD is a nice upgrade. Its mostly there to speed up some level loads, the OS and apps in general, but it won't give you any more performance than that. It'll boost your productivity, though, if that's important. I can recommend one of the following:

Samsung 840 250GB @ R2295
Crucial M500 240GB @ R2599
SanDisk Standard 256GB @ R2299

Out of the three the Samsung is the fastest, but the Crucial M500 will hold its performance better once you start to fill it up and hit the 200GB mark.

If you decide that you'd like a platform upgrade instead, a FX-6300 and a AM3+ board would set you back about R2800. It won't net you a lot of extra performance because you'll be limited by the HD7750, but multi-tasking will fare a lot better. If you're in a position to add in a little extra money, get another stick of RAM because AMD CPUs operate best in dual-channel mode.