On 02/04/2012 10:15 AM, rms wrote:
Folks, I know that this post is probably asking for the trolls to pop up,
but I figure I'll post it anyways. I am running on a Phenom II X4 955. I
want to upgrade, but I am waiting for the FX 8170 to appear...

Firstly, do you have an AM3+ mobo? Secondly, I've had both the x4 & now
the x6, both oc'd to 4ghz, and am sure the gaming bottleneck in my
system is not the cpu, but the videocard (a gtx 470). So, my advice is,
get one of the large but cheaper cpu heatsinks, overclock as much as
possible, consider upgrading the videocard instead of the cpu (I'd
suggest a Radeon 7950/GTX 570/GTX 670(not released yet)), consider a SSD
purchase, and wait for the nextgen AMD cpus to arrive, not Bulldozer
refreshes.

I've done quite a few little upgrades over the past year, first it was
the CPU, where I went from an Phenom II X3 to an X6. Then I upgraded my
old 8600GT to an HD 6870. And most recently I upgraded to an SSD. The
SSD seems to be the one that's most perceivable performance improvement
overall. My Windows 7 Experience number is now sitting at 7.5 out of
7.9, and it was previously sitting at 5.9, mainly due to the hard drive.

I'm not sure what games you're playing, and what kind of a monitor
layout you have (do you have multi-monitors?), but it seems a GTX 470
should be still quite outstanding for most games.

Yousuf Khan