I've been looking for a while for what to go with when I finally decide to upgrade...I feel like my old Phenom X3 is bottlenecking my system, it tends to run somewhat hot and new games seem to really push it.
I know right now the i5-i7 lines are kicking AMDs butt, but it also doesn't really seem like spending a whole lot more money is going to correspond to a relatively noticeable increase in performance. I don't really have any major complaints with my X3 at the moment.
Also, with the i5-i7 line people tend to talk about their overclocking ability. I don't plan to overclock much, if at all. I am not concerned with getting a few more FPS and tinkering around with settings. I just want something that is stable and will run things with good settings with no problem for the next few years.
Unfortunately, Bulldozer seems to be kind of lame and it seems like it would be silly to upgrade my motherboard just to fit a Bulldozer chip which might get outperformed by a Phenom X4 or X6.
I heard Intel is planning the release of their Ivy Bridge soon, which I'm hoping will lower their current Sandy costs.

But honestly it just doesn't seem like there's any CPU out there that would be worth the time and money to invest in currently. This X3 720 I have seems old, as I've had it like 2.5 years and it wasn't a new chip when I got it. Just not sure how long I should wait to upgrade it and what direction I should go.

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CPU: AMD Phenom II X3 720 @ 2.8ghz
RAM: G.Skill RipJaw DDR3 1600, 8gb - 2gbx4
GPU: ASUS HD 5770 (1gb, 850/1200)
MOBO: BIOSTAR TA790GXB3
PSU: Antec Earthwatts 650W

I kind of know what you mean here. I think I may have reached the end of the AMD road myself so to speak unless they come out with an improvement for the desktop market. It's a shame since I've only used AMD when they first introduced the 64-bit processor a long time ago.

Given the CPU support of your board, you might look at this, but I really don't know what kind of performance improvement you can expect.
AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor HDZ965FBGMBOX

Even if you could find a Phenom II X6, I don't see where your board supports it.

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Yeah, I don't think this board supports X6. I've been thinking about going to the X4 980 as that's pretty much the best chip I could put in this board. I'm just not sure if it would really be worth it in price/performance and how much longer it would continue to be a good processor in general.
The 980 adds a core, goes up .9ghz, has a larger L2 cache, and goes up to 125W from 95W. The only places I can find the 980 anymore are OEM, so I'm a little concerned with my current X3 already running hot (well, up to 50C under high load) that using the same heatsink may not be good. But currently the X4 would be the cheapest route to go, as it would not require a motherboard change.

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CPU: AMD Phenom II X3 720 @ 2.8ghz
RAM: G.Skill RipJaw DDR3 1600, 8gb - 2gbx4
GPU: ASUS HD 5770 (1gb, 850/1200)
MOBO: BIOSTAR TA790GXB3
PSU: Antec Earthwatts 650W

Your GPU doesn't have much punch either... I would not be saying your CPU is a bottleneck with your current combo. A 5770 is good but not great, and if you are a gamer it will barely meet your needs.

QB

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The MONSTER HTPC

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CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 965 C2 (140W).||.Cooler: Corsair H80i
MB: Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7.||.RAM: 8 GB Mushkin Blackline DDR3 2000MHz (7-10-8-27-1T)
Case: CoolerMaster HAF 932.||.PSU: Corsair HX750
GPU:HIS IceQ 5 Radeon HD 5770 Turbo 1GB.||.Audio: Creative X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro w/ Logitech Z-5300e (5.1, 280W-RMS)
Drive: 2xKingston SSD 40GB RAID0.||.Storage: 6TB (4x500GB Caviar Black RAID0, 2TB Hitachi & 2TB Caviar Green)

It seems to be handling stuff currently pretty well...I can play Skyrim on High settings with the high res. mods no problem, as well as high settings for games like Alan Wake and BF3.

I will probably end up waiting to just upgrade the whole system at once rather than the CPU alone.

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CPU: AMD Phenom II X3 720 @ 2.8ghz
RAM: G.Skill RipJaw DDR3 1600, 8gb - 2gbx4
GPU: ASUS HD 5770 (1gb, 850/1200)
MOBO: BIOSTAR TA790GXB3
PSU: Antec Earthwatts 650W