Would a new processor be worth it?

[paladin]

My computer has an MSI 785GM-E65 motherboard with an AMD Phenom II X4 955 processor. I have been thinking about upgrading the processor to a Phenom II X6 processor.

Would there be any noticeable improvement in performance between the two processors?

Any advise would be appreciated.

[Mr Bean]

No, you would not be able to notice a performance increase in any application except heavy rendering work in professional level suites and that you might save a few seconds off an hour long job. Quad cores are still not being used fully yet, that goes twice as much for six core sets. I'd not even bother upgrading unless I had a Phenom II X6 given to me free because I'd rather have it as a spare in case of ESD death than waste the twenty minutes to open the case fiddle with the thermal goo and reset everything.

[DaveJB]

If you see yourself staying with this system for several more years, and you're doing something like video editing or rendering which will take advantage of the extra cores, it might be worth it because the X6 is as far as that motherboard will go, upgrade-wise (not that there's really any good reason to upgrade to an FX chip even if it were compatible).

Otherwise, I'd say give it 12-18 months (a Phenom II X4 is still a decently fast chip in most aspects) and upgrade then. Intel should have a completely new CPU architecture out by then, and rumours say it's going to be a pretty big leap.