Upgrade spec for E7200 w/2GB (£200)

melat0nin

melat0nin

melat0nin

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Hi all

I'd like to spend £200 or so upgrading my machine.. would quite like a quad-core CPU and perhaps some additional RAM. I'll be running XP 32-bit for gaming and Ubuntu 64-bit (if I get >3gb ram). Plus, with the possibility of Steam coming to Linux in the near future, I might end up gaming there too.

Current specs are:

Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L, E7200 @ stock (2.53ghz) w/Freezer 7 Pro, 2GB Geil (2x1GB), Powercolor 4850 HD

I built the system based on shaffaaf27's £500 recommended system, about 20 months ago. It has been great but I want some extra oomph to play the latest GTA games and Red Dead Redemption (when it comes out for PC).

I think the bottleneck is the CPU with only 2 cores. I'm not sure what benefit overclocking would give when its limited by two cores. I think the gfx card isn't being used to capacity so I don't think there's any need to replace it yet (but again I'm open to correction on this).

I was thinking a new CPU (Q8300 or Q8400?) and perhaps 4gb of RAM.

Got about £200 to spend. What do you think?
 
Actually overclocking does make a big difference. Running a Wolfdale at stock is a crime!! Get it clocked and see for yourself how much of a difference it makes and then decide if you need a new cpu.
 
pastymuncher said:
Actually overclocking does make a big difference. Running a Wolfdale at stock is a crime!! Get it clocked and see for yourself how much of a difference it makes and then decide if you need a new cpu.
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Totally agree. The E7200 should be overclockable to around 3.8-4.0GHz (given that the motherboard is not poo). But GTA hate CPUs with less than Quad cores...or so I heard. Think someone mention there was a later patch which fixed the dual-core hating issue...not sure though.
 
Thanks for the replies!

I upped my E7200 to 3GHz last night and I think there was a slight improvement in GTA Gay Tony, but nothing spectacular. I dunno how far I can take it - I'm not really into spending hours finding the best overclocking point. I've got the latest GTA patch and although it improved matters, the game still runs much less well than it should on a reasonably up-to-date machine (that's R*'s fault, but alas they make some of the best games going so what can you do).

On another note, my RAM is 2gigs of Geil DDR2 PC2-6400C4 800MHz.. I wondered if that is worth replacing with something in the 1033/1333 range?

OCUK are selling the Q8400 for £130, and for ram I was thinking maybe one of these when they come back in stock: OCZ Gold Edition 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 PC2-8500C5 (£80). That would be £210 all in, which is fine.

Am I right in thinking my 4850 is still current enough not to be the bottleneck?

Any thoughts? Thanks for your ideas so far! :)
 
Q8400 for £130

just grab it,

wouldnt bother with the Ram tho tbh unless your usage is in the 1.8-2GB range

what is your usage in GTA4
 
Yakyb said:
Q8400 for £130

just grab it,

wouldnt bother with the Ram tho tbh unless your usage is in the 1.8-2GB range

what is your usage in GTA4
Click to expand...

Good point, I didn't really think about usage.. in GTA4 RAM usage is from 1.33GB to 1.47GB, so I reckon you are right, more ram isn't really necessary. Better proc is the main thing. What about graphics?
 
Just had a thought (sorry for noobness, has been a generation or two since I had to think about FSBs), if I get the Q8400, will I be able to run it at full speed alongside my 800Mhz RAM?
 
Forget the Q8000 Quad cores...they are kinda crap for the price they are selling at. Although they are 45nm Quad cores that was supposed to replace the 65nm Q6600, they only got lower CPU multiplier as well as only 4MB cache, which is half the cache of a Q6600 (8MB cache). What this mean is that at the same clock speed they are slower than a Q6600, so paying £130 for Q8400 is certainly not worth it. Either grab a 2nd hand Q6600 for around £70-£80, or a 2nd hand Q9550 (12MB cache) for around £150.

But honestly...I really don't think you need to upgrade the CPU if you overclock your E7200...and not really sure if it is really worth going Quad for just GTA. A E7200 overclock to 3.8-4.0GHz would handle most games to be honest...I think your motherboard is a good overclocker as well.
 
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