£200 CPU and MB Upgrade

[stevenp1968]

Hi All

I am currently running an E2180 at stock on an ASRock 4Dual Core. Its pretty poor at multitasking and I do a lot of DVD watching / rendering etc. I have about £150 to £200 to upgade.

I probably wont OC but would like the option to do some low level overclocking maybe at a later date.

I currenly run 2gb of ram and a basic PCI-E graphics card.

I never do any gaming but do run quite a lot of office applications at the same time (then when I open CS3 or Acrobat it all slows down!)

Do I go for the Q6600 and a MB or a high end dual core and a mb then upgade the RAM to 4gb and have some change for other stuff? - if so which Dual Core? and which MB?

Any / All advice gratefully recieved.

Steve

 

[stevenp1968]

BTW I'd also like something that can deal with Blue Ray (read and writing)

 

[UltimateBadger]

Maybe get an Asus board and check about for a second hand Q6600?

 

[Big red]

what about an E8500 cpu and a p45 board such as the gig ep45-ds3

 

[VoG]

what about an E8500 cpu and a p45 board such as the gig ep45-ds3

for a budget of £200?

seeing as how you render/run a lot of apps & don't game at all, tbh, given your tight budget ide just stick a Q6600 in your current mobo & use the left over money to up your ram to 4GB. that'd give you far more of a worthwhile upgrade given your pc useage.

Q6600 = £160
Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX (2x2GB) = £36

which'll give you a nice little upgrade for £200.
or if you'd rather stay with dual core.

Asus P5Q Intel P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard = £97.74 inc VAT
Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5200 "LGA775 Core 2" 2.50GHz (800FSB) - Retail = £68.99 inc VAT
Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX (2x2GB) = £36.79 inc VAT

total = £203.52 inc vat & del

and the E5200's clock really well, currently the best bang for buck dual core around.

 

[Guzzidom]

Asus P5Q and an E7300.....

 

[stevenp1968]

Hi

Any views on the following setup??

Abit IP43 Intel P43
Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5200 "LGA775 Core 2" 2.50GHz (800FSB)
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 Dual Channel Vista Gold Series DDR2 (OCZ2G8004GK)

Could I get this to 3ghz (stock cooling and stable?)

Thanks

 

[VoG]

Hi

Any views on the following setup??

Abit IP43 Intel P43
Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5200 "LGA775 Core 2" 2.50GHz (800FSB)
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 Dual Channel Vista Gold Series DDR2 (OCZ2G8004GK)

Could I get this to 3ghz (stock cooling and stable?)

Thanks

that wouldve been a great set up except for one small detail. Abit are ceasing to exist on the 1st of Jan 2009 so buying an Abit mobo right now is perhaps not the wisest of decisions. dealing with an rma in future will like as not prove problematic.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17954062

apparently they will still honour warranties, but personally, i just wouldn't risk it.

 

[Lumeycom]

i've got a p43 and its not proving the best when it comes to overclocking.

 

[Big.Wayne]

I never do any gaming but do run quite a lot of office applications at the same time (then when I open CS3 or Acrobat it all slows down!)

I paid £220 for the above combo but the prices have flown up the past few weeks?

Killer combo and will overclock your chip well past 3.00GHz!

I currenly run 2gb of ram

I *also* paid £220 for the above combo but the prices have flown up the past few weeks? wtf!!!

I luuuurrrve the E5200, especially when it was priced around £55, great chip still and plenty of scope for undervolting or overclocking but the E8400 (e0) is also a very nice chip, i've got both and am still deciding which ones wins!

The ASUS P5Q-EM is a microATX motherboard with built in graphics, one of the best intel chipset IGP boards money can buy, features galore, BIOS options galore, VGA/DVI/HDMI out, everything you need including a PCI-2.0 slot should you become a 3D-Mark benchmarker in the future!

 

[pastymuncher]

TBH a E5200 is not that much of an upgrade over a E2180. Yes it will hit 3Ghz+ but so should the E2180. I have had one myself to 3.6Ghz. I know the Asrocks are not that good when it comes to clocking but surely it can get that E2180 to 3Ghz?

 

[easyrider]

Upgrading from a 2180 to a 5200 is a bit pontless.

If you are doing a lot of encoding then you need a quad.
why sidegrade with a 5200 when you can upgarde and get a Q6600.

I run a Stock Q6600 at work (Dell) and its fine for all the video encoding editing I do.

A stock Q6600 is a very nice cpu still.