2nd Hand Cpu Advice

[intruder369]

OK just been looking at purchasing a 2nd hand cpu to save a bit of money, but I must say I am entirely put off by the whole shebang of how they are advertised which leads me into thinking this is really a bad Idea. The cpu in question I have particularly been looking at is the Intel E8500 a well known cpu for overclockers and yet gets advertised in many ways of disbelief. A couple of examples are as follows:

1. E8500 never been overclocked comes with original stock fan and heatsink never used.

2. E8500 4 months old selling due to upgraded to quad core, thought I would sell it instead of gathering dust as 18 months guarantee left on it. This chap I emailed to see if it actually came with the stock fan and heatsink to which he replied of coarse, but tomorrow I am putting the Zalman 9500 Pro up for sale.

Now surely this is pure crap, because as in both cases they have used different heatsinks and fans rather than the stock which surely means that they have overclocked these cpu's.

I am not being funny here but why on earth should anyone change a heatsink and fan that comes with the exact specifications to run the cpu from Intel in the first place. Answer = To Overclock the damn thing. Now am I right or am I missing something here.

A year ago I was in some forum when some chap had a problem with is PC keep shutting down after 30 seconds or so of switching it on. He said he had replaced the the heatsink and fan with some fan-dangled thing with lights on that cost him some £50 which he thought was a good thing. I checked out the spec on this heatsink and fan, and the fan was running at 1200rpm slower than the stock fan that came with the cpu. What the hell does he expect the cpu to do. Some people man.

OK if you want to put new fandango-ed piece of crap on the cpu with lights on or whatever at least check the spec. To me anybody whoever changes the stock fan on a cpu of the calibre of an E8500 must be doing so to overclock it, am I right or am I wrong. Because some of these guys are quite frankly taking the P with there 2nd hand prices when you can get a brand new one for £50 - £60 more. The same can be said for quad cores as well when it comes to prices.

 

[intruder369]

Well I am likeing the advice once again here chaps, and I must admit the cpu in the PC I am using now is in fact a 2nd hand Pentium 4 2.8 ghz which I got for some £14 and its been running fine for over 3 years now. But this is peanuts compared with spending £80 - £90 on a 2nd hand E8500 which can be had for £150 Brand new, so there is an element of fear of me getting ripped off that comes into the equation.

I have the money to buy a new one, but I have other things to buy as well to complete my new build, hence me looking at a 2nd hand cpu to save a bit of money to go toward another part, and yes looking at it logically the cpu does have a lot further span than the 3 year warranty that comes with it as a rule I would say. So you have got me thinking now that perhaps a 2nd hand one would give me a bit of leverage and help me get my new PC up and running a bit faster.

 

[intruder369]

If I wanted a Quad core it would have to be at least 3Ghz I am not into overclocking and do not believe in pushing the boundaries so to speak. I have seen the difference in speed and efficiency between a 2.93Ghz and a 3Ghz cpu and it only sounds like a small step from 2.93Ghz to 3Ghz but it is noticeable by far. The fact the the Q6600 is a Quad core and as 8mb's of cache rather than 6mb's the E8500 as, is not enough when you consider that it's only a 2.4Ghz cpu with an fsb rate of 1066 compared with a 3.16Ghz and 1300 fsb rate. Or am I missing something here.

The other thing about heatsinks what I would like to know is if you say the so called stock heatsink is not good enough which is by the way made of alluminium, how is one that generates twice as much heat made of copper any better. Maybe I got something scientifically wrong here. But it's a well known fact that a copper kettle will boil water far more faster than one made of aluminium, because it generates heat a lot faster. So how can this be applied to cooling. Or does it work on the same principle of a flask that can keep things hot and cold.

Sorry for the questions I just need to be sure.

 

[intruder369]

No, 70mhz will have no noticeable effect on how a system runs. It wouldn't even alter Super_Pi scores.

Well that I would beg to differ as 2 years ago I built 2 PC's 1 for my brother and 1 for a mate who lives down the road from me. For both systems I used exactly the same components Mobo/Memory/Hard Drive/DVD-RW/Graphic Card/PSU, and installed Windows XP Pro the only diff between the 2 was that my brother had a Q9650 and my mate had a Q9550.

OK the difference here is between a 2.83Ghz and a 3.0Ghz cpu. I could tell the difference in performance straight away between the 2. It is definitely noticeable, they do not slap a price difference of £80 - £100 more for the 3.0Ghz for no reason. If what you are saying is the case why on earth would one spend the extra money. OK in terms of overclocking you can get whatever processing speed you want out of a cpu, but I am talking about cpu's run with no overclocking at all.

Perhaps the difference between 2.93Ghz and 3.0Ghz is smaller and not that noticeable but you will still pay a difference in the price between the 2 cpu's. So something as to be better somewhere along the line. In most cases this may very well be down to the size of the cache, but in the case of the Q9650 and Q9550 they have exactly the same.

I recently built a PC with a E7500 which is 2.93Ghz and though it handles HD and stuff nicely because it is a 2 core, I personally have found a Pentium 4 3.0 Ghz act much quicker to processing than the E7500. OK granted the E7500 is better for handling multi tasking but in terms of fast processing it's certainly no better than a 3.0Ghz Pentium 4 single processor.

 

[intruder369]

Re copper kettle, the reason the kettle boils faster is the heat transfer in copper is fast, this is why copper heat sinks work well, they transfer the heat away from the cpu , and then the nice fans move the heat away from the copper fins, hence keeping the cpu cooler.

hope that helps.

Bowza

This I like very much and can certainly see the logic behind it.

 

[intruder369]

This is just all kinds of wrong.

P4 @ 3Ghz, 12+8kb (20k) L1 cache, 512k L2 cache
E7500 @ 2.93Ghz, 32x2kb (64k) L1 cache, 3MB L2 cache

With effectively 3 times the cache of the P4 and a completely different architecture, even with the 70mhz deficiency in the raw clockspeed, the E7500 will destroy the P4 in any task.

You are looking at 490ish Passmark points for the P4 compared to 2,000ish of the E7500.[/QUOTE]

Well looking at it like that yes your right, but benchmarks and specs do not always measure up to real time live speed performance that one see's with there own eyes. But obvioulsy the E7500 is way better than a P4 single cpu.

But when opening things such as programs like Photo Shop and installing programs I do not see how the E7500 is any faster than a P4 3.0 Ghz at all. I have found many old PC's that I have reformated and reinstalled operating systems on for people with P4 3.0Ghz cpu's which are very fast to respond to opening applications, and in many cases more impressive than the E7500 to be quite honest about it. But obviously the P4 as got no chance of matching the E7500 in terms of running them programs smoothly, where as the P4 will struggle with many. I would have the E7500 anyday on that score because it would like you say leave the P4 behind in the dust.

 

[intruder369]

Well not exactly. If you have a wide range of good benchmarks (like this) then you can get a good idea of real-world performance in CPU heavy applications. Please bear in mind that that test is not just synthetic benchmarks but also repeatable tests using real-world applications like games, photoshop and video encoders.

However, the things you cite like opening and installing programs are not very CPU intensive at all - the main bottleneck here would be the hard drive and in some cases the RAM. Hence why people buy SSDs for super quick application loading.

Well yes that would come into the equation and makes more sense. I must say I love the way you keep recommending the Q6600. I have seen this in a lot of your posts and I must say from what I am getting here with all the good feedback I am very much being tempted into going into a bit of overclocking. I am watching a couple 2nd hand ones of these with G0 stepping as you say at the moment. Though to be quite honest I know nothing about overclocking at all, and even though the Asus board I have as so called safe overclocking I am not entirely convinced if there is such a thing. At the end of the day I do not want to end up frying my new mobo and other components.

For my use for the PC which is more for music and video editing rather than games the Quad Core would be a better choice over a Dual Core no doubt. I have so far set aside £155 for a brand new E8500 to which I know I can get for £152. I could even stretch another £30 and get a brand new Q9550 if I wanted to, which may well be the better choice of them all. I seen one go 2nd hand for £132 yesterday and I personally would not pay that price for a 2nd hand cpu, when I know for an extra £48 I can get a brand new one. It's just not worth the risk at all, and at the end of the day it could end up being very costly.

What now does concern me regarding to going into overclocking is the parts I have already purchased for me new build. So far I have my Case. The Asus P5Q Pro Turbo. Blu Ray & DVD RW Drives. Corsair CX400W PSU. Kingston Hyper X 2 x 1GB DDR2 1066 memory.

The components I have left to buy are the CPU. The Sapphire HD5670 1GB Graphic Card. The Asus Xonar HDAV 1.3 Delux Soundcard and a Hard Drive. I already have the money in my paypal account for the CPU. Next Tuesday I will have enough money to buy either the Soundcard or the Graphics and the Hard Drive. If I get the Graphics and the Hard Drive first I can build the new PC and get the Soundcard in another 2 weeks time.

Now if I was to go into overclocking would I need a higher wattage PSU and different memory taking in consideration of getting say a Q6600 with G0 stepping that you suggested and running it say at 3.0Ghz or 3.5Ghz. What would you suggest especially as I can get a Q9550 if I wanted to.

 

[intruder369]

With a heavily overclocked Q9550 (or Q6600) system with a 5670 - your 400W corsair PSU will still be totally fine, it is a quality bit of kit and these parts will not come to close to 400W. The 2GB RAM may hold you back in you applications (I believe video editing makes good use of lots of RAM) so you may want to consider changing this for a 4GB kit (if you are still within 7 days of purchase - you can return any unopened items back for a full refund under DSR). However, a 4GB kit is expensive - but if you think you can afford a Q9550 then I would most strongly suggest you go for 4GB of RAM.

OK... can I not just get another 2 gig kit of the same to make up the 4 gigs rather than send them back. I know it is perhaps a bit more costly this way but that does not bother me at all. I presume that now I will be using a 64 bit OS rather than a 32 bit.

 

[intruder369]

Windows 7. The memory I have sent for online they was only dispatched yesterday so I should get them tomorrow or by tuesday. So I suppose I could send them back and ask them if I can change them for a 2x2Gb kit. Would you recommend the same make and are we still looking at 1066mhz.

 

[intruder369]

Yes I am liking very much the advice here that much that it's totally converted me into something I never really believed was a good idea, but is all of a sudden making a lot of sense I must say. I honestly thought that overclocking was for Gaming Freaks who like nothing more than to brag how much they are getting out of there PC's. But lately I have been reading up on 64 bit processing for video editing and even for music with programs such as Steinberg and so on, to which is my major use for my PC. So I can certainly see a lot of benefit I can get from it all.

Yes I certainly do respect cmndr andi's advice, I have looked at a lot of his posts along this forum and they all add up to a very good food for thought I must say. Likewise I respect you all and very much appreciate the advice I am getting here from this forum.

 

[intruder369]

(look out for the E0 stepping

OK regarding the E0 Stepping can I presume that if I buy a new one it will now come with E0 Stepping and bare the Spec SLB8V or are there still some C0 & R0 Stepping ones still out there. Because If I order this online I can save a lot money on the Q9550 but there is no way of knowing if it will come with E0 Stepping. Now if I get it from a shop its gonna cost me some £240 and then I can obvioulsy make sure I get one with E0 Stepping.

The only other way to be sure I can get one with E0 Stepping is from Ebay second hand and I do not really want to go down that road.

 

[intruder369]

Ok this sounds good but it will probably take me a month to get a full refund which is the case with most online shops. By then this cpu will start dissapering a lot of places no longer stock them including OC. I might get it from the shop least that way I can be sure. But it makes me sick cause I got this cpu for my mates PC some 2 or 3 years back now and I got it for £209 and now the same shop wants £242 for it.

 

[intruder369]

I might be able to get the Q9650 with E0 Stepping for the same price as the Q9550 is it worth going for.

 

[intruder369]

Well I am hoping to get it for the same price £242 brand new the chap at the shop is gonna let me know tomorrow.

 

[intruder369]

Well that maybe but looking at the i7 920 it's only a 2.66Ghz cpu and goes for around the 200 mark a mobo for it will cost double the price of the P5Q and the memory will cost around the same. So yeah maybe worth the extra pennies as you say, but if I was going for a new i7 cpu I would be going for the i7 950 and that one will cost a hell of a lot more.

Just out of interest is ebay any good for 2nd hand cpu's or not the way to go at all for 2nd hand stuff. I mean you can put a hold for 21 days on the payment giving one time to test it out.

 

[intruder369]

Sounds good but I already got the Asus P5Q mobo which I purchased around 4 or 5 weeks ago now. Considering I have been using a P4 2.8 for the last 3 years I am sure I will be ok with Q9XXX series and I suppose if I was to get a 2nd hand cpu for around the £150 rather than a new one it would be purhaps a better option for me to go down, and the extra money that I save from not buying a new one will pay for my Graphics Card.

My first option originally was to buy a E8500 rather than a Quad core I can get one of them for £150 brand new. Either way I go it will be a damn site better than what I have got at the moment. I can see your point about the new i range cpu's, and perhaps it should have been something I should have looked at more before setting out to build my new PC. I just presumed that the new cpu's would be a lot more to buy and the board would also be a lot more expensive, which is why I set out to go for 775 socket in the first place.

 

[intruder369]

Yes I am liking this advice, just been looking at the Asus P6T Delux board and I am very surprised how cheap it actually is. I done a bit of research and found that the reason why it was so cheap is that it came with a fault regarding the SAS Ports on it, hence the reason for it coming down in price and them making a version 2 of the board. But all in all who really needs them, so it's a damn good board if ever I seen one for that kinda money.

For overclockers there is no doubt in my mind at all that the new i range cpu's are the way to go without a doubt, and to be quite honest I am so surprised at how the older Core 2 Quad's are still holding there price, it's ridiculous to say the least in comparison to the new chips.

I could in fact go down this road if I wanted to because all I would have to replace is my mobo, as I have sent my memory back for a refund. But I would feel entirely guilty because for one thing I have just recently built my son in law a new PC using the Asus P5Q Pro Turbo, and I told him exactly what a pleasure of a board it was to work with, to which it was, and it sparked me into the whole process of upgrading my own PC with this board.

I watched a video on Youtube about 3 weeks ago with some woman who was like someone out of Tomorrows World if anybody can remember that TV program from years back. She was there to prove a point about overclocking, and using an E8500 dual cpu she proved that it could do exactly what any Quad Core could do on the market and had it running at something like 4.85Ghz and stable. God knows what she was using for cooling but I think it was something like Liquid Nitrogen and it ran every top video editor and every top game with total ease. Now this was all very well but the PC she was using looked like a pile of junk scattered all over the floor. I want something that fits nicely inside a case not something that looks like an eye sore.

For what I use my PC for I do not need extensive overclocking at all, as a matter of fact before I came here I was dead against overclocking, but now I see it as more of a good thing rather than anything bad, and it does make sense, especially with the new i cpu's there is no doubt about it. The whole purpose of me getting an E8500 in the first place was due to the fact that it was a 3.16Ghz cpu at stock I had no intention of overclocking it. But now I see the theory in say getting a Q6600 which is a 2.4Ghz and overclocking it into say 3Ghz or 3.4Ghz as long as it's safe to do so, and it can handle it.

To be honest if I could get a Q9550 or Q9560 I would be happy with them at 3.4Ghz which is certainly enough to run the sort of software I am into. I am not into gaming at all. The only new game I will buy when it comes out will be Thief 4 because thats the kind of game I really enjoy playing. So I do not need to be going up to 4Ghz at all for my purposes.

 

[intruder369]

I followed the advice here and finally took the plunge and got a second hand Q9550 for £118 also included with it is gonna be either the original heatsink and fan if he can find it, or if not an Artic Cooling Freezer Pro 7 Custom Cooler. Not sure how you rate these coolers, but either way I could perhaps sell them and get something more appropriate to which I would like to hear some suggestions if you could please. I see a few mentioned there among PhoenixUK's post there.

Just been looking at a Western Digital Cavier 500GB SATA II 32MB Cache Dual Processor Black internal Hard Drive for my new tower. Not sure what the hell the Dual processor bit is about (I just purchased a Quad Core lol) as far as I am concerned it's an Hard Drive. Looks pretty good to me. Any suggestions of any thing better for around the £50 mark will be appreciated.

 

[intruder369]

you don't buy an E8500 to run at stock so I would take it as a given that most pre-owned E8500's will have been overclocked. I wouldn't be too concerned about that. E8500's were top of the line core 2 duo's with a matching price tag, I would imagine that anyone owning one would know how to overclock it correctly without frying it! My only hesitation would be buying from an auction, better off buying on Gumtree where you can meet the seller face to face.

... good luck with your Q9550

.

Cheers and thank you, luckily enough I did get to meet the seller face to face, as I was watching 8 sellers on ebay with the same cpu. I let 6 of them pass by because of the way they was advertised, only 2 of them caught my real attention, one I was outbid on and the last one was from a chap who lives literally 10 minutes away from my house. If I never won the bid I would have seriously sold my mobo and gone for the Asus P6T Delux Palm with a brand new i7 920.

Having said that in winning the bid and getting the cpu at that price allows me to comfortably get my Graphics Card with the cash I have saved. I have also got my refund from the Kingston Memory I sent back, so that I will now be able to get the 2 x 2Gb modules. All I need now is my hard drive, which I will be sending for, so that come next weekend I can finally build my new PC. (well I say new, but now I have a second hand cpu lol)