Best CPU for an old IP35 Pro

CGrieves · 17 Oct 2014 at 19:28

Currently have a Q6600, but it doesn't have SSE 4.1, so I'm having troubles getting Alien Isolation to work with my Rift. Really don;t have the time to upgrade the PC, so a later CPU with SSE 4.1 seems like an easy route.

I can see there are a lot of IP35 compatible CPUs, but are there any that stand out as decent value, and might achieve a conservative overclock? I'm only running the Q6600 at 3Ghz as mine isn't a great overclocker anyway.

Andy7 · 17 Oct 2014 at 20:15

Here is a list of compatible Processors. I wouldn't bother myself, but here you go:

http://www.cpu-upgrade.com/mb-ABIT/IP35_Pro.html

El Jimben · 17 Oct 2014 at 20:18

I seem to remember Abit going out of business before they ever released a proper BIOS for E0 CPUs so I think you'll need to use whatever the latest beta BIOS for it to work and even then it might not recognise it fully.

The best 'value' chip would be a Q9550 imo but it would be a waste buying a new CPU that's barely any faster than what you have currently for the sake of 1 game.

CGrieves · 17 Oct 2014 at 21:11

Ta, found a q9550 for £40, will give it a try. My q6600 was never a great overclocker anyway, so might gain me a little for not much dosh. To be honest Isolation was one of the games I was really looking forward to with my Rift, so it's worth it from my standpoint.

Nibbles · 17 Oct 2014 at 21:49

Good luck! Looks like you found that CPU at a reasonable price!

Retron · 19 Oct 2014 at 18:10

CGrieves said:
Ta, found a q9550 for £40, will give it a try. My q6600 was never a great overclocker anyway, so might gain me a little for not much dosh. To be honest Isolation was one of the games I was really looking forward to with my Rift, so it's worth it from my standpoint.

As El Jimben says, if you have an E0 stepping of that you'll be in for some fun, unless you have the latest beta BIOS for that board.

I had an E0 stepping E8400 in my IP35 Pro XE and even with the beta BIOS I kept getting random BSoDs and lockups, which went away if I underclocked from 3 GHz to 2.4 GHz. The RAM, PSU and graphics cards were recycled for my next PC and all worked fine - whether it was the E0/BIOS issue or a hardware fault causing the problems I couldn't say.

CGrieves · 21 Oct 2014 at 00:37

It is an E0, but so far with a modded V18 Beta BIOS it's working fine at stock speeds. CPU temps are reported way out of whack, but after reading around I expected that, I just disabled iGuru and Realtemp reports the core temps are fine. So far so good, might do a bit of clocking tomorrow.