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Best CPU upgrade to my aging system.

kidloco

kidloco

kidloco

Soldato
Joined
3 Nov 2003
Posts
5,074
Location
Lancashire
Hi,

Not upgraded my PC in a couple of years and I think it could do with a bit of a boost. I only really use it for work (image editing and huge excel docs etc) so I dont wasnt to go down the route of having to buy a whole new system. I was thinking a CPU upgrade might do the trick. my current system is;

  • CPU - Intel E5200
  • Motherboard - Asus P5QL PRO
  • GPU - ATI Radeon 2400xt (rubbish I know but I only need a 2D card)
  • 4gb of memory

So far I have shortlisted the following,

  • Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0 GHz
  • Intel Core™2 Quad Q6600, 2.40 GHz
  • Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 2.33GHz

no idea which will give me the best bang for my buck though so any advice would be gratefull.
 
Intel Core™2 Quad Q6600, 2.40 GHz Go stepping & clock the nutz off it.
 
kidloco said:
[*]Intel Core™2 Quad Q6600, 2.40 GHz
[*]Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 2.33GHz
Click to expand...

Buy a 2nd hand Q9550/Q9650 if you're not going to overclock and you want the best 775 chips. They'll hold their value pretty well so if you resell it in 18-24 months you probably won't lose much.

Stick an advert in the Wanted section and hope you get lucky. :)
 
Dark_Angel said:
Why don't you want to overclock? :p
Click to expand...

Just had mixed results in the past. I used to back in the day when it was just a simple bios setting that made my trust XP2500 run as a XP3200 :cool:

The current CPU I have should overclock like mad but everytime I faffed it just caused the system to be unstable etc. Running at stock is quiet, cool and very stable which is what im after to be honest. I got sick of diving in to the case to reset the motherboard when a overclocking bios settign was to much.
 
Redmint said:
Buy a 2nd hand Q9550/Q9650 if you're not going to overclock and you want the best 775 chips. They'll hold their value pretty well so if you resell it in 18-24 months you probably won't lose much.

Stick an advert in the Wanted section and hope you get lucky. :)
Click to expand...

Ouch, should have said around £100 ish budget would be nice :)

Im sure those are both great chips but ive never paid that much for a CPU in my life. and yes I know im a cheapskate :p
 
As Devils advocate, a dual core chip clocked at 2.5GHz is still pretty potent for the stuff you stated in the OP. When working, do the cores max out? Perhaps you don't need to upgrade....

Have you tried a reinstall of Windows recently, I always find that after ~18 months a reinstall feels like an upgrade with the speed boost.
 
Depends on what he's doing. Some games now really benefit from a quad - and of course so does encoding and content creation. For basic desktop use though, you're right. In fact, even games which don't require quad would likely enjoy a larger upgrade from a new GPU.

But, the Q6600 probably has another 12 - 24 months left in it.

*EDIT*

Re-reading the OP, he's not interested in games but in content creation - therefore, a Q6600 is pretty much his best bang for upgrade.
 
Bossk128 said:
As Devils advocate, a dual core chip clocked at 2.5GHz is still pretty potent for the stuff you stated in the OP. When working, do the cores max out? Perhaps you don't need to upgrade....

Have you tried a reinstall of Windows recently, I always find that after ~18 months a reinstall feels like an upgrade with the speed boost.
Click to expand...

Yep, both cores max out when im processing quite complex formulas on very large chunks of data. I reinstall windows every 6 months or so as well just to keep it fresh so I know it isnt that.

The only other possible short term upgrade I could think of is another 4gig of ram or an SSD but I think id be best off waiitng another 6-12 months for SSD to get spot on first.

So that leaves memory or CPU, I figured 4gig should be enough hence why I am planning on going down the CPU route. The Q6600 seem to go from between £60-£80 second hand and I should be able to get at least £30 for my E5200 as its boxed with un used intel fan and never OCd etc.

The upgrade shouldnt cost me any more than £50 tops, seems to make fairly good sense.
 
Agh, Q6600's are just dying to be clocked, they came out of the factory with such a low stock clock that all the ones I've had can add another 1GHz to it!! You should be able to get it to 3GHz (thus matching that E8400) with almost any motherboard and very easily.

Just make sure you get the SLACR G0 stepping and not the B3.
 
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