building i7 setup upgrade from P4 Northwood!

[Sympatex]

Hi all, hope someone can help me with some suggestions of where to go with a few components.

I had a p4 Northwood so its been a while since i have been in the technical world of processors! about 6years!

With OCuk's offers last week i bought a SSD hard drive as i've been following these for a while and a tri channel kit of memory. I think this limits me to i7 processors but i can't be sure. Perhaps to make the most of them i need an i7?

Anyway I don't really need such a powerful processor because my main uses will simply be web browsing and quakelive! Opps always over spec but i don't tend to upgrade often so i might aswell throw the money away now and think about it in another 6years!

Can anyone suggest a decent route or resource to read to find out how i can make best use of these two components i've bought and what my options (if limited) are now.

Thanks, I only want to know about the processor really because i can then match an appropriate motherboard with it.

Thanks

 

[Sympatex]

Thanks for your responses.

I'm happy with the memory and as you say using 2 would give me more flexibility but i think i may aswell get the hardware it was designed to work for. Cost isn't that much of an issue its being fit for purpose that i've somewhat over spec'd. Read the reviews on the motherboard and processor and people seem to like them a lot. And these are upgrades from machines about 3 generations newer than mine!

will look up some benchmarks for the motherboards to see if there's any drawbacks.

Thanks very much!

 

[Sympatex]

72c! I'll do some reading about the OC side, i have overclocked before i think the processor i have no i dabbled with 'back in the day' when it was new and it went ok. Got stuck on the memory side of things, dont knwo whether it was the timings i used or the power i didn't but it didnt like it!!

72 seems rather high?! I was going to use a stock cooler but you would definitely recommend a 3rd party one? I guess i need some of the paste as well or can i use the retail stuff that comes with it? Artic silver wasn't it?

I dont have a pci express graphics card sadly, my eyes lit up there on saving some pennies but alas its an AGP 8x! Eugh expensive times!

Thanks for your recommendations, i get the feeling it will be april/May before i get all the bits together but i will come back to this post!