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

 

[reflux]

Triple channel RAM will work in any DDR3 motherboard but to get triple channel you'll have to use a socket 1366 Core i7. Thus, you want the i7 920.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-283-IN&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=1272

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-159-GI&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1283

It's top end kit at the moment, so yes, well over spec but should last you several years.

 

[mmj_uk]

If it's less than 7 days since you received the memory you could send it back for a refund under the distance selling act, tri-channel memory is only needed for LGA1366 you need pairs with virtually everything else.

Or you could just use 2 out of the 3 sticks in any other system.

 

[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!

 

[Corasik]

i7 on LGA 1366 is a very robust, and high performance platform. Even at stock speeds a 2.66Ghz i7 920 will absolutely cream a Pentium IV, even if the P4's running 4Ghz+.

Its pretty much impossible to be disappointed with i7 performance if your coming from a P4 platform, you will see big performance improvements in everything from gaming to anything else you can think of.

Long term, you'll probably want a new shiny graphics card to go with it, but in the short term, if your P4 has a PCI-Express card as opposed to an AGP card then you could reuse the card to save a few pennies.

You dont need a top of the range graphics card for web browsing or quakelive, but then again with a new rig you might get into new games and then you'll certainly want a card in the upper midrange or even going up to high end.

Personally though, I wouldnt go extreme on graphics, like everything else, the price just gets silly for a relatively small performance increase. An ATI 5770 or Nvidia 260GTX still offers hell of a lot of wallop for the money. I recently put together a system with an i7 860, and 260GTX, and it really can handle anything you throw at it, with high levels of eye candy turned on.

 

[hubby1989]

..

 

[Magpie99]

He's not wrong

I've never overclocked before.

Got a I7 920 a few weesk ago, did a little bit of reading online and within a few minutes have got my I7 running at 3.8ghz completely stable on air.

Highest Temp I've ever hit using Prime 95 is 72c

You'll not be disappointed I promise you.

 

[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!

 

[mmj_uk]

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?

It's not hot for an i7, infact 72C is a decent load temperature.

What we have found is that Intel Core i7 CPUs have extremely good temperature tolerance. Not only are they made with a Hi-K silicon which is able to withstand higher temperatures, but they have very good power management. There are more transistors dedicated to power management on Core i7 CPUs than there were transistors in the original Pentium Pro CPU! What we’ve found is that the Intel Core i7 CPUs throttle down their speed starting at 100C. So, 100C is the maximum operating temperature of Intel Core i7. However, due to the great power management, we have never seen instability due to temperature. We can run full stress testing at 100C and have no errors. Of course, that’s not a good idea, but my point is that the excellent management features reduce the risk of high temperature.

but yes if you're thinking about overclocking you'll want a 3rd party cooler.