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C2D or C2Q?

Thekwango

Thekwango

Thekwango

Soldato
Joined
5 Feb 2009
Posts
17,057
Location
N. Ireland
I'm new to all this but am planning on putting together a system pretty much purely for gaming, bored with xbox 360! just wondering if any advice on which processor to go for, the one i'm showing or a Quad core. any advice in general would be greatly appreciated...............this is what i'm looking at currently

pcbuild3.jpg
 
would that ram be a better choice? i'm well new and not even nearly sure what the difference is :confused:

overclocking will be something for a wee bit further down the line!! bit more reading up required on my part! but thanks for the advice
 
The kingston ram that b-star has linked will be good as well + its a few quid cheaper, which is always nice.
 
If you're 'bored' with a 360 I don't think a PC will really do you any big favours.
Endless First Person Shooters on the menu, Sir?

Stick with the fastest C2D within your budget or look into a new AMD Phenom of the same price.
 
For gaming, Core 2 Duo. The E8400 is a good cpu, you won't regret it, but if an E8500 is at a good price then go for that instead, it has been at a better value price than the E8400 on the OCUK site in the past.
 
thanks for all the advice guys.... xbox gaming getting boring simpy cause of the limited number of online matches that can sometimes be found, plus i'm getting too good, want a new challenge ;)
 
Core 2 Duo is great for gaming, as long as your not doing other CPU intensive tasks at the same time. If you are, your better off with a Quad Core.
 
You'll probably want a good CPU cooler too, as I hear the 8400/8500 oerclock very well, and a cooler will help. The Freezer Pro 7 is a "classic" as far as I know, and the TRUE cooler is supposedly very good too.

I would advise overclocking, even if just a little, as you should quite easily be able to get that E8400 up to about 3.6GHz, which would give you a nice little performance boost.

I'd switch your 4870 to the powercolour 1GB one. It's on offer this week at £165, and it has a slight overclock from 750MHz to 770MHz. Better performance, better brand and better price than the XFX, for this week at least.

You could swap the PSU out for a higher watt one, as this would give you a little more leeway for spikes, future upgrades and would cut down the load stress on the PSU, but I reckon that 450W should power your rig just fine.
 
I would say the AMD Athlon 720 BE 2.8GHz is the best CPU for the Job, Its tri Core so a compromise on the core front, It much better at multitasking when compared to the E8000 Series as it has the extra core but is around the same game wise. They also are easy to clock (just increase Multi) and seem to get to 3.6GHz without issues.

The 775 Platform is on its way out whereas the AM3 is going to be here for a while yet so has more room for new CPU support as well.

You might be interested in this thread here:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17979652
 
regarding the power supply, I have a 580 watt Power supply using external devices etc also plugged in my 8800 gts ran it for 2 day's without any problems.
 
gamesaregood said:
I would say the AMD Athlon 720 BE 2.8GHz is the best CPU for the Job, Its tri Core so a compromise on the core front, It much better at multitasking when compared to the E8000 Series as it has the extra core but is around the same game wise. They also are easy to clock (just increase Multi) and seem to get to 3.6GHz without issues.

The 775 Platform is on its way out whereas the AM3 is going to be here for a while yet so has more room for new CPU support as well.

You might be interested in this thread here:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17979652
Click to expand...

Good advice. The only thing I'd disagree with is the fact that socket 775 is on its way out. Intel are continuing to release CPUs for it (E8700 for example) so it's not dead yet. I'm not sure how well the Tri-core AMDs compare with the E8xxx series in games, but yes the extra core would help with multitasking.
 
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