CPU upgrade advice for Gigabyte DS-3

[The Old Man]

Hi,
I bought a Gigabyte DS3 with E6300 Core2 CPU when they came out. I have it overclocked at 2.9Ghz.

I now fancy a quadcore CPU, can someone confirm what would be the best quad core to go for? I see the latest quads are much faster FSB than my current 800Mhz E6300 CPU.

I have to keep the motherboard for now as I have the OEM version of Vista and don't want to have to sell the motherboard and Vista just to upgrade the CPU.

Many thanks, but not sure which cpu to order.

 

[Trunks9486]

The E6300 should be a 1066 FSB model i believe. In this case you can use the Core 2 Quad Q6600. No idea how far it will overclock in your mobo but in general its a cracking processor known to overclock easily above 3GHz.

 

[naudiz]

Pretty much the upgrade path I'm going for, just waiting on a Tuniq Tower and some new thermal paste then I can get going

Naud

 

[Cob]

It should be able to take a Q6600 to atleast 3ghz, more if you've a later revision.

 

[The Old Man]

Thanks all, much appreciated. You are correct, its a 1066FSB model I have right now and a revision 1 board.

I found this page which says the board supports the Q6600 and beyond with BIOS F12, I was surprised about that. I thought the multiplier or FSB would limit the size of the CPU's I could upgrade to.

According to the CPU page, this retail version is currently cheaper than the OEM SlacR version but requires a 1333Mhz FSB, could I still run this one or should I go for the the normal Q6600? Will my ram be up to this, its Geil PC6400?

Thanks again.

 

[Cob]

That's just a standard Q6600, except they'll replace it if it doesn't do 3ghz (and all Q6600's should do 3ghz anyway). But tbh you may find that 3ghz is the max of your board anyway.

 

[The Old Man]

Aha, thanks Cob!