CPU Upgrade for Gaming

M0T

M0T

M0T

Soldato
Joined
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I bought a GTX470 to play the latest games, alas it is bottlenecked immensely by my creaking old processor. Thing is I don't want to spend a lot of money (£300), which limits me as I need a mobo and RAM as well.

Current spec is:
Core 2 Duo E6300 @ 2.9Ghz
4GB Ram
GA 965 DS3 Mobo
GTX470

Any ideas?
 
Why not pickup something like Q9450 or similar second hand? Will be quite sufficient to drive GTX470 and you don't have to upgrade mobo or ram.
 
You could drop in a better quad core Intel CPU but a quick google reveals that boards not the best clocker, so your other options would be to go for an AM2+ board with a 955 and re-use your existing RAM

Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition "125W Edition" 3.20GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £117.49
(£99.99) £117.49
(£99.99)
Gigabyte GA-MA770-UD3 AMD 770 (Socket AM3/AM2+) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £63.99
(£54.46) £63.99
(£54.46)
Sub Total : £154.45
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.50
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £28.69
Total : £192.64

or get an AM3/955/new RAM

Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition "125W Edition" 3.20GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £117.49
(£99.99) £117.49
(£99.99)
Asus M4A87TD Evo AMD 870 (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard £86.99
(£74.03) £86.99
(£74.03)
Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £76.36
(£64.99) £76.36
(£64.99)
Sub Total : £239.01
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.00
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £43.40
Total : £291.41

or go i5

Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Intel Core i5 760 2.80GHz (Lynnfield) (Socket LGA1156) - Retail £146.86
(£124.99) £146.86
(£124.99)
Asus P7P55D-E Intel P55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 Motherboard £104.99
(£89.35) £104.99
(£89.35)
Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £76.36
(£64.99) £76.36
(£64.99)
Sub Total : £279.33
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.00
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £50.46
Total : £338.79
 
If money is the bottleneck i too would suggest that replacing the CPU with a better one such as OcUK's Intel Quad core Q9400, saving yourself £130, which you could either spend on a new case or a modular PSU, ready for your next build when the time comes.
 
There are a couple of bad bits of advice here. People need to check their facts before suggesting expensive upgrades that potentially do not work.

That board needs to be rev 3.3 to even be capable of taking a 45nm cpu and even then it's a unnofficial beta bios.

Revision 2.0 will only take C0 stepping E8000 series dual cores and even then only by overclocking and will not take a 45nm Quad, Pentium dual core or E0 stepping E8000 series.

Rev 1.0 will not take any 45nm cpus at all. Just the original 65nm Pentium dual core, Core2Duo and Core2Quads.

If you want to keep the board your best bet would be a second hand Q6600 G0 stepping quad core for £70-80. On the other hand it could be time to bite the bullet and upgrade to a new rig as some of the other guys have suggested.
 
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