CPU Upgrade - Xmas pressy to myself

[sydeccles]

CPU Upgrade

I am currently running an Opteron 146 @ 2.50GHz. I am thinking its time for a new CPU; however I do not want to change my Epox EP-9NPA mobo

What are the recommendations and gains that I would see?

Thanks in advance

 

[Tetras]

What are you looking for performance gains in?

 

[gurusan]

good stepping opty 165 or a 89w tdp 4400x2...honestly I'd get another gb ram as well

 

[Gashman]

low power X2 4400+ i would say

 

[sydeccles]

Reading postings on this forum, it looks like it may be a better option to dump my AMD set up and switch back to an Intel set up, trouble is what mobo & cpu to go for.

 

[gurusan]

Reading postings on this forum, it looks like it may be a better option to dump my AMD set up and switch back to an Intel set up, trouble is what mobo & cpu to go for.

mobos can be quite pricey.

Currently the best clock board out are those with the nvidia 680i chipsets....I'm waiting til RD600 comes out to see how that stacks up.

And the e6300 is a great CPU....clocks quite high and is only a bit more than 100 quid.

Then you need DDR2 ram as well. The costs are all pretty high for the switchover so for me the best thing is to just wait it out a bit.

 

[Tetras]

Reading postings on this forum, it looks like it may be a better option to dump my AMD set up and switch back to an Intel set up, trouble is what mobo & cpu to go for.

You didn't answer my question so I will assume you are looking for gains in games, if so you'd really be wasting your time only upgrading to a Core 2 Duo rig, cos your graphics card will be the bottleneck and depending on the game, as would 1GB of RAM. Purely upgrading the CPU will yield very little extra performance.

A 7900 GS / X1950 Pro or higher would give you substantial gains where a new CPU would not (though you would also need 2GB of RAM for some games and settings).

 

[sydeccles]

Sorry for not responding to your post, what I wanted was a general performance upgrade, I normally do this every year or two, e.g I had a P4P800 deluxe prior to the setup I have now.

However it looks like my next change will have to be a big one as my existing setup was pretty good a few months ago is now virtually obsolete.

What do I go for next, or do I wait a few months and see if AMD respond to Intel ???

 

[Tetras]

You could get a decent graphics upgrade now but you really need 2GB of RAM and (if you want the upgrade) a hefty CPU boost to make it worthwhile.

I don't think an X1950 Pro would be particularly bottlenecked by the CPU you have but would give a big performance boost in games, buying another 1GB of RAM to pair it with would stick you with DDR so in that sense you'd be better off with 2GB of DDR2 and a Core 2 Duo. An E6300 @ 3 Ghz (not hard overclock to reach with a decent board) would be a substantial upgrade.

Afaik AMD won't have anything much out other than 4x4 (2 x dual cores) for quite a few months and Intel have only just released Quad Cores.

 

[FoxEye]

I'm in the same boat really. The thing which holds me back is the switch to DDR2 memory.

I can justify £100 on the CPU and GFX, and a bit less on the mobo. What I find very hard to swallow is £250 on the DDR2, almost as much as the rest of the parts put together

Looked briefly at the ASROCK boards, couple things put me off them:
I've only got 1Gig DDR, and I need 2Gig ideally (gamer), so I'd be buying another couple sticks of obsolete ram - not great.

And those boards only seem to support DDR2 up to 667 (from the spec), meaning I couldn't (?) get a 2.8Ghz OC from a E6300.

Here's hoping prices will crash after Christmas

 

[sydeccles]

I think we need to wait untill next easter, by then we should be able to find a clear cost effective way forward.......just follow the posts on this forum and see what the general trend is.

My existing system is not that old, yet it is way out of date.