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Do I need a new CPU?

iDevil

iDevil

iDevil

Associate
Joined
6 Jul 2009
Posts
118
First of all here are my current specs:

Pentium D 915, Asus P5N-D, 4GB Dual chan DDR2 800mhz ram, 8800gt & an old 250gb sata WD Caviar 1.5gb/s 7200rpm.

After recently upgrading the motherboard (from a ABIT SG-95) I am experiencing bad framerates whilst trying to play some games, or watch YouTube videos in HD. I didn't really have this problem with the old board. (The reason I upgraded if you're wondering, is because i wanted to get into overclocking and be able to have 2 graphics cards.) Is there any valid reason why my CPU (or at least i think its the CPU thats slowing me down here) is performing badly with this new mobo? it is on the compatability list. Increasing the CPU FSB in the BIOs a little seems to make it perform slightly better, but right now im at the point where if i increase it any more, Windows will freeze when im trying to multi-task. (Stock speed: 2.8Ghz, Oc speed: 3.4GHz). Would something cheap like an E5220 sort out my problem here?
 
By the way, the machine, overclocked gets 2900 total in 3dmark06 and the CPU alone gets 626. E5200 boost all of this up ?
 
Yes I would say your CPU is the bottleneck on this setup. An upgrade to a Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Quad should solve most of your problems, but considering that i7 is out and i5 will be out next year, it may be worth just waiting and dealing with it until you can afford to replace the CPU motherboard and RAM. However, if you want a fix right now, then the upgrade you propose will work fine.
 
yes, the first generation of c2d were about twice as fast clock per clock compared to a p4, so a e5220 will be a major improvement, esp if your current mb supports them.
 
A core i7 is out of the question really, since i bought the mobo about a month ago and it wont accept that socket Lol. Are you pretty confident its the CPU at fault? as i recently posted in the RAM section thinking it might have been the RAM (was only running 1gb and wasnt sure if it was properly compatible) and someone replied in there saying that it would solve my problem, so the next day i went and orderd 4gb from crucial to install it yesterday and find the problem is still there, and i really dont have the money to throw around like that at the moment:P So an E5220 would be an ideal choice with the low price and all. I wouldnt have given it a second glance unless someone mentioned it the other day and told me that it was actually quite good & has good overclocking abilities.
 
iDevil said:
A core i7 is out of the question really, since i bought the mobo about a month ago and it wont accept that socket Lol. Are you pretty confident its the CPU at fault? as i recently posted in the RAM section thinking it might have been the RAM (was only running 1gb and wasnt sure if it was properly compatible) and someone replied in there saying that it would solve my problem, so the next day i went and orderd 4gb from crucial to install it yesterday and find the problem is still there, and i really dont have the money to throw around like that at the moment:P So an E5220 would be an ideal choice with the low price and all. I wouldnt have given it a second glance unless someone mentioned it the other day and told me that it was actually quite good & has good overclocking abilities.
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You did a reinstall of windows after the ugrade of mobo?

That 915 is still quick enough to play back HD youtube videos.

Throwing a cpu at it will not fix the issue.

Your setup is wrong.

Wrong driver maybe...

By all means the 5200 is a superb cpu but get your PC working properly with the 915 first.

Its not a celeron by any stretch of the imagination.
 
I re-installed XP after installing the new mobo. and i downloaded the lastest version drivers for everything i could find. (Mobo & Graphics card - sound is included in mobo drivers as its onboard) you have any other ideas what could be wrong?
 
iDevil said:
I re-installed XP after installing the new mobo. and i downloaded the lastest version drivers for everything i could find. (Mobo & Graphics card - sound is included in mobo drivers as its onboard) you have any other ideas what could be wrong?
Click to expand...



Can you play back HD conten from disk?

How big is your PSU?


Make sure you have the latest bios for the mobo.

GFX driver?
 
i will download a HD movie clip now to test, but playing my favourite PC game (SWAT 4) offline i still get low framerates, but last night i overclocked the CPU on its own to about 3.4ghz and it seemed to smooth out a little (both youtube & gaming) but if i try clocking it any higher then i get stability issues
 
iDevil said:
i will download a HD movie clip now to test, but playing my favourite PC game (SWAT 4) offline i still get low framerates, but last night i overclocked the CPU on its own to about 3.4ghz and it seemed to smooth out a little (both youtube & gaming) but if i try clocking it any higher then i get stability issues
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What vcore are you using for 3.4ghz?
 
The voltage is set to auto, all I did was increase the fsb. I'm pretty new to overclocking. Should I be managing the vcore manually?
 
What would be a sensible bump? According to CPU-Z the voltage right now is 1.184 V and goes up to 1.248 V when watching HD youtube vid. Could it be that the voltage needed to be increased before i even overclocked the CPU? Could that be why i'm having these problems on this board but wasnt before? (Though as i said, all the voltage settings are set to Auto)
 
haha :P mine was running 50C+ stock speed with the stock cooler when i first got it, but right now im using a freezer pro 7, around 33C idle with the 3.4 ghz O.C and vcore increased in the BIOS to 1.3 V but shows 1.248 V in CPU-Z. I have read somewhere that the voltage decreases or something when you get into windows? but not too sure about it. and under what i believe to be full load (watching a YouTube video in HD) goes up to 37C 95%+ CPU Usage in Task Manager. Will increasing the voltage give me more headroom to increase the FSB and keep the machine stable? or should just increasing the voltage by itself give me a performance boost
 
Ben M said:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-251-IN&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=793

Possiblt the best 52 quid you'll ever spend. The difference will be night and day. Overclock it and you won't know what's hit you.
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Second that!

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On the other hand, I know that c2ds are a lot better but to be this much difference?
I remember having similar setup with E2200 and had about 10k points in 3dmark while not OCed, and OCed 13+.

But still 2.9k only seems a bit low, would be expecting something more like 5tbh.

Either way, for just 52GBP, even if CPU is not the problem, I don't see a reason why you wouldn't buy it anyways : ). ( Unless you're going to buy whole new rig )
 
PhoenixUK said:
Either way, for just 52GBP, even if CPU is not the problem, I don't see a reason why you wouldn't buy it anyways : ).
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Unfortunatly, we arnt all made of money :) But yea, i might consider just buying it and hoping for the best. But i will be SUPER bummed if it doesnt solve the problem having thrown 50 quid at the machine already thinking the RAM was at fault. (Though having experimented with my old graphics card & my other hard drive, the CPU seems to be the only thing.
 
You can ask your friends around if they can borrow you a CPU for few hours to test with, your mobo will take most of the C2D and C2Qs from intel : ).

And you can sell your old CPU for around 15-20quid probably making your purchase costing only about 30 which obviously isn't so much.
 
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