General hardware update advice

Tonytank · 31 Jul 2007 at 22:35

Heres my rig as it stands

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
Abit AB9 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
BFG GeForce 8800 GTX OC 768MB
OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC2-6400
windows xp
xtreme xi-fi gamers sound card

Now, when i put all this together, i had some niggles with the mobos bios, restarting mainly, apparantly it was a well known problem with the board, after the latest bips update that day, it was fine, and has been fine since...

Now, here are some questions i want to ask

1)the ram i have is only 70 quid at the moment, so im thinking about grabbing another 2gb, with vista coming and what not, and im wondering wether this mobo will handle 4gb of ram? does anyone here have expeireince of this mobo with 4gb? or can i expect some more fun with this bios?, or has that been fixed now?

2)the other day i spotted this
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-143-IN&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=793
now, the processer i have now is awesome, but given this one here is "quad" core, i cant help thinking i could shift this one and go for quad core for about 50 notes if i make a good sale, thing is though, is it worth it?

3)harping back to question 1, if this mobo could turn out to be a bit of bother, whats a good reliable alternative for around the 100-150 mark??

cheers for any advice fellas...

weescott · 31 Jul 2007 at 22:38

The E6600 chokes the 8800GTX. The processor upgrade would be well worth it.

Tonytank · 31 Jul 2007 at 22:43

Your kidding me?

jesus....

anyone else care to throw in here?

Youstolemyname · 31 Jul 2007 at 23:26

Im after a bit of a sys upgrade too, not sure what I can get away with with my current setup though.

DFI- Lanparty SLI-DR Nforce4 Socket 939
AMD64 3500+
2x512 OCZ Platinum Rev 2 @ 2-2-2-5
6800 Ultra PCI Express.

I guess it's time for a new cpu, 2gb of ram and a new gfx card but haven't a clue what's a good upgrade based on my mobo. Thanks for any advice in advance.

mattbill · 1 Aug 2007 at 10:18

^^you have a good DFI mobo, why not OC your CPU?

1) 4GB could prove useful with Vista n all, might be worth it seeing as its cheap.

2) You tried overclocking? I reckon it would be worth it over spending more on a new CPU. Just get a nice HSF (i.e. Noctua or Tuniq Tower) then you'll be cooshdy. Ive got mine @ 3ghz comfortably.

3) im not that sure about new mobo's yet with all the new P35 and stuff lol.

DavidB · 1 Aug 2007 at 11:15

The E6600 chokes the 8800GTX. The processor upgrade would be well worth it.

Hmm, personally i dont think thats so true, most games dont use that much processing power, and even less can benefit from quad core (at the moment, next generation games will benefit from it).

But the E6600 is a more than capable processor, i wouldnt replace that untill the native quad cores are released.

Cant remember who im quoting this from but " not overclocking a Intel processor is like buying a ferrari and never going over 50mph"....ok so its not an accurate quote, but you get the point, the best way to improve your performance would simply be to overclock it.

Be aware that 4gb of memorys only supported by 64bit operating systems, if theres any programs you currently run that arent supported it wouldnt be the way to go.

Most the P35 motherboards will be fine, id go for this as its a good board with future proofing bonus's at a low price.

Youstolemyname · 1 Aug 2007 at 16:49

mattbill said:
^^you have a good DFI mobo, why not OC your CPU?

1) 4GB could prove useful with Vista n all, might be worth it seeing as its cheap.

2) You tried overclocking? I reckon it would be worth it over spending more on a new CPU. Just get a nice HSF (i.e. Noctua or Tuniq Tower) then you'll be cooshdy. Ive got mine @ 3ghz comfortably.

3) im not that sure about new mobo's yet with all the new P35 and stuff lol.

It's more the lack of RAM that is becoming the issue.

And from what I have read, the CPU I have will not support more than 2 sticks of dual channel ram at 1T Command rate and 400mhz fsb.

ih8modem · 1 Aug 2007 at 18:57

Youstolemyname said:
It's more the lack of RAM that is becoming the issue.

And from what I have read, the CPU I have will not support more than 2 sticks of dual channel ram at 1T Command rate and 400mhz fsb.

I've read elsewhere that 1T/2T on Intel CPU's are not that big-a-deal. Dont let that hold you back.

A Q6600 over a E6600 is not going to buy you any immediate power, unless you playing SupCom (thats what I have been told). They run the same speed. If you try OC, then the E6600 is likely to overclock better due to heat issues.

Dont know the board, but just about any of the new P35 boards are coming out ok. New chipsets are due in Aug/Sept, so if you not in a hurry, it might be worth waiting.