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Need some advice upgrading my P4

Witcher1979

Witcher1979

Witcher1979

Permabanned
Joined
20 Apr 2011
Posts
7,373
Location
Suffolk
Hey guys

I know my old P4 is really old now so its time for a tiny upgrade. Nothing to fancy though :)

At the moment I have 1.5gig ram. P4 3.4ghz with an x800 xt ati card.

I am looking at the E6400 or the E6600 intel CPU's. Also this might seem silly, I was told I would need two of these CPU's? I figured it was all built into one CPU. I also have no desire to overclock so stock only for me.

Would I expect a big increase over the P4? I am not a gamer on the PC I have an xbox for this but I do a lot of video conversions.

Also Could someone tell me what is a good board for one of the above CPU's? The E6600 I can get for about £30-£40 so I am hoping to spend about the same on the mobo. My drives are IDE so I would also need a board that supports both IDE and sata.

Sorry for asking dumb questions but when it comes to the tech side of how a PC works I am really dumb.

It will also only be running Arch Linux, I never touch or use windows of any sort.

Thanks for any advice.
 
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Hi there, Welcome to the OCUK forums :)

May I ask what the make and model number of your current motherboard is and what type of RAM do you currently use? You can check this out using the application CPU-Z (looking in the mainboard and memory tabs).

Depending on what your board is, you may be able to reuse your current motherboard/RAM and simply drop in a new Core 2 Duo CPU - like a E6400 or E6600 (after doing a BIOS update). The E6xxx CPUs are just a single CPU (like the P4) they just happen to have two cores on the CPU and are much faster.
 
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Hi guys

Thanks for the advice. Well I cant run the windows app as I only use Arch Linux :)

This board is in a very old advent machine, it must be at least 6 years old so I really just want to do a bit of an upgrade.

I looked at the above board but I bought the G41 instead, as I understood it the G41 just has newer firmware or whatever then the G31 and was only £5 more expensive.

Gigabyte GA-G41M-ES2L Intel G41 (Socket 775) DDR2 microATX Motherboard
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-220-GI

I also have bought the Q6600 quad core as well. I dont know if this was a good idea but I did. Now I just need some ram and a decent enough graphics card for around the £60-£70 mark.

Was this a wise choice or did I mess up.

So if anyone has any advice on 2gb ram for that board and a graphics card I would be very thankful. Roughly £40 for ram and £70 for a card.

Cheers
 
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the q6600 is a good chip also I just noticed you mentioned it was an advent machine so you will need a new case as well since an ATX motherboard won't go into a BTX case.
 
Hi

Thanks for the input. I actaully have a Commodore Gaming Case which I hope will fit the microATX board:

http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?t=8990&highlight=commodore+gaming+case

have not looked yet but I made a post on that forum amibay and they say it does fit a microATX will leave me with lots of room for fans.

So now I really need to sort out a Graphics card and ram. Is the onboard any good? I was thinking of playing some older games like Crysis 1. I know I would struggle with newer games. I would dual boot xp and linux.

Thanks for everyones help so far. You guys are making this little upgrade easier for me.
 
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I'd get this ram for £24
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-086-KS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=813
and use the money you save on this £85 card
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-258-SP&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1711
Either that or this cheaper card for £62 (got this myself at the mo, pretty good for the price) and use the extra money to get 4gb of ram :)
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-196-XF&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1673

The second card will run crysis 1 on 720p (play it myself no probs)
 
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Thanks every so much again for everyones help :)

I sourced 4 gig of that ram thanks for the link.

Now I just need to save £90 this week for that 5830 and I am done. Does this come with a dvi to vga adapter or do I need to buy one.

I just want to say yet again thanks to everyone for basically holding my hand and helping me setup a budget system that should do my needs for a couple of years.

Thanks guys
 
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Hi

Thanks for bringing that to my attention, I think the Commodore one is 550w so fingers crossed thats enough. I guess I will just have to wait and see.

Cheers
 
Hi

It is actually made by Commodore, unless it is made by someone else with the Commodore Branding. I will have to have a look at it.

http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?t=8990&highlight=commodore+gaming+case

I dont know if its cheap or not to be honest.

I now have the CPU/Motherboard/4 gig ram on order. HD 5830 is being ordered on Payday which is weds. Looking forward to it all now. Damn Bank Holidays making me wait for the parts though.

Do you think that Commodore PSU will be up to it?
 
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hehe No that advice was from a so called friend trying to help. I am just glad I never wasted money on 2x CPU's and came here for the right advice.

Cheers
 
Motherboard came today: Thanks overclockers speedy delivery :)



Q6600 and ram are first class recorded so fingers crossed will be here by Thursday, but with bank holiday back logs I dont know.

HD5830 is being ordered tomorrow. But if other bits turn up I can still build it and run some video encode tests using just the onboard video.

Is it OK to add photos here?
 
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Hey

All the bits arrived today. Apart from graphics as that was ordered today. Managed to bang it all together with win 7 64 bit and arch linux 64bit on two partitions.

I even overclocked it to 3.0ghz. Sits at 35 idle and 65 under pressure with prime95 running for 20 mins.

Very happy with the results with video conversion :)

I was a bit shocked that win7 uses 800meg of ram when its idle out of my 4 gig . My arch install with Gnome uses 120meg :)

Thanks again guys
 
voorhees1979 said:
I was a bit shocked that win7 uses 800meg of ram when its idle out of my 4 gig . My arch install with Gnome uses 120meg :)
Click to expand...

Win 7 is quite clever with it's use of RAM. One of the things it does is load regularly used programs to memory automatically, so they open faster when you need them.

Glad you got your new system sorted.
 
voorhees1979 said:
Motherboard came today: Thanks overclockers speedy delivery :)



Q6600 and ram are first class recorded so fingers crossed will be here by Thursday, but with bank holiday back logs I dont know.

HD5830 is being ordered tomorrow. But if other bits turn up I can still build it and run some video encode tests using just the onboard video.

Is it OK to add photos here?
Click to expand...

q6600 your going to love it going from p4 :) ive just upgraded from one i had for 3 years
 
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