New CPU advice

[Dobzhansky]

Hey people

I'm looking to upgrade my CPU to get the most out of the rest of my set up.
I know I'm not going to be getting the latest CPUs, mainly because I bought the motherboard reasonably recently but also price-wise I don't mind being a bit behind for more of a bargain.

Anyway I have:
ASUS P5Q-E
Intel Core 2 Duo E6300
Sapphire ATI Radeon 4870
3GB RAM (spread across 3 slots - someone is bound to tell me this is a terrible idea)

I was thinking E8400 / Q8400

Any opinions?

cheers

 

[SeraphX]

Q6600 G0 steppings can be had 2nd hand for around 60-70 now, thats quite probably the best bang for buck you can get for 775 boards now

 

[chipps101]

yup get a q6600 G0, much easier to get a good oc on it as you wont need to push as high fsb's on your board

 

[pastymuncher]

Hi and welcome to the forums.

As the others have suggested a G0 stepping Q6600 would be the best option. The two cpu's you mentioned have a low multiplier so would need a high fsb for a decent clock, something your board is'nt going to like. The price of a Q6600 fluctuates a lot so you may be lucky to pick one up for £60 but are more likely looking at £70-75. Just checked Ebay and there are some going quite cheaply. Make sure it's a G0 SLACR stepping though.

Yes, having 3x sticks of ram is a bad idea as you will have lost dual channel capability. Try to pick up some cheap DDR2 6400 (2x2GB), it will be enough to get that Q6600 to 3.6Ghz.

 

[Dobzhansky]

I will ebay for the q6600, looks good with the G0 stepping.

For the RAM, I already have 2x1GB corsair XMS2 and another 1GB of generic RAM. If I just get another two sticks of 1GB XMS2 (and lose the generic) will that be equivalent to the 2x2GB setup or does running 4 sticks lose dual channel capability, could save me £20 so I thought it worth asking...

cheers.

Ps previous ram is XMS2 PC2 6400 C4, new Ram would be C5, different latencies might be a problem?

 

[pastymuncher]

Four sticks mean that you get dual channel back but running four sticks also put's more load on the Northbridge. This means that you may not get the fsb as high as you would with just a pair of sticks and will more likley need more Northbridge voltage.

As for the timings, all that would need to be done would be to slacken the first set to the same timings as the second set and all should be well. On Ebay though, you should be able to pick up a matched pair of 2Gb sticks for £26-40 depending on brand.