time to change the 2180?

[Stonedofmoo]

The E2180 is a decent LGA775 chip as is the classic 8800GT GPU.

The 2180 isn't THAT good though. The 1mb cache really cripples it. In fact in reviews it shows you need to run the 2180 @ 3.6Gig just to match the E6400 @ 3gig.

I'd personally keep the 8800GT as it's an excellent card for the money, and clock it a little higher. Mine clocks to 700core and 2000mem without any troubles for extra horsepower.
I'd then get the E5200 or E7200 chip if you can afford it although the E5200 offers the best value. 2Mb of cache for a noticable performance increase and the cooler running 45nm technoligy.

 

[LabR@t]

decisions i hate/love upgrading

better chip/same card or slighty better chip/new card or wait and get i7 rig? etc

 

[Superjeep4x4]

I just ordered a E7300 here in the states to upgrade my E2180. I thought about the E5200 and a E8400 but figured this would be a decent middle of the road upgrade for the price. I can sell my E2180 for half of what I got it for and take the E7300 in reality down to below what a E5200 would have cost me so Im happy with that. I mean really to be able to spend that small of an amount for 45nm(cooler running and a general speed increase) and triple the cache of my old chip Im happy with it.

I hated to spend to much on a E8xxx as id rather get a new vid card and monitor down the road and with new stuff from Intel and AMD the E7300 sounded good. I will add I mostly play MMO's so the added cache while not making or breaking it will help me with more constant and slightly higher min framerates.

Unless your planing to get a 24" like pretty soon I would also say the E5200 or the E7xxx and keep the 8800. I have one and its a great card. Sell the 2180 and save it back for your next upgrade or if ya see a killer deal on a 4870 or something.

 

[marcus_667]

i use to be an avid upgrader but due to due family commitments i.e 1 son and another on the way I am looking for value for money I have had the 8800GT and 2180 for just over a year now and its probably the longest i have ever kept the same setup TBH and i am dying to upgrade but want to make sure i don't have to upgrade for another year. Also in the last year I have picked up a ps3 and wii and this eats into to my prime time PC gaming which is still my favorite pastime.


feeling drawn towards 8400 and get it to 4/4.2ghz or something and maybe a 260 as I really got my eyes on a 23/24 screen 1980x1050

im upgrading in a few weeks hit me up for my cpu if u want

 

[LabR@t]

thinking of getting the q9550 now found it for £240 I reckon this keep me happy for a year and I cant justify the expense of a I7 outlay [motherboard/ram]

I take it the oc the same way as the 2180? will the 8800Gt hold it back much?


edit:


ordered it , Might as well keep this setup and that is best cpu for current rig any idea what to expect when OC'ing the 9550?

 

[bobert50]

thinking of getting the q9550 now found it for £240 I reckon this keep me happy for a year and I cant justify the expense of a I7 outlay [motherboard/ram]

I take it the oc the same way as the 2180? will the 8800Gt hold it back much?


edit:


ordered it , Might as well keep this setup and that is best cpu for current rig any idea what to expect when OC'ing the 9550?

Now's really not the time to upgrade tbh

I def wouldn't say its a good idea to chuck £240 on a cpu atm when you got a good cpu already thats unlikely to really be your bottleneck. £240 is a long way towards a gtx 280 etc...

 

[MoRT489]

Dont bother upgrading the E2180 unless you plan to encode, etc. as I got a Q6600 on the MM so went from E2160 @ 3.1Ghz to Q6600 @ 3.6GHz and have noticed absolutely zero difference in Crysis or COD4 (didnt really expect to but wanted to play with a quad). The benefit I have noticed is that i can run ripping software, whilst also running videora ipod converter, watching a file from HDD on secondary monitor and playing COD4 without slowdown. However, it is only the ripping software that effectively utilises all 4 cores, none of the others are optimised for quad, although COD4 does seem to spread the load a little over 2 of the cores.

Bit disappointed with the ipod converter as it seems like the ideal program to make use of all 4 cores.

 

[MoRT489]

The 2180 isn't THAT good though. The 1mb cache really cripples it. In fact in reviews it shows you need to run the 2180 @ 3.6Gig just to match the E6400 @ 3gig.

I'd personally keep the 8800GT as it's an excellent card for the money, and clock it a little higher. Mine clocks to 700core and 2000mem without any troubles for extra horsepower.
I'd then get the E5200 or E7200 chip if you can afford it although the E5200 offers the best value. 2Mb of cache for a noticable performance increase and the cooler running 45nm technoligy.

Disagree strongly, there has been no crippling of my PC's performance on e2160 @ 3.1GHz 1MB L2 @ 1680*1050 and a gfx upgrade would be far more satisfactory. Whilst perhaps you need the extra cache on a multi gpu setup it just isnt a crippling factor with one gfx card at that res and I would be surprised if it suffered at 24" either.

 

[Stonedofmoo]

I have to disagree with you. The 2xxx series chips are not as good as the chips with more cache, period. The difference between the 2160 and and C2D's with more cache in games can be quite noticable.

I mean just look at the difference in these games graph.

Source: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cache-size-matter,1709-7.html

Or the 2140 at different overclocked speeds, as you can see it needs a big overclock to match larger cache models

Personally I'd ditch the 2160 for a 5200 or better yet a 7300. Both are excellent chips; faster, cooler and use less power. Neither are expensive either.

Source: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/Intel-Pentium-Dual-Core-E2140-overclocking,review-29816.html

 

[LabR@t]

i got a Q9550 at the weekend and after a little fuss over what bios to use with my IP35-e MB. I am now running at 3.8ghz and after 1 hr or prime torture test all 4 cores are under 60c

Its a monster and no reason to upgrade to i7 for another year so i can let prices tumble and all the niggles be ironed out ready for me to buy the recommened kit then rather than be on the bleeding edge.

 

[cotton_flex]

You bought the Q9550 then. Can you comment on the gaming performance gains?

Personally I was in a similar situation a few months back. I have an E2140 clocked to 3GHz on a Abit IP35 Pro mobo with 4gb ballistix ram. I had to decide between a cpu & gpu upgrade and a gpu upgrade only. I bought the 4870 at first with the intention to add a Q9550 later on.

But at 1920x1200 4xAA, 16xAF I'm averaging around 60-80fps on the games I play, a lot of the recent ones - L4D, Grid, UTIII etc except for crysis/GTA4 which I don't intend to bother with just yet. And with the price rises from the exchange rates and the time its taken for the e0's to turn up, it's put me off.

At this rate, I think I can hold off till i7 matures but the upgrade bug is very itchy as am sure a lot of you here know.

 

[littlepuppy]

My local PC world were selling off 6850's for 60 quid, that would be quite a nice upgrade if u can get a cheap one..

 

[MoRT489]

I have to disagree with you. The 2xxx series chips are not as good as the chips with more cache, period. The difference between the 2160 and and C2D's with more cache in games can be quite noticable.

snip

Supreme Commander is an exception as it benefits from multiple cores (not necessarily the higher cache) and REALLY, are you showing me graphs about 10fps difference above 120fps...

 

[Stonedofmoo]

You're right, but then you cannot get away from the fact the [email protected] was slower than the Dual Core E6750 running at it's stock speed of 2.66Gig. Which really just shows how crippled the 2xxx series are.

and REALLY, are you showing me graphs about 10fps difference above 120fps...

If that 8-9% difference in performance means nothing to you then why have you bothered tweaking your RAM for tight timings and overclocking your graphics card... because it's being held back by the E2160.

That aside the 2xxx series also doesn't have Intel-VT extensions which matters for me with the work I do.

 

[HouR]

you noticed much of a difference over your 2180 with the quad, gaming wise?
Im in the same kinda situation but feel a gfx upgrade is all I need for now.

 

[MoRT489]

I've tweaked them cos it's fun to push the hardware as far as it will go but in terms of real world gains (for the games i play at least) it's OCing the gfx card where i've noticed a real difference. Whilst it's amusing getting 200+fps in COD4 its completely unnecessary which was my point about the 10% gains above 120fps. I would think it's always best to start with the gfx card for improving gaming performance as the CPU is rarely the bottleneck. Dont get me wrong i'm all up for tweaking and getting the most fps possible even if it is superfluous but I think from the OP's point of view it was an unecessary upgrade that could be better spent elsewhere.

I bought the Q6600 cos it was an excellent price and I wanted to start doing some encoding and see what all the fuss was about turns out the only difference it makes to my games is that i can do more things at the same time, but then that was all i expected from it. Want to give an E8400 a go and see what that's like, may actually be able to sell the Q6600 at a profit given the current economic climate!

 

[LabR@t]

fallout 3 1680x1050 with 4*aa 16*af all max settings certainly runs a lot smoother now no got the exact numbers but before it used to lag in places now its smooth as silk.

l4d same res 4*aa 16*af all max i was getting around 46fps now 67 in the guru3d timedemo i downloaded LINK