Upgrade on a budget query

mikeo

mikeo

mikeo

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Joined
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SW Scotland
Hi... Going to upgrade from the PC in my sig. to the following.

- Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L
- Q6700 (NB. I can get this for about the same as a Q6600)
- Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX
- Arctic Cooler Alpine 7 Pro

Already got a copy of Vista 32bit (retail) and just ordered the 64 bit version (which I will be using).

Only concerns are:

- Mobo ... reports of hot Northbridge (hence why sticking to a standard cooler that blows down). And lack of PCIe 2 support (will this stop me using PCIe 2 cards)?

- Memory not on Gigabyte QVL. But then again, there aint that much listed anyway! But Corsair says it should be OK.

- Agonised over whether to go dual or quad. But decided the Q6700 was a reasonable compromise (considering I can get it cheap-ish).

PC used mainly for the usual (WEB browsing etc.) and gaming.

Any comments or suggestions anyone?

Much appreciated.

PS. Was originally thinking of a later P45 board, like the P5Q. But my experience of being an "early adopted" have not been good. And have read quite a few comments about memory compatibility and stability (early days for BIOS maybe?!), maybe unjustified? So I thought the P35's should be pretty mature by now and as I have retail Vista, I can always upgrade the mobo at a later date.

PPS. Think I'm starting to go blind reading reviews and forum posts! So time to make a decission now me thinks.
 
mikeo said:
Arctic Cooler Alpine 7 Pro
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It's probably no better than stock, I would just skip the cooler.

mikeo said:
- Mobo ... reports of hot Northbridge (hence why sticking to a standard cooler that blows down). And lack of PCIe 2 support (will this stop me using PCIe 2 cards)?
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No, you can use PCI-E 2.0 graphics card, it's backwards compatible.

mikeo said:
- Memory not on Gigabyte QVL. But then again, there aint that much listed anyway! But Corsair says it should be OK.
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Yes, I would ignore the QVL, it's just a rough guideline more than an actually list of "what will only work".

mikeo said:
- Agonised over whether to go dual or quad. But decided the Q6700 was a reasonable compromise (considering I can get it cheap-ish).
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As long as you can get that Q6700 for under £110, otherwise you'd be better off getting a Q6600 new as there is sod all difference near between the two CPU's other than a big price difference. But really... for games: dual, for photoshop/video editing etc: quad. There is not enough games out at the moment that make use of a Quad, and the games will benefit more from a 3Ghz Dual Core than they would from a 2.4Ghz Quad Core.

mikeo said:
PS. Was originally thinking of a later P45 board, like the P5Q. But my experience of being an "early adopted" have not been good. And have read quite a few comments about memory compatibility and stability (early days for BIOS maybe?!), maybe unjustified? So I thought the P35's should be pretty mature by now and as I have retail Vista, I can always upgrade the mobo at a later date.
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P45's aren't really great, there just there really to fill a gap in price from P35's and X3(4)8's, it's just an upgraded P35 with some extra bits like PCI-E 2.0 lanes and 8x dual Crossfire instead of 16x/4x. Still, P45's are a good choice and would recommend them over the P35s mainly because they are near enough the same and the P45 is newer technology, albeit slightly. If you did decide to go with the Asus PQ5, I've checked around and can't find any compatability issues with that board and you're RAM and also found people using similar types of that RAM (all Corsair, just different flavours).
 
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flibby

Thanks for your comments.

Re- quad. I take your point, I suspect I'm just falling for the "I've got a quad in my PC" bragging rights (like a lot of folks I suspect). So maybe a E8400 would be a better idea?
If I went for the Gigabyte board, it would appear to support the Wolfdale cored CPU's. Though this does raise a question in my mind!

If the board arrives and does not have the latest BIOS (like it needs for Wolfdale CPU's) would I still be able to get into the BIOS to flash it to the latest version? Or would the PC just not boot at all if the processor is not currently supported by the BIOS?

Thanks again...
 
mikeo said:
Re- quad. I take your point, I suspect I'm just falling for the "I've got a quad in my PC" bragging rights (like a lot of folks I suspect). So maybe a E8400 would be a better idea?
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Aye, I would get the E8400 if it were me... although depending on the answer to the question below, you might have to go with the Q6600/Q6700.

If the board arrives and does not have the latest BIOS (like it needs for Wolfdale CPU's) would I still be able to get into the BIOS to flash it to the latest version? Or would the PC just not boot at all if the processor is not currently supported by the BIOS?
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The computer would not boot at all and you would not be able to flash it. I have checked the Gigabyte website on that Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L board and it supports the E8400 but only from the F8a or later BIOS. Just in case your BIOS version is not that when you get the board, do you have another CPU you can put in it to at least get it to boot so you can flash? Doesn't have to be a Core 2 Duo, can be a Pentium 4. See this list - anything on the F2 BIOS is fine.
 
fliiby

Unluckily I don't have any other socket 775 CPU. So looks like it's back to the quad, that at least appears to be pretty much supported from the outset.

Though I suppose I could consider one of the conroe dual cores, as these appear to have been supported from the outset. Prices strangely seem to be a little higher than the later Wolfdate cored CPU! Question... would they loose out much to the later Wolfdales?

Thanks yet again...
 
mikeo said:
fliiby

Unluckily I don't have any other socket 775 CPU. So looks like it's back to the quad, that at least appears to be pretty much supported from the outset.

Though I suppose I could consider one of the conroe dual cores, as these appear to have been supported from the outset. Prices strangely seem to be a little higher than the later Wolfdate cored CPU! Question... would they loose out much to the later Wolfdales?
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Wolfdales are better, but the older generation 65nm stuff is still excellent (the Q6600 for example is the older 65nm tech). It's a longshot also - but could even ask Overclockers if when you buy it they could flash it for you, I doubt they will but if you explain your situation they might.

Also what about the PC you are currently using, can you not use the CPU from that? Or is it an AMD system?

[EDIT]: Actually maybe some good news. I was checking around to see if maybe the E8400 would just work straight off the bat with an older BIOS revision and it seems that it will. There's a thread here at Anandtech that has people that were the situation that you're in and they all reported that their E8400's worked with the older BIOS versions.

If you do get the E8400 and the P35-DS3L and it doesn't work and you are completely stuck, send me an e-mail (see my Trust) and forward on your address and I'll post you an old Pentium 4 I have lying around for free. Was going to chuck it anyway, may as well go to some use to yourself to help get you up and running.
 
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flibby

Thanks yet again.

I'm lost for words.... You've gone more than that extra mile to help me. Your help has very much been appreciated.

So my final decision (with your good help), is:
- Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L
- E8400
- Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX

Out of interest, I shall give ocUK a phone tomorrow and see if they can confirm or otherwise the position re-mobo.

Then I'll order up tomorrow evening.

Thanks again for all your help.

Regards Mike

PS. If I do get stuck BIOS wise, I'LL drop you a line.
 
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mikeo said:
So my final decision (with your good help), is:
- Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L
- E8400
- Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX
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Sounds good :-)

Out of interest, I shall give ocUK a phone tomorrow and see if they can confirm or otherwise the position re-mobo.
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Yeah may as well mate, no harm in trying. Just explain your situation that you are buying the E8400 and the P35-DS3L and are unsure if the BIOS revision of the board is the correct revision that you are after (F8a or above). They probably can't tell you the BIOS revision, it won't be written anywhere on the box or in the manual but just ask if after you buy the parts, would they be able to flash it for you.

Thanks again for all your help.

PS. If I do get stuck BIOS wise, I drop you a line.
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Glad I could help, and no problem.
 
Update:

Sent ocUK a WEBnote last night and they replied:

"Thank you for your web note. We cannot guarantee which revision any products will be as we have so much stock"

Fair enough I suppose.

So I've just gone ahead and ordered the kit anyway. Hopefully it should be OK anyway.

I'll keep you posted.
 
on the P35 i had that only supported new dual/quads on newer bios revisions i could still boot fine but it would warn me that the CPU would be limited and may cause system instability, unless i updated the BIOS.
 
PhoenixUK

Your link points to a different board. The one I got is the GA-P35-DS3L

Though my board was a revision 2 with BIOS F7. Now flashed to the latest F8f.

Everything has turned up and appears to work fine. Though CityLink appeared to have tried their hardest to destroy the box it came in! Mind you, a bit of bubble wrap in the box would not have gone amis!

Not done too much with it yet, as currently running Vista32 (awaiting my Vista64 disc), as it's retail copy and I had to send off for it.

Not sure who thought putting the IDE cable at the bottom of the board was a good idea! because it isn't. Made even more difficult, if you have a long graphics card like an 8800GTS! Luckily I had a longer lead in my box of bits.

Also glad I bought that Arctic Alpine cooler, as the stock HSF looks like a toy!

Only query so far (as not used Intel chip for a while). Is the SpeedStep thing. Slightly confused to start with looking at CPUz, to see my multiplier jumping around. To disable this totally in the BIOS, you appeared to need to disable two settings:
- CPU Enhanced Halt
- CPU EIST function

Questions.
1)Do most people leave the above enabled?
2) Temps in CoreTemp (37/37c at rest) appear to be different to in the BIOS? Usual?

Regards Mike

PS. Thanks to everyone for their help etc.
 
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Coretemp might have really slightly higher temps than in the BIOS.

Sorry for the link, but yeh, I'm glad it's working for you well :).

I've disabled both.

And remember, option to get to memory timings in this board is to press ctrl+f1 on the main screen and then go to the usual CPU options ;).
 
PhoenixUK

I've downloaded and tried realTemp and that looks more like what the BIOS is showing and what I'd expect from looking at the review of the cooler in Anandtech.

Thanks for mentioning about the "memory timings" I had sort of wondered where they were.
 
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