Upgrade path?

iviv

iviv

iviv

Soldato
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So, I've just got a couple of exams left, and why revise when I could be thinking of upgrading my PC instead.

Currently, I'm as in my sig. My E6600 has got a pretty good overclock up to 3.4Ghz on air (Thermalright IFX14 cooler) and I suspect I could get more out of it, but the north/southbridge is getting too toasty to cope with more. Asus P5B motherboard, if it helps.

But nowadays, dual core CPUs are beginning to show their age, aren't they? I can't whack graphics up to their maximum, but that's probably linked to my graphics card as well, isn't it?

Upgrade wise, the graphics card would be a simple upgrade, but there's not really many options for my CPU. A Q8300 may be possiblem but looking at the P5B's product page it doesn't list 1333 fsb processors as being compatible.

So, it would be up to the members market/other shops to find a good core 2 quad, or the other option would be to throw it all out, need mobo, cpu, ram and cooler?

Which... seems a little wasteful. I mean, I could probably sell them on the MM to get something back, then look to the future somewhere. Not sure where though. This was my first system, so I've only had the intel cpu as they were ruling the market with the c2d's at the time, but nowadays its closer?
Looking at AMDs chips, the Phenom 2 X4's are going for £135, which is good value for the clock speed comparing with the core 2 quads, which are more expensive with lower clocks? I would need a new motherboard, but if I do go for one of those, I could keep my DDR2 ram, and maybe the cooler as well? (Supported AMD chipsets: - AMD: Athlon64 / FX / X2 / Opteron Socket AM2 processors) Wait, all those CPUs are AM3, so I'd need a new cooler as well :(

And looking at those AMD processors, for £30 more I could get a six core cpu? Lower clocks, but a little overclocking should bring it up at least to the 3.4Ghz I am currently at, if not higher?

Sorry, I've started rambling a bit, funny what you do to avoid revision, isn't it? I've even almost talked myself into one of those AMD cpu's just by looking and seeing how cheap they are :x
Is there any particular reason for this cheapness? I know Intel's CPUs have hyperthreading, which is essentially doubling the number of cores?
And finally, if I were to pop for one, which would be a good mobo to go with it? Especially considering I'd be looking for a good overclock. I'd prefer 6 sata ports as well, as I'm currently using 5.

Thanks in advance!
 
(Thread got locked for some reason, so it sunk without anyone being able to post in it, hope the dons don't mind me bumping it back up!)
 
Oh, three very good questions :x

Budget... I'm not entirely sure yet, depends how well I feel my exams go! I could probably stretch to £300 though.

Yes, its going to be mostly gaming, a little CAD work as well, but that's just an extra, rather than what I want out of the PC.

And I have two monitors, a 1680x1050 and a 1440x900. Most of the time I play games windowed in the larger, and use the smaller for IM/web browsing, depending on what the game is. More immersive ones I do play full screen, and SupCom gets both of them.
 
You could get a Q6600 or Q6700 clock it to the same or more than your E6600 and then upgrade to a 5850/5870. This way you get the most out of your current system while waiting for the new stuff next year.

You should be able to get a Q6600 for around £75, a little more for a Q6700. Sell your E6600 which are still fetching up to £50+ on the bay. That could be a cpu upgrade for as little as £25. Your NB temps are probably partly due to having 4x sticks of ram as it put's more load on the chipset.

i3/i5/i7 are a waste of time considering in my opinion as both sockets are dead next year. 1156 in Q1 and 1366 in Q3. The only real new build option is to go with AMD with regards to future upgrades.
 
To be honest your E6600 at 3.4GHz should not be holding back your 5770 at all.

If you are thinking of upgrade, the I think your best course of action would be try to grab a 2nd hand Q6600 for around £70, and a 5850 for around £230.
 
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Mak3R said:
Or a 2nd 5770 for Crossfire...
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My mobo's been around from before the time crossfire existed :P

Well, probably not, but only one PCI-E port, so that rules it out.

Switching out the CPU for a second hand quad core does seem like a good way to go, as it should keep me running for the next couple of years, and then I can do a big upgrade then, to whatever fancy tech is currently leading.

Off to the MM I go then.

I remember, from reading about the Q6600's that there's different steppings, like G0 or something like that? And some are generally better than others for overclocking? What should I be looking for?

And thanks for all the help so far :)
 
i dont think that the q6600 would help you much in games (although you did mention supcom where it should)

you could try for selling you e6600 ~£50
buying a Q6600 ~£75
replace you mobo with p35 ~ £80
sell old one if you can ~ £30
and buy a second 5770 ~ £130

total cost ~ £285 (-~£80 from sales)
 
NathWraith said:
Go for the AMD X6 core, so easy to clock aswell, will fly past 3.4GHz
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Its a toss up between this or a Q6600. You say they are easy to clock, but how so? I mean, I have little experience with my c2d, it was just a matter of keep pushing up the fsb until it didnt work, then pushing up the voltage, rince and repeat. But AMD don't have an FSB, but is it essentially the same, just with different acronyms?

As for graphics, I know the 5770 is a little weak, I only upgraded to it from a 4870 because it cost me about £20 considering Dirt 2 came with it. Crossfire is a possibility, but I may keep it around until the refresh/6 series comes out, and replace it with a top range card then.

Soo many posibilities ;_;
 
IMO you should hold on a bit.

Early next year Intel will release new generation of processors (Sandy Bridge), and so will AMD, the code named Bulldozer.

Your system is fine, apart from being a dual core but since you are not that much into heavy multi tasking you are probably fine.

Go on holidays instead ^_^
 
I'm not really one for holidays. Not really something to spend money on, since I'd only get a week or so of entertainment, a processor lasts for years XD

And while I appreciate the 'hold out' option, that's just going to keep happening. Come january something else would be just on the horizon, and so on. Plus, I've noticed a few games beginning to hit 100% use on my cpu, and the APB beta is chugging, it needs a quad. That's partly why I thought I'd go all the way to hex core, future proofing for a while, ideally.
 
I understand what you say. However processor architectures typically take quite long to change.

Think of it this way. Since Conroe hit the street, it has seen a revision in the Wolfdale architecture, and a new arch with Nehalem, Revision of nehalem is Westmere inside the i3s.

Sandy bridge is the next architecture made by the same people who made the original Conroe.

Bulldozer on the AMD front is heralded as the first true architecture revision in ages.

So yea, its not always that something like this is around the corner.

Anyway, thats my 2p. You are free to disagree :)
 
Well, I had a glance over the Bulldozer and SB wikipedia entries, but unsuprisingly they went over my head I'm guessing that they are basically better, faster and use less power? :P

Also, just realised I should probably bring my PSU into this, I don't doubt it could handle a Q6600, but if I were to switch to a hex core AMD system with a new mobo, would it be powerful enough? Its an Enermax Liberty 650W I believe. And... I think I've heard some bad things about these PSU's? That said, its powering my pc, with 5 hard drives, and it hasn't shown any problems yet, so it shouldn't be much of a problem, just not as efficiant as top of the line PSUs?
 
Basically yes. Faster and better all around.

In my view Nehalem was not THAT great. Barely better than a Yorkfield at the same clocks it basically had Hyper threading.

The enermax should be able to handle even the hexacore. Its power requirements are less than the original Phenom II 965 (not the current one). How old is it anyway? I as a rule change the PSU when i change the whole system. It should be ok though, back in the day people were recommending them all the time, a friend of mine has one and is fine.
 
Its probably nearing 4 years old now, and I think it may be 620 and not 650W, not that 30W will make too much of a difference.

That said, its coped with everything so far, so I may keep it until I go for a meatier graphics card, since that will probabbly strain it more than this upgrade.

Now I just need to decide between Q, X6 or waitig. I'm leaning towards the X6, don't thig I'll wait because I'm too impatient. If it was a couple of months then I would, but a year's a long time. Plus early adopters end up paying a price premium as well, so that's not something I'll be looking into. Thanks for the pointers on that though, Trunks :)
 
iviv said:
Now I just need to decide between Q, X6 or waitig. I'm leaning towards the X6, don't thig I'll wait because I'm too impatient. If it was a couple of months then I would, but a year's a long time. Plus early adopters end up paying a price premium as well, so that's not something I'll be looking into. Thanks for the pointers on that though, Trunks :)
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To be honest I think your Enermax Liberty 620W would coup fine with a Q6600.

I'm not saying it is bad to go Phenom X6, but going down that path there's extra cost in CPU, motherboard and RAM (DDR3), and you would pretty much use up your entire budget with nothing left for upgrading the graphic card.

I still think grabbing grabbing a 2nd hand Q6600 and grabbing a 5850 would do you the best immediate improvement for gaming.
 
What exactly are you struggling to play at max and at what res/settings ? Is the performance the same windowed vs full screen ? You also need to establish if you're CPU/GPU limited. If it's GPU then you have two options, overclock or upgrade.

If it's CPU then you need to establish if the games in question are optimised for extra cores, if they're not you're wasting your time/money.

Also remember some games are optimised for either Nvidia or ATI and some (eg Crysis WH) are just plain brutal.
 
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