Upgrade path?

[iviv]

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!

 

[iviv]

(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!)

 

[iviv]

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.

 

[iviv]

Or a 2nd 5770 for Crossfire...

My mobo's been around from before the time crossfire existed

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

 

[iviv]

Go for the AMD X6 core, so easy to clock aswell, will fly past 3.4GHz

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 ;_;

 

[iviv]

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.

 

[iviv]

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?

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?

 

[iviv]

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]

Yeah, that's true regarding all that outlay, I'm just faced with two real choices. Either go Q6600 and upgrade the graphics, or go with a far better CPU, and then have to stick with the graphics card I have right now.

Its a toughie, especially considering that Southern Islands should be released later this year, but again, once that comes along it won't be too long until NI, and that whole agressive cycle starts again.

Personally, I must admit I'm leaning towards the whole upgrade to AMD now, and then come my birthday in October stick my money into a top of the line SI card, hopefully before the prices jump like they did with this series. But obviously a hex core system would be held back by the 5770, though only for a few months...

Dammit, I want to upgrade everything! :x

Edit: The most notable game I can't really play is the APB beta, though obviously that's an unoptimised beta, so its not exected to be super smooth. Dirt2 is also hitting 100% over both CPUs, as does BC2. Though I appreciate that these games are also going to be GPU limited to an extent as well.

 

[iviv]

Well, I wouldn't go that far saying Phenom II X6 is 'far' better than a Q6600. While 6 cores benefit people that use it for heavy-thread tasks such as video encoding etc, gaming wise it is only on par with most Quad cores in terms of frame rate (worse in some cases).

Phenom II X6 is the same architecture as the Phenom II X4, but with two extra cores, so it's not really a huge step forward for gaming because most games don't even use up the 4 cores.

If you want to upgrade with entire make-over, 2011 year would be a better time to do it, as both AMD and Intel would provide more CPUs for you to choose from (thus hopefully push the prices of the current ranges down). For now, you can just grab a 2nd hand Q6600 to use, and wait till AMD and Intel release their new CPUs; you can sell your Q6600 for simliar price you bought it and upgrade then.

Ah, a voice of reason!

When you put it like that, the Q6600 really does seem like the best option for now, doesn't it? Lets see if I can find a nice cheap one in the MM then!

 

[iviv]

I thought I was happy then, but suddenly more good points are being made XD

Thats a good point though, Wayne. My overclocking's limited by the northbridge overheating from my RAM, but with the current price of ram, its silly to change to 2x2Gb sticks at this point in time. Though then again, I may be able to make most of the money back selling my current ram... but then again, if I'm going to be buying ram, buying more DDR2 is just going to be buying into a dead end?

So assuming a quad's going to need more power than a dual, that's probably going to mean that I'll be overheating at lower speeds?

I mean, the is obviously speculation, I appreciate that, but considering I could end up with worse performance in some games with this upgrade, would it be worth it? I would like to assume that most games released in the past year or so would be multi-threaded, so the individual core power didn't matter so much as more cores could pick up the slack, but I'm pretty sure this isn't the case.

Ugh, damn you all! I was hoping this would be simple!

 

[iviv]

It plays pretty well, had to disable AA since ATI cards hate it, though that may have been fixed in a recent driver.
I've not actually played it recently, though I think I do remember it starting to chug a little when you got up to silly unit numbers on the larger 8 player maps, but that may just be me trying to talk mysef into an upgrade XD
And yes, I do use FA, wouldn't touch the vanilla game again after it

Also, Wayne, you did that thread on why the Phenom's are better than i7's, didn't you? That was an interesting read, and made me look at the Phenom's in advance of this thread, since Intel's are always the ones people are shouting about, but in comparison they seem much more expensive.

Edit: Looking at that chart, My E6600 at 3.4 would be similar to their E6750 at 3.3? Still, there are a fair few FPS between that and the Q6600 at 3.3, assuming I could get mine that high. That's the problem though, its all assuming I can clock it as high as my current one :x

 

[iviv]

I'm at 1680x1050, and 1440x900, games on the larger one unless they're multi monitor

At the moment, this looks like its going to be a two part upgrade. Mobo/cpu first, and then graphics later. Though then again, maybe if I save all my money until 2011, then grab either the new intel or AMD chips, as well as an SI card, hopefully that will keep me going for another 4 years like this rig has.

Only problem is that I won't have anything new and shiny now! Oh well, I guess I can wait!

 

[iviv]

Hmm, I never really thought much about it. I did try using that Catalyst's inbuilt thingy, it spend half an hour to decide that I could crank the card up to the maximum clocks with absolutely no problem whatsoever, started up a game and it bluescreened, and continued to do so until I put it back to stock speeds, not even 1mhz would keep it stable XD

I put that down to some dodgy software, though. I'll try that afterburner this evening!

I assume when OCing the card, its just a matter of putting everything up 5hz, stressing it for 20 mins, and repeat? Or is it simpler/more complicated? (And it'll work on my sapphire card, right? )

 

[iviv]

How about just ask over at the graphic card forum for people that overclocked their 5770 to give you some numbers/figures to use as reference?

I think I'll go and do just that!
Thanks for the pointers ^^

 

[iviv]

Yeah. I'm having some issues with overclocking it, since as soon as I increase either of the clock's, the idle clock speeds drop to rock bottom, which is useless for desktop work/Aero generally since its all laggy. Removing the overclock brings speeds back up to normal idle levels.
Under load, the new clock speeds are in effect, and the GPU's hitting 75C after 5 mins stress, I'm not sure how hot they can run at, though it is a hot day.

Anyway, I posted all this in my thread in graphics, just waiting for a reply now XD

 

[iviv]

Slight bump, since I've been thinking about RAM.

Since DDR2 is being phased out, its currently rather expensive, isn't it? Both new and second hand.

I've currently got 4 sticks of 1Gb GEIL PC6400 ram. I'm thinking that I could sell these on the MM, but 2x2Gb also from the MM, which would allow me to raise the OC on my CPU a little more. Hopefully it would only cost me about £10 looking at current DDR2 sale prices there. Could hopefully get me another 0.2Ghz or so!