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Upgrade to Quad Core?

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VTR

VTR

VTR

Soldato
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29 Oct 2002
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Considering upgrading to a quad core, got an E8600 at the moment which does 4.3GHz 24/7.

Is there much point in upgrading? PC is used for gaming. I'd want a quad that I could put in my current setup and run at 4.2Ghz+ ideally? (dont want to loose much speed if any if possible due to some games not using quad core?)
 
I've looked at s775 quads and I don't think they are worth the money really. Still £170 for the q9550 which is the only one you have a realistic chance of getting 4ghz from (ignoring the q9650) I'm just going to wait to see what i3 and i5 offers in a few months. Saying that E8*00s still seem to sell at a good price but I still don't think it is worth doing.
 
Intel and AMD are going to releases some new CPUs this year(2 months time maybe).I say to hold on to your E8600 and see what new CPUs are coming out.
 
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I'd hold off at the moment, particularly as the 8400 you have seems like a sweet overclocker
 
I have just done it myself and gone from a E8500 to the Q9550. Seems to be a tad snappier but X38/48 is hopeless at clocking 45nm quads. Unfortunately i did'nt know this until after i had bought the quad. The boards are terribly fsb limited for some reason with the quads. Real pity as the Q9550 i got does at least 3.6Ghz on stock volts.
 
pastymuncher said:
I have just done it myself and gone from a E8500 to the Q9550. Seems to be a tad snappier but X38/48 is hopeless at clocking 45nm quads. Unfortunately i did'nt know this until after i had bought the quad. The boards are terribly fsb limited for some reason with the quads. Real pity as the Q9550 i got does at least 3.6Ghz on stock volts.
Click to expand...

Ahhh yes I remember now when I built the PC (can't believe it's been over a year!) that quads were FSB limited on this chipset. This still an issue then? I'm running at 453FSB at the moment, would like to stay as close as possible as this is also optimal for my RAM at 4:5 (or 5:6, can't remember off the top of my head!)
 
I've had my older quad (Q6700) running at 3.6ghz with no probs on my X38. Obviously you'd need a higher FSB on a Q9550 due to it's lower multi.

That's a pretty sweet OC you have on your dually anyway, I'd keep it until it struggles to do what you wany it to. ;)
 
Yeah it runs everything fine at the moment, could probably get a decent price for my E8600 and upgrade on the cheap which is why I was considering it, think I'll just leave it as it is for now, probably be a while before everything starts to take full advantage of quads, probably be time for a complete system overhaul by then.

Also, if anyone can help, would I be able to add another 2 2Gb sticks of the same RAM and likely run at the same FSB and Mem speeds?
 
If you reckon you could get enough money from selling it, then by all means go for it, you might be able to sell the 4870's for a good price if you want DX11 too.
 
What FSB are u running?

It's usually a bit harder to OC if you've filled all 4 memory slots. I think you need more NB voltage in some cases but my guess is you're OC may have to come down a little with the extra memory. Only one way to find out! ;)
 
1087mhz on the memory (453FSB with 5:6 divider).

Anyone got any experience running 4x2GB sticks on a P5E?
 
Gin0rm0 said:
I've had my older quad (Q6700) running at 3.6ghz with no probs on my X38. Obviously you'd need a higher FSB on a Q9550 due to it's lower multi.

That's a pretty sweet OC you have on your dually anyway, I'd keep it until it struggles to do what you wany it to. ;)
Click to expand...

It's not the older quads that are the problem, it's the 45nm ones. I had 3.8Ghz out of a Q6600 on my old Asus P5E X38. Thie DFI X48 struggles to do a fsb of 442mhz and even that takes some serious voltage on the NB which is why i settled at 3.6Ghz for now.
 
Thanks for advice, I'll stick with my current CPU - would have only really been worth it if I could have got very close to my current speeds in terms of FSB aswell as clock speed.
 
I've been looking into this again after reading this thread. I think the best idea is to do nothing just yet. The q9550 would be tempting if it was cheaper. I've been looking at some i3 and new i5 reviews and they don't seem that impressive to me and current memory prices make moving to a DDR3 platform even more expensive. Especially as I have 8GB now. I keep finding the E8000 scoring high on games benchamarks. I suppose most games only really use raw clock speed + cache. I'll keep my eye on the q9550 price and also see what new CPUs are released.
 
mame said:
I've been looking at some i3 and new i5 reviews and they don't seem that impressive to me and current memory prices make moving to a DDR3 platform even more expensive. Especially as I have 8GB now. I keep finding the E8000 scoring high on games benchamarks. I suppose most games only really use raw clock speed + cache.
Click to expand...

There is no doubt that the E8000 @ 4.0 GHz is still a viable option for gaming, however I have recently upgraded to i5 750 @ 3.8 GHz from an E8500 @ 4.0 GHz and every game runs better and faster. The P55 boards are superb, you can offset the cost of P55 with the fact that high end socket 775 equipment still fetches a decent price on eBay.
The other advantage of the new boards is the ability to choose between ATi crossfire or NVIDIA SLi.
I am very pleased with my i5 rig, recommended!
 
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