Worth the upgrade?

I feel my current setup is getting rather sluggish it is almost 3 years old well the RAM and CPU are.

AMD X2 4800 skt 939 (2.4GHz)
150GB Raptor
2GB Corsair PC3200 twin mx
ASRock 939N68PV-GLAN
X-Fi extreme music
8800GT

I am thinking of buy the following parts and keeping my 8800GT and X-FI and Raptor.


CPU E8500
http://www.microdirect.co.uk/(30942)Int ... 33FSB.aspx
RAM
http://www.microdirect.co.uk/(15885)Cor ... 2-EPP.aspx
Motherboard
http://www.microdirect.co.uk/(31544)Gig ... l-P35.aspx


So I have some Questions
Are those parts compatible with each other?
Is this a big step up from my current system?

Thansk in advance.

i dunno if the mobo is compatible or not, but if i were you id go with a q9300 or q9550 cpu because those are 45nm chips.

those three components are compatible with each other. are they compatible with your case, soundcard, gcard, psu??? also, are you running vista, 64 bit?

i'd look at one of the intel dual cores... E8400, E8500, or E8600. most things i've read suggest the dual core's are better at processor heavy games like hl2dm. the quads seem better with heavy graphics related programs... like rendering vids.

and yes, i think you'll really notice a difference.

My case is massive its a thermaltake kandalf compare it to my old case. I no longer have the doors on becasue they really piss me off when burning DVD and the drive auto ejects
I use 32bit XP
PSU is a hiper 520W.

If you're planning to use both old and new ram together to make up the MD's max of 4Gb, remember that it'll only run at the slowest speed... which will be PC3200 = 400MHz

KEEFY man
Hello
Have a look on here for already tried and tested bundles for different applications
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/index.php
Theres a good forum for asking questions and you can spec it out there and buy it somewhere else cheaper.
I went from something similar to what you have now (opteron 165) to
q6600 GO @3ghz under arctic freezer pro 7
gigabyte p35c ds3 version 2.0(loads of rear usb )
2 gb geil ram
and it made quite a difference to almost everything i use the old pc for ,gaming ,music,video encoding etc

[EYE] Aye formerly known as Dave

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/130429
I would get this for ram you can never have to much ram pretty much the same price and with ebuyers next day delivery.
or these for a little squid more
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/146049

edit just read the other post my post not so helpful but you should be able to get cheaper ram from where i buy my stuff

Thanks guys, I Think I will probably go with the 4GB RAM now i seen its so cheap also changed my motherboard for more USB ports which jumps the rpice up to £257.
Still buying from Microdirect as their depot is just 8 miles from me If i bought from ebuyer I would save £5 only if I used the super saver delivery option.
Overclockers turned out to be £20 more before deliver charges

CellarDweller wrote:those three components are compatible with each other. are they compatible with your case, soundcard, gcard, psu??? also, are you running vista, 64 bit?

i'd look at one of the intel dual cores... E8400, E8500, or E8600. most things i've read suggest the dual core's are better at processor heavy games like hl2dm. the quads seem better with heavy graphics related programs... like rendering vids.

and yes, i think you'll really notice a difference.

From what I understand Cellar Quad and Dual are both going to perform the same until we run into games that can use more then two cores at a time. Rendering vids is faster just because its spread out between the four cores i believe.

keefy wrote:I Think I will probably go with the 4GB RAM now i seen its so cheap

It's only cheaper because it's slower, you're choosing between 2GB @ 1066MHz or 4GB @ 800MHz, not sure how they compare against each other nor can I be bothered to find out...

Looking at your new MB, it supports 8GB of RAM...woah! do it! do it! do it!

4 gigs is WAAAAY more than you need right now, like double. Id get 2 2 gig chips and when you need more add it.

argh im confused again

Edge wrote:

CellarDweller wrote:those three components are compatible with each other. are they compatible with your case, soundcard, gcard, psu??? also, are you running vista, 64 bit?

i'd look at one of the intel dual cores... E8400, E8500, or E8600. most things i've read suggest the dual core's are better at processor heavy games like hl2dm. the quads seem better with heavy graphics related programs... like rendering vids.

and yes, i think you'll really notice a difference.

From what I understand Cellar Quad and Dual are both going to perform the same until we run into games that can use more then two cores at a time. Rendering vids is faster just because its spread out between the four cores i believe.

that could be correct edge. my understanding is that 64 bit (vista) makes better use of the quad core than 32 bit (xp). here's a link keefy about the wolfdale (intel) E8500. it shows some benchmarks overclocked and stock, and also compares it with a Q6600, E8400, and some amd's. i think its a pretty good article: http://hothardware.com/Articles/Wolfdale/?page=1

as for the ram. if you're going to keep running xp, you won't benefit from 4gb... you cant get it all from a 32 bit os. so you technically waste some money for a little over 3gb in reality. save some money and go with 2 1gb sticks... or not. just dont mix your sticks... like your current pc-3200 with the ones you linked to... pc2-8500???

I have heard that the 64 bit Vista is VERY buggy.

Thanks for that link cellar Dweller it has convinced me to go dual core rather than quad because I do mostly gaming and on the source engine which the E8500 excelled in on the tests, I do encode the odd video now and then but not enough to warrant a need for a quad core I feel, besides the E8500 was faster than the Q6600 at encoding the test video.
So my re-revised solution is:

CPU E8500 TY Cellar
http://www.microdirect.co.uk/(30942)Int ... 33FSB.aspx
RAM
http://www.microdirect.co.uk/(15885)Cor ... 2-EPP.aspx
Motherboard
http://www.microdirect.co.uk/(31544)Gig ... l-P35.aspx

Probably go pick it up on Friday and have it up and running for S-UK arena night which you guys can join if you wish, you will need HL2DMpro 1.91

LGA775 Socket on the mobo so your cpu is fine. I looked into the 3GB vs. 4GB on XP issue and found conflicting information. One site informed me that even though XP doesn't report the full 4 GB of ram, it is utilizing the "invisible" portion for OS related tasks. My opinion is that it can't hurt to have 4 GB, so I got the full 4.

Walking Target wrote:LGA775 Socket on the mobo so your cpu is fine. I looked into the 3GB vs. 4GB on XP issue and found conflicting information. One site informed me that even though XP doesn't report the full 4 GB of ram, it is utilizing the "invisible" portion for OS related tasks. My opinion is that it can't hurt to have 4 GB, so I got the full 4.

At the most 32-bit Os's can use up to 4GB of RAM. Has to do with the hardware limitations or 32 bit. 32bit data path to the cpu limits it i believe. XP will only show you 3.25 GB of RAM. If it uses the rest its using it as graphics memory instead. All the services and shit still are in you're 3.25 GB area.

E8500 & E8400 are they identicle just one is clocked slower?
The E8400 is £20 cheaper and I am thinking if it overclocks as good as some say I can make up the diference.

Yeah apparently it overclocks pretty nicely. I got the 8500, but that was because it was only $10 US difference at the time I bought it.

Think I will get the E8400 for 2 reasons
It makes the total parts less than £250
I saw this crazy overclocker thread.
http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showt ... p?t=679841

Paradox wrote:I have heard that the 64 bit Vista is VERY buggy.

Not from my experience

E6300
8800GTS
Asus-P5kE Wifi/Ap
4GB Crossair @ 667

It's been on for months, no crashes, no lock ups. I'd say its more stable than xp

Depends on yur hardware I think, a guy in s-uk just bought a new PC with Vista 64 and cannot get his 4870 to work when he installs the drivers for it. Needless to say he is sending the card back and gettign an Nvidia.

RAWWRR!
Got all the gear I wanted but had a little trouble with BIOS, firstly it needed an update as it wasnt showing sse4.1 on cpuz then after a little over clocking etc I could not disable speedstep it always said 2000MHz and 6X multiplyer no matter the load turns out a simple clear CMOS does the trick now I just got to copy my steamapps folder over an I am ready for the fragging.

super pi of my X2 4800

E8400 stock


I know its not a porper test but it does show how powerfull these intels are.
BIG thanks to cellar Dweller for convincing me to get a dual rather than quad

P.S
It overclocks nicely