Need advice on the upgrade debate (to switch from LGA775 or not to switch).

komikozovich · Mar 10, 2018

I would appreciate if you read a bit of this first.

Good day, gentlemen.

I'm about to upgrade my gaming rig, I've been delaying it as much as I could until I get some sort of budget.

If you didn't read the topic from above, I was thinking about reviving my lga775 (ASUS P5Q SE PLUS) with x5470 xeon. But I'm now curious if I could, given the budget, upgrade to perhaps lga1155?

Let's say I'm about to score a good deal on GTX 1050 Ti. I planned to finish the upgrade by purchasing x5470 + Cooling + I am about to score another good deal on DDR2 1066Mhz 8GB of RAM.

Video and cooling aside, the sum I am about to spend on Xeon and that RAM would be around 130$.

I wonder if that money, maybe around ~150$ could be spent for a better upgrade? As in Motherboard + CPU + RAM (8GB too, don't think I need more). I don't mind used parts as long as they are available and working, heh.

What are your ideas? Should I stay with LGA775 for a couple of years and then just get a normal upgrade or not?

Regards,
Komi

k1114 · Mar 10, 2018

That budget usually gets an entire i5 2400 pc with 8 gb ram. There's no reason to spend the same amount on 775 that is worse in every way.

komikozovich · Mar 11, 2018

k1114 :

Thanks for the reply!

Turns out I can purchase used i5 2400 from AliExpress for even a little cheaper than the damned Xeon. Not too far from the price tag are i5 3470 (standard and also S version) and i5 3570s, is that a better choice than i5 2400?

I also see i5 2500k and i5 3570 for around 80$. But doubt I'd go for it.

And for that matter, what (cpu and) mobo would you advise to get?

william p · Mar 11, 2018

You might look into LGA1366 Xeon overclocking. It's retro, budget, and way beyond LGA775
https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/throttlestop-overclocking-desktop-pcs.235975/

komikozovich · Mar 11, 2018

william p :

Thanks for the input again!

Although there's certainly some charm in reviving retrostuff with overclocking, I'm not an overclocker myself and never really felt like I should mess with it. That post about reviving lga775 was heavily motivated by rather desperation than anything else. :]

I could try of course, but I really don't want to deal with it, neither do I have time (since studying and testing everything is required). Kinda of want everything handed to me on the silver platter just to calmly play games later on. Besides, I've checked prices and buying an lga1336 board + even used W3680 is more expensive than getting an lga1155 combo.

k1114 · Mar 11, 2018

You do know buying parts separately costs more? The ivy cpus do well too. Sometimes they are more expensive but if you find them at the same price, they are good. I wouldn't go older just to oc anyways. Performance could still be less.

komikozovich · Mar 11, 2018

k1114 :

I mostly look locally. As in inside Russia. Aliexpress is used mainly for CPU search as it offers the best prices most of the time. Plus the delivery is around 20 days maximum.

It's hard to find combos of CPU + MoBo+ RAM that would be cheaper than just its separate elements. Plus something inside just makes me not want to buy combos and rather get separate elements and feel like you "at least built something". Plus, a lot of times, buying elements separately does better. I mean used ones of course.

I'm certainly looking for good deals, but well, can't find many. I basically need a (non-amd) motherboard direction and from there I'll go on my own.

Found ASUS P8H67-M LX/SI priced at 50$. Would that be a good choice? And what CPU is best to get provided it won't let me overclock it?

Also found ASUS p8z77-m at 70$. Hmm.

k1114 · Mar 11, 2018

Combos isn't what I meant. Prebuilts tend to be significantly cheaper as business/other places sell old pcs. A i5 2400 goes for $50 by itself. An entire tower, this is cpu, mobo, ram, psu, hdd, dvd, cooler, case with windows is $150 for mt. You won't get the rest with $100 buying separately. You can switch out the components you want to keep and part it out for a profit. Or you can get a decent one and all you have to do is drop in a 1050ti and be done.

komikozovich · Mar 11, 2018

k1114 :

Ah, I see. Honestly never thought of it. Always thought it would turn out to be more expensive or you would get something not trustworthy.

Perhaps I should consider that and look into it further. Thanks.

UPD: I've been looking for over two hours and wasn't able to find anything close to i5-2400 PC with 8GB of RAM for around 150$ in the local area. 250$ maybe, then yes. And even not locally. I'm not sure where to look at this point. No luck with refurbished PCs. They cost around 300$ here with the setup named by k1114 (even with 250GB HDDs and other cut components). Even on Amazon I found it for 200+$ except they don't freely ship that to here and it would be a pain in the arse.

UPD2: So far, separately, I can get three MBs:

1. ASUS P8Z77-M - 71$
2. Gigabyte GA-H67MA-UD2H- 62$. Its owner also sells 12GB of Kingston DDR3, 3 sticks of 2GB 1333Mhz and one of 4GB 1600Mhz. Asking 36$ for all 4. I could ask for a discount if I were to get both MoBo and RAM, resulting in something around 100$ for all. So far it looks like the best idea.
3. ASUS P8H67-M LX/SI - 44$

I Could i5-2400 for 50$. So if I combine it with my paragraph 2, there go my 150$. What do you say? GA-H67MA-UD2H + i5-2400 + 12GB DDR3 RAM 1333MHz for 150$.

Or I could pay a little more and get i5-2500k for 70$. There's also a deal on that.

UPD3: I found an LGA1150 offer. i5-4460 + MSI H81M-P33 + 8GB (2x4) Hyper-X RAM for around the same price, 160$. Is that a better deal?

k1114 · Mar 11, 2018

The haswell is the best deal. You can't oc on any of these and the newer, the better for intel. Each new architecture is better ipc.

william p · Mar 12, 2018

It's possible to overclock on locked BIOS MB. You need an unlocked CPU to do it. There are many choices.
https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/throttlestop-overclocking-desktop-pcs.235975/
The Dell T3500 is just an example because they're common and inexpensive around here. But you can use something else.
LGA1366 was a high end platform, and with 3 channel memory can keep up with some of the later platforms that didn't have it.

k1114 · Mar 12, 2018

Even oced, the haswell i5 will outperform 1366 in gaming. The advancements made in 5 years following nehalem is just too much. Memory channels was negligible for gaming for that platform. It could not keep up with later platforms if you aren't comparing to low end new vs high end old. Even 1 gen later was a huge increase in ipc and clocks. If comparing by price, you could say core 2 can keep up but that makes it about just how little used hardware costs relative to performance. I know it's been a good low budget choice for a long time but it's time has been up for awhile since sandy prices got low.

komikozovich · Mar 13, 2018

I agree in this case. I don't see a solid reason for me to switch from one old socket (775) to another (1336) even if it performs much better; It's still an old system after all. I would have probably considered that if I lived in US and was way too tight on my budget and had those good deals on Dell PCs in US. I saw one T3500 for as low as 100$.

I'm eyeballing that 1150 offer for 160$, that's the only thing I'm able to do right now. My paycheck's getting delayed as well. Will probably contact the seller and ask to hold it for me for a week.

Seeing how used i5-4460's cost 140$ here, both on Russian ebay-like markets and aliexpress, I think I'm striking a good deal since I also get a mobo and 8GB of good RAM. That's not an entire refurbished PC of course, but as I've said, no luck with those.

I'd like to ask some questions about that H81 chipset mobo though. As I get, it's the cheapest 1150 solution? I don't lose much by not having RAID, Smart Response etc. right? I do have a 90GB SSD and a 500GB HDD.

william p · Mar 13, 2018

I'm not referring to 45nm 4 core Nehalem, 32nm 6 core Westemeres are where the performance is. There are unlocked Xeons. The Nehalems are dirt cheap $20 for unlocked Xeons. The Westmere/Gulftown unlocked Xeons can be found for $55.
Here are a couple overclocks on this with stock heatsinks.
http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/3125524
http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/7540614
The 2nd one was $80 for the computer, and $55 for thw W3680 CPU.
I have no experience with Haswell. maybe they are better, cheaper, faster.

william p · Mar 13, 2018

The benchmark doesn't show the overclock speed on the 2nd example of the T3500 it's 4.266GHz. 32x133fsb, so no memory or other fsb related issues.

k1114 · Mar 13, 2018

There are 6 core nehalem but there's hardly any differences unlike other die shrinks that I just group nehalem with the nehalem die shrink aka westmere. I don't deny they are cheap but he's also not in the US and can't find that good of deals.

The only chipset differences to care about with haswell is oc vs not oc.

william p · Mar 13, 2018

There is a multiplier OC method that works from in Windows on unlocked CPUs. It supports Haswell CPUs on locked BIOS MBs. How chipsets play out IDK. I'm just moving up from overclocked LGA775 myself.

k1114 · Mar 13, 2018

All chipsets did but not all mobos. It was mostly asus. They also had limited settings. It wasn't just in windows and should have bios options. But they were later updated so couldn't oc except with the pentium that it was meant for. The i5 is a locked cpu anyways.

Karadjgne · Mar 13, 2018

You can bump the multiplier on locked Ivy-Bridge cpus upto 400MHz if I'm not mistaken, not sure about any of the rest. But that 160$ i5+ram+mobo is by far the best deal. It's one thing to try and beat a dead horse (771/775/1366) but it's something entirely different to beat a horse that's still got some life left in it. I'm running a 3570k and a 3770k and have no issues with cpu power on any game that either I, my son or daughter play. At 1080p/60Hz, I figure the i5 is good for at least another 3 years, the i7 for 5 before presently played games are obsolete and replaced by ones requiring considerably more cpu horse-power.

william p · Mar 14, 2018

I agree with these guys that 4460 looks like a great deal.

k1114 · Mar 14, 2018

Sandy and ivy had the limited oc feature. They removed it with haswell. You still had to have a z or p that was capable of changing multi.

william p · Mar 14, 2018

My hobby is overclocking locked BIOS Dells so I have to do a lot of my own research. I look for cheap unlocked CPUs and cheap locked MB computers.
So far Throttlestop has unlocked them. This is on computers with absolutely no BIOS options for this. It supports Sandy,Ivy and Haswell CPUs. But no published results that I know of. The few of us doing this are focused on the Gulftown Xeons, and cheap 1136 workstations right now. I suppose the i series 2xxxK, and 3xxxK chips will be next, or whatever unlocked Xeons may exist.

Karadjgne · Mar 14, 2018

Being able to do anything with a locked bios Dell is nothing short of Brah, Dude, Wow! Kudos

k1114 · Mar 14, 2018

Any oem I wouldn't say that before sandy. Setfsb was common back then. But with bclk not really an option on sb and later, it stopped. This is a first I've seen someone say sandy-haswell can change multi on locked mobos and on oem pcs on top of that. I won't believe it til I see it. Maybe bclk oc but that's mostly pointless.

With the unintentional unlocking on haswell and skylake, I would think it might be possible but with those being locked back, I would expect no simple software solution could do it without old bios or bios modding but that's a lot of work just to oc old hardware on locked mobos.

We're going pretty off topic.

komikozovich · Mar 14, 2018

Gotta love geek debates. :ь

Thanks for participating, Karadjgne.

I asked the seller to hold it for a while, he told me he would try and then raised the price to 10k (175$) instead of 9, I guess it's a russian way of holding offers.

I still keep browsing the market to maybe find a better option.

I've actually found that type of offer mentioned by k1114, for 192$:

CPU: Intel Core i5-2400 (3,1GHz)
MoBo: ASUS P8H61-M LX3
RAM: Kingston KVR1333D3N9/4G x2
Video: Nvidia GeForce GT 440 1Gb
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 500Gb x2
PSU: Enhance 550W
DVD-RW

The guy is also willing to sell his 19" screen and kb + mouse for additional 27$. It's a pretty interesting offer.

My planned budget for MB/CPU/RAM and video is 350$. With video being gtx 1050ti, 175$ minimum (there's a lot of them popping up lately so might find it for that price). So it's kind of a 50/50 YinYang balance.

The finisher would be a 1080 screen. Planned to get 22-24". The 1280x1024 from 2008 doesn't want to be friends with my eyes.

I guess I'll be set for another decade after that.

Need advice on the upgrade debate (to switch from LGA775 or not to switch).

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