CPU Upgrade

[HEMI_Engine]

Hello all.

I am thinking of doing a small upgrade to keep my system going for another 8-12 months.

I talked to my computer guy (he built the system for me) about Dual-Core. he recommended the Pentium D. The D will allow me to upgrade without swapping boards. It will cost me around $200.00 CAD.

He didn't me a model number, but did say he would O/C it to about 4.0-4.3 GHz for me.

Is this upgrad worth while?

Current Specs:

Intel Pentium 4 630 HT - 3.0 GHz O/C'ed - 4.0 GHz
ATI Radeon Sapphire X1800XT 512 MB PCIe
2 GB (2x1GB) Corsair XMS2 DDR2
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic
Western Digital 74GB Raptor
Maxtor 200GB DiamondMax 10

Thanks in advance.

 

[NMDante]

What board do you have now?

Is this for gaming or other apps?

The PD CPUs are Netburst based CPUs, and aren't the best, but the PD 805 is one of the best overclockers in the PD line. As for 4.0-4.3Ghz oc, that's achievable, but a very good cooling system will be needed to keep the temps down, especially at load.

 

[m25]

Hello all.

I am thinking of doing a small upgrade to keep my system going for another 8-12 months.

I talked to my computer guy (he built the system for me) about Dual-Core. he recommended the Pentium D. The D will allow me to upgrade without swapping boards. It will cost me around $200.00 CAD.

He didn't me a model number, but did say he would O/C it to about 4.0-4.3 GHz for me.

Is this upgrad worth while?

Current Specs:

Intel Pentium 4 630 HT - 3.0 GHz O/C'ed - 4.0 GHz
ATI Radeon Sapphire X1800XT 512 MB PCIe
2 GB (2x1GB) Corsair XMS2 DDR2
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic
Western Digital 74GB Raptor
Maxtor 200GB DiamondMax 10

Thanks in advance.

Tell your computer guy to stop kidding with you and get yourself an E6400 Core2 for slightly more than 200 CDN. CPU sellers do their best to clear intel's shelves from Pentiums and Pentium Ds but they're more expensive and perform way worse than Core2 CPUs!
At stock the would beat any PentiumD and overclocked it gives you a performance 8-12 months ahead of the current top chip that is the XE6800.

 

[shadowed]

M25, Let me know where you shop...


http://www.pricenetwork.ca/products.php?p=5414&s=@e6400*

 

[HEMI_Engine]

The PC is for Gaming and multimedia.

Motherboard = Abit AW8

AW8

Will I run into bottleneck issues running an E6400 O/C'ed with my X1800XT?

 

[m25]

M25, Let me know where you shop...


http://www.pricenetwork.ca/products.php?p=5414&s=@e6400*

Heh, the prices are a bit high from what I had estimated, but newegg has it for ~$220:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?N=2010340343+50001157+1050722265&Submit=ENE&SubCategory=343
To HEMI_Engine:
1- you can even get an E6300 and it still kick in off every Pentium D in gaming framerates.
2- Im not much informed but if the the AW8 does not support Core2 CPUs stay away from it.

 

[Mex]

The PC is for Gaming and multimedia.

Motherboard = Abit AW8

AW8

Will I run into bottleneck issues running an E6400 O/C'ed with my X1800XT?

You won't need to worry about that because the 955X chipset doesn't support the Core 2 Duo. If you're going to get a Pentium D, try to get a 900-series chip, as they run cooler and consume less energy.

 

[m25]

You'd better put your P4 and it's board away and get a new board coupled with a Core2, because, in both gaming and multimedia, you won't get a boost with a Pentium4- Pentium D upgrade.

 

[shadowed]

I believe M25 is correct, you probably wont see enough of a speed increase to a PD cpu to justify $200, there are better alternatives. If you are going to upgrade in 8-12 months anyways, the c2d will be that much better value by then.

 

[ajfink]

You'd better put your P4 and it's board away and get a new board coupled with a Core2, because, in both gaming and multimedia, you won't get a boost with a Pentium4- Pentium D upgrade.

Not entirely true. If he does encoding work the second core will help a lot.

 

[HEMI_Engine]

You'd better put your P4 and it's board away and get a new board coupled with a Core2, because, in both gaming and multimedia, you won't get a boost with a Pentium4- Pentium D upgrade.

Not entirely true. If he does encoding work the second core will help a lot.

Gaming mostly. Looks like the D will be a waste of $$$.

 

[harty23690]

Your mobo supports C2D CPUs. get an E6300 or an E6400. Sure the clock speed is lower, but they are actually a lot faster. The Gigahertz war is over!

Also the E6300/6400 are highly overclockable.

 

[NMDante]

The AW8 does not support C2D. He would need to get a new motherboard to run a C2D CPU. I have the AW8-MAX and it does not run the C2D, even with a BIOS update.

If you want to keep your system, get the PD 805 or 915. If you want to upgrade to C2D, get a decent motherboard (cheap: P965 - expensive: 975x and 680i)and the E6300/6400, or the E4300. You can still use your memory with the new board, too.

 

[m25]

You'd better put your P4 and it's board away and get a new board coupled with a Core2, because, in both gaming and multimedia, you won't get a boost with a Pentium4- Pentium D upgrade.

Not entirely true. If he does encoding work the second core will help a lot.

Gaming mostly. Looks like the D will be a waste of $$$.
You got it. CPUs such as the E6400 or E6600 excel in gaming but even single core Athlon 64s (sice games are not willing to go massively multithreaded) are much better than a PD.
If you have a very low budget and want a quick solution, a $60 healthy overclocking AM2 mombo, $70 Athlon64 3200+ and a $30 good air cooler only make a total of $160. I'd overclock the 3200+ to 2.6G and that's it, FX55. For half the price of an E6400 + mombo you'd get a good boost over your current setup and in most (singlethreaded) games, maybe match the E6400 stock framerates.

 

[HEMI_Engine]

I might just bite the bullet and upgrade my Board and get a C2D. Money is not a problem. You get what you pay for. If I spend $200.00+, I want the upgrade to be worth while.

If I were to get an E6300 or E6400 and O/C it to run with higher end chips such as the E6600. Will I have any bottlenecking issues with my X1800XT?

I believe it is slightly O/C'ed. I will post the numbers when I get home. (at work)

 

[ajfink]

I might just bite the bullet and upgrade my Board and get a C2D. Money is not a problem. You get what you pay for. If I spend $200.00+, I want the upgrade to be worth while.

If I were to get an E6300 or E6400 and O/C it to run with higher end chips such as the E6600. Will I have any bottlenecking issues with my X1800XT?

The graphics card will never slow down the CPU, but the X1800s (while good cards) are starting to show their age in comparison to other, newer cards.

 

[HEMI_Engine]

I'm up here in Canada. On tigerdirect.ca theya re selling E6400s for $287.

Any suggestions on a good overclocking Mobo for this chip?

Thanks for the help everyone. Greatly appreciated.

 

[joefriday]

what resolution do you game at? With that healthy 4.0GHz P4, if you're gaming at any decent resolution you're probably gpu bound already, meaning a C2D isn't going to help much, except for possibly those games that are multithreaded.

 

[HEMI_Engine]

Would Investing in a better Video Card be a better idea then?

I'm only on a Samsung SyncMaster 19" LCD monitor. I game at 1280x1024 mostly.

I get fair performance as the system is now. I'd just like to beef it up a little for the next year before I have another one built.