Which CPU should I buy? Rest of my PC specs here.

Hi. I'm an old TH reader, but just joined the forums. English is not my native language, so sorry about that.

Here's my question. This was my PC until yesterday:

Vitsuba VTB-Criteria
CPU Intel Core2Duo E6300 1,86Ghz.
Cooler OZC Vendetta
Mother MSI P965 Platinum (Socket 775)
RAM 4Gb DDR2 667Mhz PC5300 dual channel
Western Digital 250Gb, SATA2, 16MB buffer
Western Digital 160Gb
Video nVidia XFX 7950GT Extreme PCI-E, 512Mb, 570Mhz
Sound Blaster Audigy SE
DVD Pioneer 16X dual layer
Wireless MSI
Dell 24" widescreen Monitor

Tryin' to improve my gaming I just changed the video card to an Ati R4850, but now I think my CPU is preventing me from playing Crysis Warhead and other new games smoothly at 1920x1200. I wanna update the CPU, and maybe later the RAM (not enough money right now...), but without changing the motherboard, which I love. What would be my best choice? E6600? Something better? I wanna stick with Intel of course.

Any help would be really appreciated. Thanks a lot!

Andrés

Overclock your current cpu and see how it goes. Check to see what cpus your mobo can run. Its a p965 chipset so it may be able to run the 6850s. You really dont wanna by a e6600 at this point in time.

So either overlock your current cpu to or get a higher clocked c2d that works in your board. You could also consider a q6600 and overclock that also.

Thanks for your help. My CPU is overclocked to 2,00Ghz aprox. I cannot overclock it higher without my cheap memory complaining. So I'm pretty sure I'll start by changing the CPU, and later on, the RAM.

The Q6600 is priced U$S 260 in my country. That's within my price range, but is it really a lot faster than my current one? The E6850 is difficult to find here. What about the E8500? Will it work with my motherboard? Thanks again.

You should be able to clock your cpu to 2.33GHZ with your ram. That is the default speed of your ram. DDR2 677 is the bare minimum ram needed to run a cpu with a FSB of 1333. Since the system speed is quad pumped and ram is double. Go into your BIOS and find the setting for the ram multi. Set it to 2. By just fixing that setting you should have a perfectly stable 2.33ghz overclock. The cpu should hande it with stock volts and so should the chipset.

MSI websites fricking blows. This all the info it gives on what your mobo will run.

http://www.msicomputer.com/product [...] _platinum.

From what is listed there its doubtfull that the board will support the 6850 or any the 50 series because they are all have a FSB of 1333. Now there are plenty of p965 that support them by overclocking the bus from 266 up to 333.

As far as the quad goes. Once you fix your ram multi for the overclocking. A q6600 should be able to 3ghz(333x9) very easy. Your ram will still be running at spec. Either do a google search for a list of cpus that your board does support or email MSI. You could then get the fastest dual core your board can run and that will help you alot also. But the issue is those older faster dual cores cost way to much. Im talking about the e6600 e6700 e6*50s. Basically the only chip from that time frame that is still worthy of getting is the q6600.

It really comes down to what your board can run. For example I currently have a p965 board also. And it can run just about all the core2s.

I will agree with you that their site blows compared to say Asus who is easy to sort through. But I did some digging and found his mobos CPU support list:

http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php [...] incat_no=1

It looks like you can do the dual cores up to the E8500, if you do get a new dual go with the E8500 not the E6600 as the E8500 will be much better, and pretty much every quad core thats been put out to date from the Q6600 to the Q8200 and the QX9650.

I think you do need to get some new RAM though. You can get 2GB of DDR2 800 for about $60-80 dollars which isn't bad.

Its not the PCIe 1.0 thats holding you back. Its the CPU. The difference between PCIe 1.0 and PCIe 2.0 at full x16 is only about 1-2%. So your PCIe is fine.

How much do you have to spend? Maybe we can help you get better RAM and a better CPU all for whatever you have to spend and help enhance your gaming a lot.

And you really should read the core2 overclocking quide at OC section of these forums, with a decent understanding of that thread you should get that cpu somewhere near 2.6-2.8GHz.. even with you current ram, I have DDR2-675 corsairs running at 450 fsb 1:1 so DDR2-900, loose 5-5-5-15 timings and 2.1V

1920*1200 is guite high for 4850 like wr said^^

Right now I have U$S 300 to spend, but that won't tell you much, because in Argentina we have higher prices. For example the R4850 is a 160 card for you, but I bought it for 300 here, and that was the best price I could fins in my country... Same with CPUs and RAM

Hope you're right about that. Far Cry is one of the best games ever, but I'm afraid the sequel will have extreme high requirements like Crysis. At least judging the trailers and screenshots...