Hey gang,
First time poster here, and haven't been in the game in a while (the last machine I built was a KT266A chipset with a Athlon XP 1800+ if that gives you any idea...) and I'm looking for some advice.
I recently came into a Dell XPS 630i sporting the following:
Intel E8400 (Dual Core, 3.0 GHz, 1333FSB, 6MB cache)
nVidia GeForce 8800 GT 512MB
4GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz - 4 DIMMs
Win XP Pro SP3
and I was wondering:
a) would it would be worthwhile to drop in a Q9550? (I can get one locally for $170)
b) will that present any power/cooling/installation issues with the stock Dell setup?
c) I see NewEgg has a "Yorkfield" Q9550. Is that something different, or are all Q9550s Yorkfields?
d) Never overclocked (can you even do it on a Dell BIOS?) so do I need to worry about the E0 stepping?
e) are there any unforeseen issues I haven't considered?
I see from these benchmarks that there is a large difference in some areas: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/default.aspx?p=56&p2=50
This PC would mostly be used for general computing, with the exception of FSX, which is the only reason I'm considering the upgrade. Would I see a big improvement with the new CPU?
How about a new video card? Would a new one improve FSX? Should I do that instead of, or in addition to the Q9550? What card would you recommend? I've had good luck with nVidia in the past, but am open to suggestions. It looks the mobo has an PCIe x16 slot, and there appear to be some pretty decent cards out there in the $100-$150 range.
Keep in mind, I'm only looking to upgrade this box . If I was going to build from scratch, the Core i5/i7s seem like the way to go. If I do build a Core i7, etc. box in the future, could I run Win XP? Are there drivers available?
Thanks in advance everybody.
First time poster here, and haven't been in the game in a while (the last machine I built was a KT266A chipset with a Athlon XP 1800+ if that gives you any idea...) and I'm looking for some advice.
I recently came into a Dell XPS 630i sporting the following:
Intel E8400 (Dual Core, 3.0 GHz, 1333FSB, 6MB cache)
nVidia GeForce 8800 GT 512MB
4GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz - 4 DIMMs
Win XP Pro SP3
and I was wondering:
a) would it would be worthwhile to drop in a Q9550? (I can get one locally for $170)
b) will that present any power/cooling/installation issues with the stock Dell setup?
c) I see NewEgg has a "Yorkfield" Q9550. Is that something different, or are all Q9550s Yorkfields?
d) Never overclocked (can you even do it on a Dell BIOS?) so do I need to worry about the E0 stepping?
e) are there any unforeseen issues I haven't considered?
I see from these benchmarks that there is a large difference in some areas: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/default.aspx?p=56&p2=50
This PC would mostly be used for general computing, with the exception of FSX, which is the only reason I'm considering the upgrade. Would I see a big improvement with the new CPU?
How about a new video card? Would a new one improve FSX? Should I do that instead of, or in addition to the Q9550? What card would you recommend? I've had good luck with nVidia in the past, but am open to suggestions. It looks the mobo has an PCIe x16 slot, and there appear to be some pretty decent cards out there in the $100-$150 range.
Keep in mind, I'm only looking to upgrade this box . If I was going to build from scratch, the Core i5/i7s seem like the way to go. If I do build a Core i7, etc. box in the future, could I run Win XP? Are there drivers available?
Thanks in advance everybody.
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