Upgrade questions

[endtheday2012]

i have a Gateway GM 5076E with a intel cortez g2 945g viiv motherboared that has a lga 775 socket, and a intel pentium d 950 cpu, my gpu is a geforce9800gt. im planning on maxing out my ram, wich is sadly only 4 gb of ddr2, but am wondering what would be my best cpu upgrade for my mobo, cant seem to find a list of compatible upgrades. tho i do know i can use core 2 quad and extreme, and also have a 400 w power supply so if i need to upgrade that is fine. i am only gearing up to play star wars the old republic wich hasnt released system requirements yet but as an mmorpg shouldnt be to demanding. so not sure if a quad core is overkill or not. any help on maxing out the mobo limits would be appreciated thank you.

 

[endtheday2012]

http://support.gateway.com/s/MOTHERBD/Intel2/106007/106007sp26.shtml this should be the link to the mobo's specs

 

[endtheday2012]

cannot remember were i read that it can support the core 2 quad tho, but i guess thats why im needing the help for my best possible and compatible upgrade

 

[4745454b]

The original 945 chipset did not support C2D. A later revision did. If your link doesn't show it does then it probably does not.

 

[endtheday2012]

i have also looked into replacing my mobo but every thing i find on newegg or tigerdirect seems like it mounts on the opposite side. when looking at my comp. the right side is the side that opens.

 

[4745454b]

You might have a BTX mobo/case. Its like a mirror of ATX. Intel brought it about to help with the cooling of their hot P4s. It never really caught on and went away when Core 2 came about.

 

[endtheday2012]

I looked up some more info and it is indeed a BTX , and with that there is not many options for motherboard replacement. but i did see my mobo supports 1066 mhz fsb speed and is the LGA 775 socket, wich some of the core 2 duo and core 2 quads require. What else could prevent one of those cpu's from working? i know the manufactue's page for the mobo only lists up the the pentium D but am thinking maybe since it was released before the c2d that it just isnt listen????? maybe wishful thinking on a pc that reached its limit.

 

[4745454b]

You also need a chipset and voltage regulators that can handle the Core 2. The first of these were the second revision of the 975. The 965 was the first out that could handle them from the start. They then made a second revision of the 945 that could. All the P and G chipsets came next. (P35, G31, etc.) If you have a 915 or 925 then it won't, or at least I've never seen one that would.

You should be able to play STTOR. Probably won't be able to max it but it should run ok.

 

[endtheday2012]

i have a pentium d 940 3.2 GHz would it be worth it to go to the 960 at 3.6 or just a waste of money?? im just not sure if the processor is holding back the 9800gt.

 

[endtheday2012]

Chipset Intel 945G chipset, consisting of:

* Intel Lakeport-G Memory Controller Hub (MCH)
* ICH7-DH (EastFork Enabled)
this is the chipset i have according to the gateway site so i have no idea if it would be one of the revised 245 u mentioned. thanx for all the help tho.

 

[4745454b]

An extra 400MHz on a P4 isn't going to do much. You probably do have some bottlenecking of the 9800GT, but there isn't much you can do about it. I'm not sure from your last post if that 945 can support a Core 2. I would guess no, and even if it did you already looked up the CPU support list from Gateway and it didn't include the Core 2 so there is no bios support for it.

Personally I would get the game and see how it runs. Your going to be needing a new system soon anyways so I'd start saving up for it. Your setup is good enough to run SWTOR so don't worry about that.

 

[endtheday2012]

that is probably the best thing to do, thanks again for the help