Just scored myself an i5 661: now what?

KazeoHin

KazeoHin

[H]F Junkie
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Sep 7, 2011
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So being a PC tech, I usually score a lot of fully functioning parts because they belong to not-so fully functioning PCs. Often times people will upgrade a machine with a new CPU, mobo and RAM and when I ask them "what do you want to do with your old parts?" the answer 9 times out of 10 is "you have 'em!". This sort of thing happens frequently, usually the haul is a stick of ram, a fully functioning video card with a broken fan, maybe an older 775 CPU (i've scored a Q9450 and an E8500 this way, too). My minecraft server is currently running off of a Phenom II 550 that came out of a faulty mobo that someone replaced with an Intel setup. The point is, I don't usually get a 'recent' CPU out of this, but today I did.

A customer upgraded his system to a z68 board, and an i5 3570. He was coming from an i5 661 running on a Gigabyte P55-m UD4 (faulty, unfortunately). He wasn't like me: he didn't have a garage full of computers, parts and cables, he didn't care about his old stuff: he was happy with taking home his newly upgraded PC, not the faulty stuff that came out of it. So, he said I could keep the old parts or get rid of them. His exact words were "I'm sure you can find something to do with it".

So I now own an i5 661 CPU.

I have no motherboard for it. I can't find any (cheap) P55 mobos on ebay or other online retailer. I have a spare H80 that is ITCHING to see how far I can push this CPU, but right now all I can really do is sit and stare at it.

Any suggestions? Should I sell it? Should I bite the bullet and buy a P55 board to put it in? Should I just bide my time, put it in my box of CPUs to potentially be useful at a later time?
 
You can either sell it or wait for Haswell where I suspect a lot of P55 owners will be selling off their gear.
 
Yeah, I figured I would see TONS of pre-owned P55 stuff on ebay on account of everyone upgrading to ivy...

I could never have been more wrong...
 
At the current rate of advances in hardware and software, many people don't see a reason to upgrade every other generation or even every 2 generations.

Not to mention LGA1156 wasn't a very popular socket, 1366 was far more popular due to the close proximity of price.
 
I can still pick up a socket 775 based board but the P55, H55, H57 or Q55 boards are hard to find even used today. The Intel® Core™ i5-661 is an OK processor dual core processor but I would take an Intel Core i3-3220.
 
But the 3220 cannot overclock at all. The 661 can at least receive a good FSB adjustment. If I can clock it beyond 4.2ghz, it would outpace the i3 in games for sure. The 1156 i5s were the last overclockable dual core CPUs intel made. If intel were to release an unlocked i3, that would change things: hint hint, Intel.
 
My back up rig is a i5 660, running at 4.5ghz using a Corsair H80 for cooling.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/117?vs=677

With a decent OC behind it I think it would still make a respectable rig for today depending on your expected use of it. If you can indeed find a decently priced motherboard you will be set.

I just checked i'm actually running a 5830 in that computer, and it does just fine granted I don't play a ton of demanding games though.
 
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I have an extra 6970 that is just waiting to be plopped into a machine. If I can find a micro-ATX board that supports CFX, I'll drop both my 6970s onto it and use it as my primary machine... My goal is to grab a P55 board for less than $60. Hopefully an Asus, but one can only dream.
 
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