$600-800 cpu/mobo upgrade

D

DReborn

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 11, 2004
Messages
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i need a little upgrade to tide me over till nehalem. I am running an operton 175 (x2 4400+) with 2gb on WinXp Pro.

thinking about going with an x38/x48 and a q9300 with 4gb of ddr2. Not really interested in massive OC's. Would just want the 9300 to hit 3gz.

would this be a worthy upgrade? will i notice a difference in WoW, windows tasks, video/audio encoding?

anything else I should be thinking about?

NOTE: i am picking up a 9800gtx as well (not factored into the 600-800 price)
 
if your going with nvidia graphics card why are you going to get a crossfire motherboard? so many ppl want to do that but its pretty stupid because your spending money on something that you wont even use. get a p35 board instead since your not even sliing and if your thinking about sli-ing that must mean that you game at resolutions 1920x1200 and up right? if not then don't waste your time thinking about sli-ing or crossfiring as you don't see much benefits from it. if you want a fair overclock look into the zerotherm nirvana nv120. its a pretty spiffy cpu cooler :D it can oc a q6600 to 3.6ghz. Im sure you'll get a performance upgrade in WoW, a quad core will help definately in encoding and windows task. make sure you have a 64bit os to run them 4gb.
 
those are good points...

i am not interested in SLI/crossfire since i have a multimonitor display

i run at 2560x1600 res

i was planning on dual booting xp pro and vista 64

i like a silent PC so i was thinking about that new noctura (sp?) but I will check out the Zero.

which P35 board do you like?

thanks!!
 
Danny Bui said:
And since SLI is out of picture, I recommend going with a motherboard based on the P35 chipset since it runs cooler, OC's higher and is more reliable than any Nvidia chipsets for Intel motherboards. Here are some recommendations:
Abit IP35-E Intel P35 Motherboard - $90
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L Intel P35 Motherboard - $90
MSI P35 Neo2-FR Intel P35 Motherboard - $112
DFI BloodIron P35-T2RL Intel P35 Motherboard - $120
Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3R Intel P35 Motherboard - $122
DFI LanParty DK P35-T2RS Intel P35 Motherboard - $140
Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3P Intel P35 Motherboard - $151
Abit IP35 Pro Intel P35 Motherboard - $170


Just to help you out: If you don't need RAID, more than 4 SATA ports or legacy ports, then the IP35-E is a good choice. If you like the IP35-E but need legacy ports, check out the DS3L. If you need 5 SATA ports, 2 eSATA ports, and a second PCI-E x16 port, then get the Neo2-Fr. If you want heavy overclocking abilities and six SATA ports, check out the Blood Iron. If you like the BloodIron but want significantly better overclock stability, go for the LanParty. If you want 8 SATA ports, RAID, and legacy ports and high overclocks, than the DS3R is a good choice. If you want the DS3R but need Firewire and a second PCI-E x16 port, then go for the DS3P. If you want something that can overclock pretty damn high along with eSATA ports and firewire connections, than the IP35 Pro. Note that the IP35-Pro seems to have problems with the Wolfdales CPUs
Click to expand...

these motherboards are all good. find one that fits your needs for instance sata ports. need 4, 6, etc?? there's been problems between with the abit motherboards and the new dual cores but im not sure if theres problems with them and the quad cores. i would just avoid them though.

if you are detail hungry for games you should look at the 9800gx2 because of your large resolution.

although your not looking for a case, have you thought about the antec p180, p180b, p182?? they are pretty nice, quiet if you ask me.
 
thanks again for all the replies guys. really appreciate it.

CoolerMaster Cosmos S
MSI Neo P35 board
4gb Patriot dd2
q9300

that should be a nice little upgrade to hold me over. board, cpu, and ram shouldn't cost more than 500...pretty good for what im getting i think.

then ill go crazy for the holiday season!

make sense? anybody vehemently disagree?
 
sounds pretty good to me...

but even with the 9800GTX, how are you gonna run multimonitor at 2560x1200?
 
You'll notice the difference when multi-tasking and media encoding/decoding... thats about it. So you're spending $500 and only want it to last 9 months (assuming nehalem comes on schedule)? That upgrade should last you longer than that. If you're already planning a build a year from now, I'd just wait for Nehalem, since new boards/chipsets/cpus will be coming out that are incompatible with current boards/cpus. But, if the $500 isn't much to you, then go for it. You could also sell your current parts to help offset the cost.
 
i currently have a 7900gtx and a 7900gs (or something like that) running my three monitors (you can check out my setup here

so my plan was to keep the 7900gs with the 9800gtx since the 7900gs has passive/silent cooling. i only game on the 30" center monitor which the 9800gtx with be hooked up to.

there are times that my computer feels a tad sluggish and that its working harder than it should. I reformat winxp every 4-6 months, very careful what i install, so it's not being bogged down by software. It's stuff like running WoW in a window, listening to iTunes, checking Outlook, web browsing, and doing IM. MOST of the time it handles it pretty well, but sometimes there will be that "chugging" sound i dunno...i just can't imagine that in 2 yrs technology hasn't evolved enough for me to notice a difference.

at the very least, i might not notice a massive difference in XP doing basic tasks but i think Vista will like the extra ram and the extra two cores (hopefully)!

i'll be a test case for everybody moving from an operton 175. =)

Lastly, i'll get to throw the 7900gtx in my htpc and game WoW on 133"....http://www.coolslice.com/uploaded_images/CIMG1430-786872.JPG
 
ah... that makes sense now...

all i can say is holy crap gimme that projector...

anyway, nice choices, i hope the upgrade works out well for you.
 
ugh, when will the 9800gtx come out!!! ha...tired of waiting. now the 9900gtx might be released in july? damn u nvidia for making my upgrade life annoying.

to make matters worse i think my video card is dyin...

either way, it's time for an upgrade!
 
so i went ahead and got an BFG 8800gts 512 OC since it was such a great deal ($200 from a small local store). i play WoW @ 2560x1600 on my 7900gtx and it averaged around 30fps give or take. I thought the 8800gts 512 would be nice upgrade and get me close to 60fps in WoW but Im averaging about the same fps.

NOTE: i did not upgrade the CPU yet. this is my same machine as listed above but with an 8800gts512 instead of a 7900gtx.

did i do something wrong or is WoW that CPU intensive?

anyone playing WoW at 2560x1600 with all the goodies on at close to 60fps?

kinda bummed...
 
Well here i am :p

I have everything on maximum (system specs in my sig) and i get vsync capped at 60fps (if i unvsync 90fps) except when in a highly populated orgrimmar, then it drops to around 30-40.

1680x1050x60Hz on a Viewsonic VA2226w (Single-Link DVI)
 
so i finally pulled the trigger and upgraded my system (see sig). And...well...in short...

not all that impressed.

I guess I was expecting night/day. Solid upgrade just not as dramatic as I had hoped. If you have an x2 4400+ or comparable intel chip with 2gb of ram, don't expect windows XP or vista to be that much snappier/faster with the system i have now. When I have ALOT of things open then you start seeing the faster CPU/more cores and more ram kick in while in Vista 64.

Of course on the gaming front it's pretty nice. WoW still has some trouble running at 60fps during "busy times" with all the goodies pumped up. Usually stays above 45fps which is a nice improvement.

I still need to run some photoshop, encoding, etc tests but hey...in the end, i love my new Cosmos S case, everything booted up on first try and I have been enjoying a clean fast new computer for a few days. not too much to complain about! =)
 
Yah, for the most part, I didn't notice much either (only multitasking and encoding). Thats why I still have my opty system up as my main system.
 
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