CPU upgrade advice

[Jathanis]

Well since taxes I owe came in a bit less than I thought, I was looking in to upgrading the E2160 Pentium Dual Core in my everyday (non-dedicated folding) computer, but it appears that the Q6x00 or QX6x00 extreme processors are the best this old board can handle. While I'd love to move to an i7, I really don't want to replace the board & memory too. Is there any way anyone knows of to rig an old nForce 650i board to run a newer Core2 Quad, like the Q8400 (moar OC!), or is there a socket adapter available? Or am I just stuck with a Q6600/Q6700? I only have about $250 extra to play with, which is why I don't think I can really move to i7... For reference, the system in question is sig rig #1.

Advice?

 

[Deluded]

Get the Q6600 used. Look for G0 batches, those overclock well, often up to 3.6 Ghz with nominal voltage boost.

Otherwise, I'd recommend you don't put money into that... Sell the processor + mobo and get something better.

 

[Zero82z]

I would say save your beans until you can upgrade your board and CPU at the same time, or even just save until you can upgrade to an i7 rig.

 

[lehmann]

that $250 could possibly get you a i5-750 that runs 4.0 with good cooling. msi cd-53 and 2 gigs corsair ram

 

[Kendrak]

Used p45 mobo: $75
Used Q8400 $125
$50 beer money
Win!

 

[jebo_4jc]

i dont think youd see much benefit from the 45nm cpus compared to q6600

nearly any g0 q6600 will hit 3.4 to 3.6. the 45nm quads might hit 3.8 to 4.0, but i dont think the hassle is worth it imo. most of the 45nm have really low multi, so you need a huge fsb oc to get there

pick up a g0 q6600 and save the rest for i7. youll get 6000-7000 ppd out of it on a3 smp units
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[zero2dash]

that $250 could possibly get you a i5-750 that runs 4.0 with good cooling. msi cd-53 and 2 gigs corsair ram

Which isn't going to give him much over spending less on a cpu swap with what he already has.

IMHO if you're going to go i7, go balls out. No reason to get an i7 with no HT, not especially since he's already in the position to get a cheap quad and not lose much in the difference between a non-HT i7 and a s775 quad.

For bigadv purposes I don't even think it's worth an i7 860, but that's just me. You pay less for the board (p55 vs x58) but you pay more on the ram because you have to buy 2 4gb ram kits to give the 5gb to the client/VM.
Anyone building a boxen for cpu purposes but not going x58/i7 920 or 930 would still be best served (IMHO) on a used s775/quad/ddr2 setup. The extra cost of p55/i7 no HT/ddr3 is not worth it for a minimal (<1min in most cases) TPF difference.

i dont think youd see much benefit from the 45nm cpus compared to q6600

nearly any g0 q6600 will hit 3.4 to 3.6. the 45nm quads might hit 3.8 to 4.0, but i dont think the hassle is worth it imo. most of the 45nm have really low multi, so you need a huge fsb oc to get there

pick up a g0 q6600 and save the rest for i7. youll get 6000-7000 ppd out of it on a3 smp units
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Absolutely +1.
No reason to pay more (probably) for a 45nm q8xxx or q9xxx vs a q6600 g0.
Good luck hitting above 3.6 on anything but a 9550 or 9650 anyway. I have an es q9450, it bottoms out at 3.6 and barely does that on safe volts (with VID spec max being 1.3625 I'm running 1.385 on mine, actually...I assume though with vdroop I'm pushing more like 1.365 through it). I get roughly 7,500-8,500 PPD on it @ 3.6.

Besides that, above 3.6 you're probably not going to see much of a drop in TPF (comparing 3.6 to 3.7 or 3.8). Unless you get a real cherry pick of a quad, you're not going to feasibly hit 4, again unless it's a 9550 or 9650 and even then it's still not a guarantee.

jebo's option gets my vote....pick up a q6600 g0, get a good cooler (Xigmatek Dark Knight or even the vanilla HDT-S1283), you should get a decent oc with low temps and be all set.
You could also get a q8200 (7x multi) from a B&M MC (brick and mortar ie physical retail store Microcenter if you don't know the acronym ) for $119, not sure if you'd hit 3.6 but you should be able to at least get 3.2 and you'd still get a good boost over your dual. They also have the q9300 (7.5x multi) for $139. Between the two, I would get the q8200, I don't think it'd be worth $20 for 1/2 a notch on the multiplier.

 

[Nathan_P]

Get the Q6600 used. Look for G0 batches, those overclock well, often up to 3.6 Ghz with nominal voltage boost.

^This and read an overclocking guide. As others said until you go to 9550 or higher its not worth the cost.

 

[Jathanis]

Thanks guys!

Used p45 mobo: $75
Used Q8400 $125
$50 beer money
Win!

Due to a friend pointing out the the folding rig from my sig has IP35 Pro board capable of running a Q8200 or greater, I think I can partially use Kendrak's advice, just move my Q6600 (a G0 model used from Sunin on FS/FT a while back) to the gaming rig and drop a used Q8400 or equivalent into my folding rig without replacing the board... That gives me > $100 saved toward an i7 rig later this year! (or beer...)

^This and read an overclocking guide. As others said until you go to 9550 or higher its not worth the cost.

Seeing as the stock 1.8 Ghz e2160 in my gaming rig has been running BOINC for over a year straight while OCed to 3.0-3.2, I don't think I need to read yet ANOTHER guide... My problem is always taking too big of steps, then wondering why Prime 95, etc is having problems - patience with small OC steps has alway been my biggest issue! My only concern with a 9550 would be finding one (even used) cheap enough to be worthwhile. Right now, the cheapest buy it now 9550 I see on ebay is $235, and the 200-300 Mhz extra OC I'd get out of it doesn't seem worth the extra $110 over Kendrak's 8400 suggestion - especially if I can save up to go i7 later this year...

Hell, I can get a brand new Q8300 from the Egg right now for $149, free shipping, and I'll bet my closest Fry's can beat that if I watch the ads the next few weekends...