Thinking about a stop gap upgrade

C

camelass

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 28, 2007
Messages
272
I have had my eyes set on an octa-core Nehalem for quite some time. I thought I would be able to milk my system until then but my current system is hurting, BAD. Playing COD4 at an average of 8-12fps in high action scenes is quite frustrating.

Current setup:
P4 2.8b
2GB PC3200 DDR
Sapphire x1950pro AGP @4x
ASUS P4S533
160gig IDE
120gig IDE
19" LCD playing at 1280x1024

Now since I bought this x1950pro not long ago I'd like to still use it. The only current mobo that I could find that gives you an option of using AGP is the ASRock 4CoreDual.

Proposed upgrade:

ASRock 4CoreDual-SATA2 LGA 775 VIA PT880 Pro/PT880 Ultra ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail $59.99

Intel Core 2 Duo E4400 Allendale 2.0GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80557E4400 - Retail $134.99

And for a bonus since its rather cheap
Kingston 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model KVR667D2N5K2/2G - Retail $41.99 after instant savings

Subtotal: $236.97 (not including shipping)

Pretty good deal if you ask me. I'd use all other previous hardware from my current setup. Does anyone else have any other suggestions? Or what about even benchmarks that may come close to what I'm currently using and the E4400?
 
Looks like a plan to me. Though I'd get the E4500 here for $122 here:
Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 CPU - $122

And get this single 2GB stick here:
Super Talent T8UB2GC5 2GB DDR2 800 RAM - $39

Though if you want to save some money, drop down to the E2180 or E2160 and OC that instead:
Intel Pentium Dual Core E2160 CPU - $79
Intel Pentium Dual Core E2180 CPU - $85

IIRC, the max OC for that mobo is around 300Mhz FSB. So about the max OC for the E2160 on that mobo would about 2.7Ghz and 3.0Ghz for the E2180. Or 3.3Ghz for the E4500.
 
Sounds good. The only thing is I don't think this mobo supports 2gb modules of ram since the max is 2gb for DDR or DDR2. So thats why I chose x2 1gb modules.

I'm most likely going to go the OC route. What do you recommend for an after market cooler? I have a mid tower case but I don't think I have enough clearance for those big honking heat sinks like I have seen people use.

EDIT:
If I OC do I need to get faster ram?
 
Well I made the purchase and ended up getting an E4500 and the Thermalright Ultima-90 HSF. I ran into a bit of a problem though. The base of the Thermalright Ultima-90 was a bit too big for the mobo and was pretty damn close if not touching a few circuits around the cpu on the left side. Well this ended up causing the system not to boot up. So I ended up using the stock cooler that came with the cpu.

Kinda ticked me off because I spent about $60 on this thing with shipping and i'm not even using it. I guess to make matters even worse stupid me didn't pack it away in the box and my cat ended up knocking the thing off my desk during the night and a few of the fins on it are slightly bent. That's how my luck always goes in making purchases.

On the bright side though the system runs great. About 28c idle and a haven't seen the cores go above 34c under heavy use. I'm running it on stock atm. Still undecided if I want to oc it on a stock cooler.
 
Just to be clear, the Ultima is touching these caps right:
13-157-115-04.jpg


Or is it just one of them?

To be honest, I was wrong about the HSF. It doesn't look like you even need it. Remember that maximum temp for a C2D CPU is 65C at load. I think you can OC with no problem.
 
It would touch the two on the other way. Not the caps but the the ones with the wires wrapped around them. And by touching I mean just barely. It was so close I couldn't tell for sure if they were touching so I decided to give it a try but it wouldn't even power up.

13-157-115-04.jpg


and if I flipped it around the other way it would come pretty close to the heat sink labeled number 3 so I didn't even try.

No big deal about the ultima. I'm sure ill find some use for it later on down the road.
 
I wouldn't buy an AGP motherboard now, especially not with PCIE 2.0 out, but if you don't want to sell your video card, then it's your choice. I would recommend an AM2 system over a cheap Core 2 if it meant that you could ditch AGP once and for all.
 
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