Upgrading processor or other components

Slava

Slava

2[H]4U
Joined
Mar 20, 2002
Messages
2,316
Lately I have been running processor at stock due to very hot summer. I was wondering if it is worth upgrading? If so, where should I upgrade to? If not, what other components should I upgrade?
 
I really don't see much point in upgrading the proc - I use the 2.4 C as well on an IC7-G and it works great for me. I might buy a 3.4 C when the prices are slated to drop toward the end of next month.

If you're into gaming and play newer games, or do stuff like encoding and rendering, then you might want to get 1 gig of RAM.

Other than that, no suggestions from me unless you are disappointed for some reason with your comp.
 
Slava said:
Lately I have been running processor at stock due to very hot summer.
Click to expand...

Does the temp outside have a lot of effect on the temp inside your case?
 
The hot summer is probably raising the ambient temperature of his room, and this translates to an increase in temps inside the case because the lowest you can go is room temperature, unless you seal the case and do some extreme cooling.

Happens to me. During really hot days, the temp of my room goes from 70 F to about 82 F and my CPU temp rises about 5 C.
 
It effects my case, and most of the time I have to have it open. Otherwise temp will be really high. Usually cpu idles at about 55C when I just chat and surf the web. Sometimes 50C. During the night when its cold, it idles at like 43-45C.
 
Yeah I play new games and plan on playing games that will come out. Problem is, my ram timings are 222 which are the best timings out there. But to match those 2 sticks with another 2 will be very expensive. What would you go with and what you will think will be stable with IC7 motherboard?

BillLeeLee said:
I really don't see much point in upgrading the proc - I use the 2.4 C as well on an IC7-G and it works great for me. I might buy a 3.4 C when the prices are slated to drop toward the end of next month.

If you're into gaming and play newer games, or do stuff like encoding and rendering, then you might want to get 1 gig of RAM.

Other than that, no suggestions from me unless you are disappointed for some reason with your comp.
Click to expand...
 
Keep in mind that the temp is off by 10-12C on IC7 boards. Even though I have really big heatsink and good fan blowing at it, it still wont make any difference. Maybe I should clean it and put AS5 on it :)
 
AS5 would be a good idea... And that's pretty high, my IC7/2.8c maxes out around 56C, idles at 41-45...
 
Slava, if you want to bump up that RAM, I'd say you should sell the 2 sticks of 256, and buy 2 x 512.

Tight timings are good and all, but I just sold my gig of Mushkin PC3500 RAM and switched over to 1 gig of Crucial PC3200 and I haven't noticed much of a difference going from 2-2-2-6 to 3-3-3-8 timings.

The Intel P4 platform is not as timings dependent as it is memory bandwidth dependent, so running RAM in dual channel is very beneficial to it. Sure, tight timings net you a few percentage points in performance, but the premium is just not worth it.

However, if you're an overclocker, Crucial is not really going to be that useful. But if you run at stock, it's great stuff. I used to overclock, but recently I've been running at stock, prompting my selling of that pricey RAM.

For overclocking, might want to look into Mushkin Level 1, but performance RAM is still a little high now a days, don't you think? RAM prices have increased over the past few months to exorbitant levels for high end stuff.
 
For gaming, you'd be best off to get some RAM. Your video card is already fine, and your processor is also fine. Some games could benefit from the RAM, like BF1942. For general speed in Windows usage, I'd recommend a RAID0 array or a Raptor.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top