What would you do? [upgrade path]

C

camelass

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 28, 2007
Messages
272
I am undecided on if I should upgrade or not.. Or just hold off for the time being.

System specs are as follows:
E4500 @ 3.0ghz (9x333)
Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3L
4gb G.Skill DDR2 1066
Visiontek HD 4870x2
x2 WD6400AAKS
Silverstone DA800 800w
Cooler Master Hyper 212

I was thinking about dropping in a Q9550 and calling it the day. I havent heard too much on how my board would overclock the Q9550 though.
 
Is there anything you don't like about your system's current performance or capabilities?
 
It would do fine.

What you should upgrade depends on what you want to accomplish with the upgrade. So, what do you do with your computer? CPU upgrade won't help with gaming much, but it will help with everything else. Since you have fast drives, a fast dual-GPU vidcard, and 4GB of RAM already, my next step would be the CPU, but if all you do is game, it won't make a difference. If you want to make your E4500 look faster than a speeding bullet, pickup 2 SSDs (OCZ Vertex) and run them in RAID0. :p
 
Well I generally use my pc for gaming/web browsing. But I do some web design and photoshop work as well so I suppose I could benefit from an extra 2 cores. Eventually I'd like to rip and archive my dvd collection and host a media file server as well.

But overall I guess I could say I am content with my systems performance and in no hurry to upgrade. I just thought I would get a few opinions before I make any decisions. If I do decide to get a Q9550. Would 3.8-4.0ghz be in reach with my board? I have read a lot of success with the UD3P flavor of my board but not the DS3L.
 
The DS3L lacks the chipset/mosfet cooling of the UD3P, so you may not get as high of an OC. Also, the DS3L has 4-phase CPU power vs the UD3P's 6-phase. Though, you don't need much to reach 3.8Ghz with a Q9550:

/*------------- <cut n paste> -------------*/
Formulas for Intel platform @ 1:1 settings:
c × [Base FSB speed] = CPU Clock speed (c = CPU Multiplier)
2 × [Base FSB speed] = RAM speed
4 × [Base FSB speed] = Effective FSB speed

On Intel platforms, running the RAM higher than a 1:1 ratio with the CPU is, for the most part, useless, so don't bother trying to do so. If the BIOS does it for you, just let it. All you need is a 1:1 config, though. Here's some possible clock speeds (as always with OC'ing, your results will vary):

Q9550: 8.5 × 333 = 2.8Ghz, DDR2-667 << STOCK speeds
Q9550: 8.5 × 400 = 3.4Ghz, DDR2-800 << Nice OC
Q9550: 8.5 × 425 = 3.6Ghz, DDR2-850 << Good OC, near max
Q9550: 8.5 × 450 = 3.8Ghz, DDR2-900 << Great OC, near max
Q9550: 8.5 × 500 = 4.2Ghz, DDR2-1000 << Nearly impossible, WC required
/*------------- </cut n paste> -------------*/

Past 400-425Mhz FSB, you'll need to upgrade the cooling of your chipsets/mosfets (mainly your NB). You could pickup an HR-05(-SLI)/IFX, or simply add a 40-60mm fan to the existing heatsink.

With Photoshop, the 8GB of RAM will definitely help out if you get some RAMDisk software:
Joe Average said:
I built a RAID 0 box for a small image studio 2 weeks ago, a new startup here in Vegas that is making waves. They wanted a "demo" workstation to see what's possible for processing as they don't want to create a massive server-type situation in the office, but 3-4 workstations that are equal in performance and then just using simple file sharing as required. Very simple setup in terms of the network, but the workstation I built used 2 300GB Velociraptors (tried to sell 'em on SSD but the amount of data they're dealing with wouldn't be practical - again, a price-to-performance and ROI issue).

The hard part was getting them to spring for 16GB of RAM because of the cost, but a few weeks ago I saw that sale for 4 4GB sticks of RAM for about $450 and made a few phone calls and snagged a similar deal.

I set up Photoshop CS3 for 'em (their legit retail copy) on Vista Business x64. They started messing around with it, loading some rather large TIFF files in excess of 150MB a pop, several at a time, performing some basic scripted actions on 'em, blurs, filters, etc. Using the Velociraptors in RAID 0 meant very snappy and consistent performance, as well as having 16GB of RAM too. Also, it's a Q6600 based machine running rock solid at 3 GHz.

They were very pleased with the performance at that point, but I had a surprise for 'em. ;)

I asked if I could have 20 mins 'alone' with the workstation to "rewire it" as Tim Allen might say. That consisted of grabbing a trial version of SuperSpeed Software's RamDisk Plus 9 and installing it, doing the simple configuration, and then creating a 10GB RAMdisk and told Photoshop "Ok, you want a scratch disk? Here, try this on for size."

After I did some tests of my own using the same scripts they'd done earlier, boy... I tell ya. You haven't lived till you see 225MB TIFF files literally snap onscreen in the blink of an eye, multiple huge TIFFs with resolutions like 5000x5000 and even higher. That's what's possible with RAMdisks, because even Velociraptors in RAID 0 pumping out something like 280MB/s sustained pales to the close to 5GB a second in bandwidth of that RAMdisk.

I told 'em to come back in and rerun their test scripts.

Jaws hit the floor, folks. Well, not quite but figuratively speaking, at least.

They asked what I'd done, I told them I put the scratch disk in RAM where it should be if you have the RAM to make it happen, and they bought 4 licenses of RamDisk Plus 10 mins later, and I got a signed contract to construct 3 more workstations identical to that one top to bottom and also be their "geek" if any issues come up.

It was a very good week... ;)
Click to expand...

Though, your computer is as fast as your slowest component... and the slowest component, by far, in most people's systems is their HDD(s). So, check out the speeds you can get with current SSDs:
http://www.alphaq.org/enginurd/hdd/ocz_vertex.html
 
What would be the best setup to replace the stock northbridge heatsink with an aftermarket one with a fan or just simply adding a fan to the stock heatsink? I have a bit of a clearance issue with my Cooler Master Hyper 212 so I dont think the HR-05(-SLI)/IFX will work out for me.
 
20arw9e.jpg


I am able to just barley sneak in a 40 x 40 x 10mm fan under where my cpu heatsink overlaps the nb heatsink. I have maybe a 2-3mm clearance if that with the fan in there.
 
LR2 said:
While it's still cheap?
Click to expand...

DDR2 RAM prices have risen a bit in the past few months as RAM companies are switching production to DDR3 RAM. In addition, many future Intel and AMD CPUs will be using DDR3 RAM.
 
If my 965 chipset P5B deluxe can get my newly acquired q9550 to 3.6ghz at VID 1.275 voltage, I don't think you'll have any problems.
 
I am about ready to pull the trigger. I am willing to spend the extra bucks for a Q9650 instead of a Q9550 if it proves to help with my overclocking on my board with the higher multiplier. Anyone have any thoughts? Also is my cooler master hyper 212 up to par overclocking a quad?
 
Do you live near a Microcenter? I think a better use of that $100 is towards an i7/mobo if you want to spend that much. Just recently, the i7 920 was $200, the Q9550 $170.
 
camelass said:
Well I generally use my pc for gaming/web browsing. But I do some web design and photoshop work as well so I suppose I could benefit from an extra 2 cores. Eventually I'd like to rip and archive my dvd collection and host a media file server as well.

But overall I guess I could say I am content with my systems performance and in no hurry to upgrade. I just thought I would get a few opinions before I make any decisions. If I do decide to get a Q9550. Would 3.8-4.0ghz be in reach with my board? I have read a lot of success with the UD3P flavor of my board but not the DS3L.
Click to expand...

Doesn't sound like you really need an upgrade imo. If it were me i'd save the money and do a complete upgrade in a year or more.
 
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