Which 45nm Intel CPU?

[Agent]

Yeah, I think the digital voltage regulators on the Abit may be helping a lot. While they can get hot, they seem to do the job well.

If I get a 45nm anytime soon I'll post my findings

[TooNice]

I would check how much you can get out of the E4300 with an aftermarket cooler before going for a new CPU, especially if it requires a motherboard upgrade. If you still want to upgrade, I'd go for a 'bang for buck' chip: Q6600 or E8400.

[d032sh]

I have the P5B-E and with a bios flash supports all currently available 45nm chips except the 1600MHz FSB ones (just the QX9750?). If you have a p5b I'd seriously recommend overclocking your E4300, possibly with a new cooler if needed, before you think about upgrading the cpu. I have my E4300 at 3.2GHz without any problems and whilst I'd love a new chip it's just geek lust really as there's nothing which I really need it for.

[mccheese]

Hey,

I've got an E8400 running at stock and everything runs nice and slick, even Vista. I use my pc for gaming mainly so quad core didn't make that much sense as no current games make full use of all 4-cores anyway.

[Wills]

mccheese what motherboard do you have?

[Wills]

d032sh I think you might be right, I brought this CPU (E4300) because its meant to be a fantastic O/Cer for the price, so I think ill give it a go with a new cooler. Im thinking about the Noctua NH-U12P as a friend built a system with one of these and highly recommended it, Oringally I was going to get a Freezer 7 Pro, but how much will I get out of my system from this, Will the Noctua be that much better its worth the extra £30+

[d032sh]

Might be a little bit late for a response on this one but....

I have a Noctua NH-U12F and would never buy another one simply because it was an absolute nightmare to fit. I cut myself on one of the fins, blood everywhere. I also had to use pretty much my entire geek strength to screw it down.

On the plus side I get decent temps now and it is very quiet, something which it seems isn't the case with the arctic freezer 7 pro. I remember the NH-U12F getting a scathing review on the Hexus big HSF round-up a few months ago and whilst I'm happy with the temps (and a lot of other sites seemed to get good temps with it so perhaps hexus got a duff one) I think there are probably better HSF options out there now from a cost/performance ratio point of view. I fitted a thermaltake big TYP to a friend's pc not so long ago and that was comparatively very easy, he gets better temps than I do and it seems just as quiet. The main reason I went for an aftermarket cooler was for the noise reduction... if that's not a major concern you might want to think about OCing with the stock cooler and seeing how far you can go before thinking about swapping it. Just monitor the temperatures carefully as you go.

[sjbuck]

I'd go with the Q9450, I have a Q6600 and am thinking of switched to a 9450 for the lower temps and potentially higher overclock. It's a freebie, otherwise I wouldn't bother

[merdat]

I've had a 4300 at 3150 since I overclocked it a year ago. Stable as a rock with a Freezer pro 7 . If you have never overclocked your E 4300 then you are going to spend a lot of money and not gain much advantage (unless you put in a Q 6600- even then it's a bit of a waste if you don't use the 4 cores.). These 45 chips will overclock alright but they die very quickly if the v core is pushed to high. Overclock your 4300 first then make a decision.

[TooNice]

Pretty much agree with the above (then again, it's no different from what I posted before). Regarding the cooler, if the OP is willing to pay a fair sum for a heatsink, I reckon that it might be best to stick with the widely tried and tested (Scythe Ninja/Thermalright 120 Extreme with a Scythe Flex Fan). From the review that I've seen, the Noctua does not clean the board despite the high price.