Another upgrade/build thread. E8400

[Ciber]

There is nothing wrong with my PC as it is, but I have got some cash saved up and I fancy one of these new efficient 45nm chips. I don't do video encoding much, I mostly play games, so I dont need quad core. So here's my upgrade shopping list, any errors? I'm hoping to clock the CPU to 4ghz, will this lot do it? This is a short term build until nehalem is out, so I went for a cheaper P31 motherboard that overclocks well. It has everything on it that I need.

Oh here's my current setup first:

Motherboard: Asus A8N Sli Premium
Processor: Athlon 64 4000+ @2.8
Memory: 2gb patriot PC4000
HDD Capacity: 600gb (2x320gb SATA)
Graphics Card: X1900XTX 512mb
Power Supply: Seasonic X900
Case: Thermaltake Tsunami Dream
Monitor: Samsung 275T 27" LCD
Soundcard: Audigy 2 ZS

The shopping list I cooked up on scan:

LN21080 Intel Core 2 Duo, E8400, Wolfdale Core, S775, 3.0 GHz, 1333MHz, 6MB Cache, Retail £97.39 £114.43 http://www.scan.co.uk/Search.aspx?q=e8400

LN19750 Gigabyte GA P31-DS3L, iP31 Express, S 775, PCI-E(x16), DDR2 667/800 MHz, SATA II, ATX £36.29 £42.64 http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=657881

Anyone tried overclocking an E8400 on one of these?

LN13080 Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro - P4 up to 4.4GHz - S775 Dual/Quad Core Ready - The Favourite One! £12.69 £14.91

LN19302 4GB (2x2GB) Corsair TwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800), 240 Pins, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5-5-5-18 £46.44 £54.57 http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=632574

Total inc vat: £234.25

Will this better DDR2 help me at all? http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=766626

I'm tempted to add one of these network cards: http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=661367

Also, I've been lucky enough to win an XFi Platinum Fatal1ty Edition (and a copy of Sins of a Solar empire, which I already have so I'm ebaying) by knowing the speed of sound in space (0). Should I sell it on ebay and buy a cheaper xfi gamer instead? I'm undecided.



Your thoughts?

[Blitzen]

Is this board capable of running a wolfdale?

[Ciber]

I'm pretty sure it is, gigabyte seem to think it does. http://tw.giga-byte.com/Support/Moth...ProductID=2615 As pointed out on the scan product page it does have the limitation of pretty much only supporting 2 dimms at a time, max 8gb, but this is a short term build so I don't see the point getting a £120 motherboard.

[SiM]

I can't imagine that board would be good for overclocking... if you want to hit 4ghz+ then its probably best to get a better board. If you have limited budget them E7200 + good board would probably clock higher than E8400 + budget board

The same ram is cheaper here: http://www.scan.co.uk/ShopOffers/Index.aspx

[Ciber]

I've read that you can get ~3ghz from an E2140 or E2160 on that board and an FSB of 480MHz is possible on it. I've not had a core 2 CPU yet, so I don't yet know for sure what is needed to get a good overclock from the E8400 tbh. If it doesn't overclock as much as I want, well I could always get a P35 board and ebay it. Then again the E8400 is fast at stock speed and it seems guaranteed to to do that at least.

The same ram is cheaper here: http://www.scan.co.uk/ShopOffers/Index.aspx

Nice, thanks

[Zhaoman]

you could try out the Asus P5K boards. Even the cheapest ones can hit 500Mhz and CustomPC hit 560Mhz stable with a P5K Premium. of course the premium costs £100.

[Reapsy]

I really hate my Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro. Was fine when I first put it on but it is so flimsy once i took it off a few times now it doesn't go on right and my temps are a lot higher.

I will buy something more solid soon, something that attaches with proper screws and not flimsy plastic clip thingies.

[staffsMike]

Yep second the freezer pro hatred (bit strong maybe) it works well enough if you can stand the ****ing annoying fan but quiet it is not. Scythe mine will serve you better or this http://www.scan.co.uk/product.aspx?ProductId=22841 which is on today only for £17.. a bargain! Snatch it while you can.

I'd get an E7200 and this http://www.scan.co.uk/product.aspx?ProductId=21230 (also on today only for £1 cheaper.. every little helps ). No point having a super expensive dual core on a naff motherboard and the E7200 will easily overclock to all you will ever need for games in that systems life I'm sure.

[Blitzen]

The Sythe Mine is fantastic for £17....its good even for £25.

These Artic Freezer coolers are OK if you are on a very tight budgt and dont want to overclock.
They perform very average. Are not good build quality, and when they spin up they are loud.
I would never buy one again. They are no better than Intel stockcoolers now imho.

[Guy7]

Cyber, I have an E2140 on a GA-P31 DS3L running happily at 2.66Ghz (333x8) all on stock voltages. For gaming I run it at 3.2Ghz (400x8). Yes, that's a 100% overclock. Naturally voltages have to be upped a bit but it's folded 24x7 for a week solid quite happily at that speed. Fine under Orthos for 24 hours too.

The FSB with the 2140 won't go much above 400 but that may well be the processor, I know CPC had the GA-P31 well above that. Anyway, I've been very pleased with the overclockability of the GA-P31.

I may well try one of the E8xxx processors in the GA-P31 when budget allows but simply because I have it already. Bear in mind a BIOS update is needed to run the 45nm processors on this board and said update is still flagged as Beta on the Gigabyte web site.

However:
If I were building a new PC I would consider the Asus P5K recommended by CPC as you *know* it's going to be a stable overclocking platform. Plus it has the advantage of much better cooling on things like the VRMs (the GA-P31 has none there). I presume (though do check) the release BIOS is 45nm compatible too.

Guy

[Ciber]

I have an arctic freezer 64 pro at the moment and it's fine, though it's not silent with the CPU overclocked. I was hoping I could overclock the efficient E8400 without having to resort to a massive HSF, just a simple arctic freezer. I like how easy the arctic freezer was to fit and that the TIM was ready applied. I'll not be taking it off repeatedly, so the quality is not such an issue, I tend to look at is as fit once and forget.

I read in this forum about someone cutting their fingers on an xigmatek cooler, so I don't think I fancy one of those razor sharp beasts!

I tend to go by what custom PC like and they rate the Tuniq Tower 120, so even though it is massive maybe I should get that instead? http://www.yoyotech.co.uk/product_in...581755afcecd80 Or is the scythe mine much better than that? You mean this? http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=383006 Does it divert plenty of air over the VRMs like the arctic freezer does? Any reviews?

I'm not keen on the 7200 as it only has 3M cache (1/2 of the 8400) and cache makes a difference in gaming performance, plus it's not much cheaper really. Also I'm not sure what's great about that P5KC mobo? If I was going to spend more I would get the P5K premium as suggested, as that is a known solid board and great overclocker.

I'm having second thoughts on getting 4gb ram as well, seeing as I'm planiing on running 32bit XP I'll only see 2.5-3 gb of it at a guess. Don't know if £60 for vista 64 is worth it just to be able to use 4gb. I'm thinking the benefit of Vista 64 will come into it's own when I'm running 6gb or 12gb with a nehalem CPU.

Thanks for the input by the way. It's all swings and roundabouts with upgrades isn't it, as there's so much good kit out there to choose from. At least I'm putting off buying a graphics card for a month or so, that's one less choice to make right now.

I'm not really that tight on budget btw, I just like the idea of a kick ass cpu/mobo/ram to run at ~4ghzfor a mere £240 and not using too much electtricity. If I'm not happy I can just ebay bits at a small loss and try again. Well thats my theory anyway. I could spend up to £500, but that's what I did last time only to feel a bit gutted when Core 2 came out a few months later. I spent ~£240 on my CPU only for the price of it to drop like a rock off a cliff a few months later. That said it has served me well for the past ummm.. 2 and a bit years!

[staffsMike]

You're only going to cut yourself on it if your aren't careful fitting them, and if you fit it with the mobo out you should have no problems. The freezer can cut you quite easily to if you aren't careful. Your money though

Scythe Mine was very good in the Hexus HSF review and does well everywhere else. Perhaps not as good as the ninja/infinity but good performance and noise all the same.

Afaik cache actually adds very little to gaming, might be wrong of course but the E7200 represent far better value for money and is a much easier chip to overclock on cheaper motherboards.

[Ciber]

I believe that cache is actually very important for games, can be more so than clock speed. As in a CPU with more cache but slightly less clock speed will be better for games. A quote: 'As for performance of the overclocked Core 2 Duo E7200, it is about 10% slower than the same-frequency Wolfdale with a 6MB cache in games and about 5% slower in other applications.' http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu...0_4.html#sect0 . So the E8200 would be a better bet I guess, but the 8400 must have a higher multiplier than the 8200, nearly the same as the E7200 and should be nearly as easy on the board?

Anyway. I really want the E8400 though. So, what you're really telling me is I should get the Asus P5K premuim with it for better overclocking and stablilty.

[SiM]

There was a comparison of different CPUs in gaming and it showed that there is barely a difference between teh £40 AMD and the extreme quad... CPU are not the bottleneck...

The only "game" CPU will make a difference is in 3D mark...

[Ciber]

I beg to differ. Once you turn down the graphics some the CPU makes all the difference. For online gaming I always tend to strip down the graphics to get high FPS and then the CPU comes into play. Also, even though the FPS might not differ much the difference in smoothness can be large, so some comparisons may be false. Furthermore, some games are more CPU heavy than others.

At the end of the day, once I pop a new £300 graphics card in I don't want it to be held back by my CPU.

[SiM]

The link is in the DMC4 thread... I'll find it for you