New MB, CPU

I did have my e4400 running at 3ghz, but since a BIOS update (progress!) I don't seem to be able to get anywhere near this figure. So, I've decided to do a bit of an upgrade, and not being able to afford the i7 yet, nor wanting to change the 8500 RAM i've just bought, I've decided just to upgrade the MB and CPU. I was thinking of the e7600 and the Asus P5Q Pro Turbo, which I can get for about £175 altogether. Would these be a good buy? Are there any alternatives around the same price that would be better? Would the P5Q Deluxe be a better bet for about £20 more?

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Originally Posted by Smudger

I did have my e4400 running at 3ghz, but since a BIOS update (progress!) I don't seem to be able to get anywhere near this figure. So, I've decided to do a bit of an upgrade, and not being able to afford the i7 yet, nor wanting to change the 8500 RAM i've just bought, I've decided just to upgrade the MB and CPU. I was thinking of the e7600 and the Asus P5Q Pro Turbo, which I can get for about £175 altogether. Would these be a good buy? Are there any alternatives around the same price that would be better? Would the P5Q Deluxe be a better bet for about £20 more?

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You could always reflash the motherboard with the older BIOS.

OTH,your motherboard will support both the Q9400 and Q9550:

http://asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=LC...8IJ&templete=2

The Q9400 and Q9550 have much more L2 cache per core than the E4400 so even single threaded performance would be better:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/148545

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Intel...che-85x-Retail

Another upgrade would be to get an X4 955BE and a 790GX based motherboard:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/164047

You could also look at a Crossfire capable 790X based motherboard too:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/GIGABYTE-GA-MA790X-UD3P

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Sapph...-3Gb-s-ATX-VGA

You can get free postage from Scan on orders over £20 excluding VAT since you have enough posts on Hexus.

The Q9550 and X4 955BE are similar in performance to each other:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/16796

I would get an am2+ motherboard and an amd phenom II x3 720. the msi C45 is < £50 and is a great buy. Then you could reuse your ddr2.

Thanks guys, I was thinking of a new motherboard as although the RAM is 1066 and the motherboard says it can do 1066, it's not running at this speed, could this be because of the FSB on the e4400? If just changing the chip would up the FSB, I could do that, as I don't actually have a problem with the board itself...

I will be the fsb on the chip, which is only 200mhz

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Originally Posted by Smudger

Thanks guys, I was thinking of a new motherboard as although the RAM is 1066 and the motherboard says it can do 1066, it's not running at this speed, could this be because of the FSB on the e4400? If just changing the chip would up the FSB, I could do that, as I don't actually have a problem with the board itself...

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The E4400 is an 800MHZ FSB chip whereas the Q9400 and Q9550 are 1333MHZ FSB chips which are supported by your motherboard. The Q9550 has 12MB of L2 cache whereas the E4400 has 2MB of L2 cache and the E7600 has 3MB of L2 cache. I would get a Q9550 and stick with your current motherboard.

Right, Xmas spending and lack of cash presents means my budget is cut, to about £100 for just the CPU. So, will an e7600 give me a marked improvement over the e4400, and is an e8400 worth expanding the budget for, over the e7600? Or should I hang on, wait for i* prices to drop and go for that? Gaming is limited to CoDWaW at the most...

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Originally Posted by Smudger

Right, Xmas spending and lack of cash presents means my budget is cut, to about £100 for just the CPU. So, will an e7600 give me a marked improvement over the e4400, and is an e8400 worth expanding the budget for, over the e7600? Or should I hang on, wait for i* prices to drop and go for that? Gaming is limited to CoDWaW at the most...

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I would get a Q8300:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/158333

I went from an E4500 at around 2.9GHZ to a Q6600 at a similar speed and it was a decent improvement. The Q8300 has less L2 cache than a Q6600 but has other architectural improvements and hence it would be a good upgrade over what you have currently IMHO.

How would an e8500 compare to the q8300?

For some reason these seem to be a bit cheaper on eBay than the e8400, is there something wrong with them?

TBH,I would get a Q8000 or Q9000 series quad core over a E8000 dual core. The E8500 would be ahead in single threaded operations but the quad core would be ahead in multithreaded operations. More and more games are beginning to support quad cores so I would look at getting a quad core.

I actually got my e4400 back up to 3Ghz again, by following Clunk's guide, not just faffing around in the BIOS, but I think I would still like to update the CPU anyway. I've kind of got more games than I need so if I list them, which chip would be best as a happy medium? It's probably between q8300@£106, e8500@£110 and q9400@£140

Games are:

BioShock
Call of Duty I, II, WaW
Crysis, Crysis Warhead
Far Cry I, II
HL2 + episodes
Assassin's Creed

Bioshock, AC & the Crysis lot were picked up in Steam's sale so I haven't really had a go at them yet. GPU is a 4890 so I don't think that bit should give me much hassle...

If you can get find a Q9550 for under £150 it would be an excellent upgrade even at stock speeds.The Q8400 also looks a decent choice although the Q9400 is tad faster due to its extra L2 cache.

There don't seem to be any q9550s around that aren't above the price that ebuyer and scan etc charge - isn't ebay supposed to be for buying stuff cheap?

Too much demand for them to be going cheap, and stocks are going down, so prices are going up :)

HTPC fodder they are. Find a Q6700 and you're laughing, old school top dog rig, many people with Q6600/6700's won't be upgrading for a long long time, until i7 CPU's drop below £110ish.

I would probably look at a Q6700 as the high multiplier means they should be easy to get to 3GHZ.

If you want something cooler running get a Q9400 instead although it does not have a very high multiplier.