PC Upgrading Discussion

[Simon Trendell]

Intel at the moment

 

[Eric. K]

I have another question:
What is better: Intel or AMD?
And would it be better to have a dual core with high clock speeds than a quad core with lower clock speed?

I am a little bias, but since Intel released the Core 2 processor AMD is only trying to catch up. It is still pretty far behind!! Price wise they are very close.

BTW, clock speed is not the only thing to look at when choosing a processors. You are better off just to look at some benchmarks results instead (a 3.6Ghz Dual Pentium 4 is about 50% slower than a 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo).

 

[Eric. K]

Intel at the moment

That moment will last at LEAST another couple of years. AMD is barely catching up to the Core 2 architecture while Intel is already releasing its 32nm Nehalem

 

[Dave Stephenson]

amd are far to busy pouring resources into system on chip. i cant see them catching up in this round of the ceaseless battle, id go for a core 2 defo.

 

[Damian Henderson]

Core 2 Duo E8400 is the best gaming CPU on a good budget right now.

But if you get a quad even with lower clock speed it will be more future proof when more and more games start to use all of those 4 cores, so it would possibly save you needing a upgrade in a year or 2.

 

[Lee Downham]

Suggestions for a new sli mobo pls?

Got me an Asus Striker Extreme right now and it seems like the onboard NIC has blown on the motherboard.

Gonna RMA it if so, but tbh, I cannot wait until it is returned to get my machine back up and running again ...

Plan might be to get a new mobo and sell the RMA'd one when it comes back.

Question therefore I pose is ... what mobo do you boys reckon is gonna do me proudest?
Got a few ideas but would like to hear your suggestions, experiences and what you are running.

I have a few requirements:
1. Must be Nvidia SLi capable
2. Would like something better at overclocking a Q6600 (G0 stepping) than the 680i chipset in my current Asus (maybe 780i chipset?) ... would like to aim at 3.2Ghz or so, think much higher is gonna run too hot (got a Tuniq Tower CPU cooler which should cope good with that).
3. DDR II RAM at 1066mhz
4. Of similar "grade" to my current mobo but maybe a generation on so that I can maybe upgrade CPU etc in next 12 to 18 months.

Alternatively, maybe a cheap mobo that I can run 'till the rma'd one comes back - 1 & 3 above are a necessity fr this one, but reasonalbe overlock (~2.8Ghz) would also be nice.

Cheers for whatever you can give me on this all yea lovely techy fiends :good:

 

[Dave Stephenson]

when i was looking lee to use same proc i ended up setting on a xfx 780 lt.

reasons being im happy with the 610/680s ive had. wanted sli. good bang for buck against some of its competitors offerings in the price range. and most importantly of all 1600mhz fsb support for obvious reasons.

that was a few months ago now tho. 790 ultras get some raving about from my bro but outside of that my product knowledge is somewhat limitted cos i dont look till i need or it makes me spend

 

[Damian Henderson]

one of the 790i chipsets mobo's will do you good, heh they might send you back a Asus Striker Extreme II

 

[Dave Stephenson]

http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews.php?/cpu_mainboard/xfx_780i_sli_motherboard/9

theres a 780 review there but if you want all out top end its not the best you can get. obviously budget is a biggy here,

 

[Dave Stephenson]

and you can always oc it a bit.

 

[Christopher Aponte]

Damian said it....the E8400 is one of the best right now.....but the Q6600 is still good with it's price range that it is right now
if you give us what your budget is....maybe we can set something up for you Patrick :wink:

 

[Peter Duivelaar]

Thanks everyone for the advice

 

[Oliver Amos]

I would start moving toward quad core. I believe more games will use it in the future. For example GTA IV for the pc performs better on quad over dual.

 

[Dave Stephenson]

agreed. my q6600 offered far higher stabilty and overall performance (not just gaming) the my bros dual core 2. although if you've got the pennies hes got one of the q9550's now and its a rocket.

 

[Damian Henderson]

Q9450, I would personally go for the newer gen quads if you get one, use less power, faster, Q6600 is great for the price though.

 

[Dave Stephenson]

thats what it came down to at the time. things are a little different now obviously with the 45nm's about.

 

[Matt Alpeter]

one of the 790i chipsets mobo's will do you good, heh they might send you back a Asus Striker Extreme II

790 runs on different RAM i believe.

 

[Lee Downham]

Got it sorted ... do not ask what it was cos I have no clue at all.

Wierd thing was, I tried all sorts of things, including a clean install and networking wasn't coming back at all, even tried different routers etc ... but all to no avail.

Then suddenly, after repeating the fixed IP address and pinging stuff thing I had done tonnes of times before ... it was sorted!!?!? :confused2:

So money saved thankfully ... but cheers for yer help chaps :thumb:

 

[Dave Stephenson]

score, mate. can't grumble at that. ive done it loads of times. got a pile of mobos that stop working you try everything and then give up. just to come back to them months later and discover theyre worthy of building on again

 

[Abdul Al-Amry]

Ohhh I am buying more stuff today. Have loads of links already opened. Question for PSU, the Corsair 650w is SLI compartible, whats gonna happen if I take the CrossFire route in the future? Will the PSU be compartible with CrossFire?

As for the Mobo, Processor and Graphics Card, I'll wait until I have all the other bits and bobs. Maybe prices will plummet for these 3 items.

Here is anudda PSU.
Its 620w only though: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/134695 Thoughts?
OCZ ProXStream 1000W PSU http://www.ebuyer.com/product/124740 Thoughts?

Regards

Abdul