Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 ?

[taz321]

I am thinking about upgrading my computer, I'm a AMD guy but am going to jump over to Intel and try out the Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 cpu.

I mostly use my PC for music editing an some video. Don't play many games but would like to have enough power to do so.

What do you guys recommend as far as motherboard, RAM, Video card, CPU heatsink?

I would like to OC this cpu to 4GHz or close to it, So I want a reliable motherboard an RAM.

For PSU I have a Enermax model# EG651P-VE should this be enough?

Thank guys

 

[DSF]

What's your budget? What kind of games do you play? How big is your monitor? Would you like fries with that?

There's a sticky in the General Hardware forum with stock questions that new builders should answer. Might want to head over there and start a thread answering those questions, or answer them here.

 

[taz321]

Originally posted by: DSF
What's your budget? What kind of games do you play? How big is your monitor? Would you like fries with that?

There's a sticky in the General Hardware forum with stock questions that new builders should answer. Might want to head over there and start a thread answering those questions, or answer them here.

Budget does not really matter, just want it to be reliable.

As I stated above I really don't play many games, but would like this PC to be able to handle it if I start.
I would like to stay with win xp as I hate vista if it matters.

My monitor is a 19" samsung 940BW wide screen.

I should mention my current hard drives are ATA so I would like a motherboard with atleast 2 PATA channels. Thanks

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Your PSU is fine, with 550w and 36a on a single 12v it will easily handle everything you need.

As far as I know, none of the modern mobo's have 2 pata channels and older pata drives will be a bottleneck with new hardware, I highly suggest getting a modern SATA drive for your boot drive. You can have two devices on the single pata channel of newer mobos, that would allow you to use 2 pata HDD's if you use a sata DVD-RW

 

[taz321]

Thanks GuitarDaddy.

Which motherboard an RAM would you guys recommend for OC.

For the CPU heatsink I was thinking about the Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme.

 

[roguerower]

Again, depending on your budget I would pick one of the P5Q series. New P45 chipset and prices ranging for 145-210 dollars. For RAM, G.skill is selling 4gb of DDR2 1066 for 89 bucks on newegg.

 

[RallyMaster]

Originally posted by: taz321
Thanks GuitarDaddy.

Which motherboard an RAM would you guys recommend for OC.

For the CPU heatsink I was thinking about the Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme.

You'll have fun lapping that puppy for an hour from what I've been reading. Don't get it because the base is not flat.

 

[Atheus]

I would recommend a Gigabyte motherboard and 2 or 4 GB of performance DDR2. Just go for whatever brand is on special. If you want more specific suggestions than that (and if you're a hardcore hardware nut) try www.xtremesystems.org - their boards are full of people who can tell you exactly what chips are in what memory at what store at this time. And they'll laugh at your 4GHz

just want it to be reliable.

I really don't play many games

Why are you overclocking it to 4GHz then lol? I understand the urge to overclock everything but if you're not gaming or rendering or something there really is no point. My gaming machine at home is an overclocked Q6600 with an overpowered vid card because it doesn't *need* to be reliable. My work machine is an undervolted fanless E7200 and it's well fast enough - fast enough to make Vista snap to attention and do everything I could possibly want for my job.

 

[imported_Champ]

if your serous about hitting 4.0 do some research on batches...a lot of people will say its the luck of the draw for what can hit 4.0 at good voltage but you really want to find a good batch for even better odds...the best batches you can ask for is probably Q815A any chip starting with that would be a good bet other good batches are Q805A, Q807A, Q808A...Try to stay with one of these...if I knew about batch performance when I bought mine I would be a lot happier (not very good batch and stuck at 3.9 with 1.35vcore) these chips have the potential for 4.0 at 1.2v-1.3v. Make sure you attempt to get one of these batches and don't make them let you settle even if you have to get them to bring out every E8400 they have!!! for this I would recommend not buying from a e-tailer just because you getting whatever they send to you, in store is your best option to be able to choose a good batch

For the GPU you can't go wrong with 4850 or 4870 just for sheer cost performance, although the GTX260s have dropped significantly in price, anyone of these three will be amazing, but if you want to go for a budget a 4850 still performs awesomely

For RAM this is what I have, http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820145197 Dominator 2x2GB DDR2 1066...it is very solid although it is still a bit pricey for DDR2 but for the sheer power you cannot go wrong (5-5-5-13 PL6 1092mhz and very tweaked subtimings) although with something better than a P5K that should be able to get a lot better...I have seen these go 5-5-3-13 1080mhz on under 2.1v they use powerchips so voltage is not really something that makes a huge difference in them

For a Motherboard going with a P45 would be a good bet although i'm not sure if there are any with dual PATA channels although there might be some P35s with it

Basically you cannot go wrong with a true over your chip they are a bit difficult due to lapping...but even without lapping they perform above most HSF, OCZ Vendetta 2 is also another option if you want something that will cool to the level of the true

 

[imported_Woody]

I've installed two Ultra 120 heatsinks from Thermalright and they were both good right out of the box. I highly recommend them but they cost a little more. Invest in one of the fluid bearing fans for a very quite system.

You say gaming is not a priority but you do a lot of video and audio file crunching....have you considered a quad core? It might be better for your needs.

You can always get a PATA add in card but seriously you should just consider replacing most of your Legacy drives since it will hurt your performance. You can get some very fast, high capacity, SATA2 drives cheap these days. Leave the PATA for legacy optical drives since they will perform the same.

 

[taz321]

Thanks for the input guys.

Woody, you really think I would benefit more from a quad core?


How would the Q6600 compare to the E8400.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

It would be hard to reach 4.0Ghz with the Q6600... if you are serious about 4Ghz, get an 8400

 

[Triton67]

E8400 is 9x multi cpu, for 4GHz alone, your ram should be able to run well on 9x445(DDR890). U say you're muscian and play some, but also the word 4GHz... I wanna be millionaire + pay little taxes..


4GHz means problems for u musician, heat, replacing and buying heatsinks, reseating mobo etc

best advice i can give for best performance:

run 9x400 with 1.3v selected for cpu in bios.i suspect your ram is 400MHz(DDR2-800), 2.0v or similar.

you dont need 4GHz if your gpu is 8400 or similiar, if it is, forget it. 4GHz is for 9800GX2, 8800GT@SLI and higher

 

[taz321]

I just want a CPU that I can do alot of multitasking, music an video editing.

OC'ing is not a huge priority to me, I just seen alot of good feed back on it with the E8400 which is why I am considring it.

I don't plan to upgrade again for awhile, so would a quad core like the Q6600 be more beneficial for my needs?

 

[Triton67]

u need a quad core then. Q6x00 is the older 65nm series, Q9x00 is the newer 45nm series, newer is cooler, less power consuming, more powerful(more L2 cache means a lot!), more oc'ble

if you got 50 bucks extra, get a new Q9xxx series..12MB cache seems veeerry niceeee !

also make sure the mobou choose has bios for 45nm cpus

 

[taz321]

Originally posted by: Triton67
u need a quad core then. Q6x00 is the older 65nm series, Q9x00 is the newer 45nm series, newer is cooler, less power consuming, more powerful(more L2 cache means a lot!), more oc'ble

if you got 50 bucks extra, get a new Q9xxx series..12MB cache seems veeerry niceeee !

also make sure the mobou choose has bios for 45nm cpus

Funny you say that, I was just checking out the Q9450 Yorkfield. I think I've made up my mind.

Which motherboard would support this.

Thanks guys, you have all been extremely helpful.

 

[Triton67]

Gigabyte EP45 DS4 - check it out...fancy heat pipe cooling, 65nm NB (P35 was 90nm)..all bring down heat etc

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Atheus
Why are you overclocking it to 4GHz then lol? I understand the urge to overclock everything but if you're not gaming or rendering or something there really is no point. My gaming machine at home is an overclocked Q6600 with an overpowered vid card because it doesn't *need* to be reliable. My work machine is an undervolted fanless E7200 and it's well fast enough - fast enough to make Vista snap to attention and do everything I could possibly want for my job.

Just like I wouldn't overclock a serious work machine (well, ok, I might still, but in principle I wouldn't) - I probably wouldn't take the risk of undervolting the CPU either.

At least test it as low as you can go, and then notch it up once or twice for safety and stability purposes.

 

[Martimus]

I set up a spreadsheet to help budget for these new builds here. Hopefully it will help you with your decisions.

 

[Atheus]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry

Originally posted by: Atheus
Why are you overclocking it to 4GHz then lol? I understand the urge to overclock everything but if you're not gaming or rendering or something there really is no point. My gaming machine at home is an overclocked Q6600 with an overpowered vid card because it doesn't *need* to be reliable. My work machine is an undervolted fanless E7200 and it's well fast enough - fast enough to make Vista snap to attention and do everything I could possibly want for my job.

Just like I wouldn't overclock a serious work machine (well, ok, I might still, but in principle I wouldn't) - I probably wouldn't take the risk of undervolting the CPU either.

At least test it as low as you can go, and then notch it up once or twice for safety and stability purposes.

It ran prime all night so I think It's stable. 1.1v isn't too low for a 45nm... I know it won't do 3Ghz at this voltage though...

Maybe i'll bump it up a notch. Can't be too much though due to the fanless setup.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: Martimus
I set up a spreadsheet to help budget for these new builds here. Hopefully it will help you with your decisions.

rawr need to make it excel format so we can just put 1 or 2 and it totals up for us!

LAZY!!!

 

[shortylickens]

I have been thinking about buying an E8400 for a while now. My socket 939 system just isnt good enough anymore.
I was gonna buy one from Newegg for about $189, then get an 84-dollar Asrock motherboard, and 2 GB of Patriot RAM for about 70 bucks. My power supply, drives, and video card could all stay unchanged.

The E8500 has superior performance but its a lot more expensive, and in the world of modern computing I see no reason why you should have to spend an assload of money to get a fast system.

 

[imported_Woody]

Originally posted by: shortylickensThe E8500 has superior performance but its a lot more expensive, and in the world of modern computing I see no reason why you should have to spend an assload of money to get a fast system.

It's true that the 8500 is faster than the 8400 but only slightly. It's 3.16GHz as opposed to 3.0GHz. That's a whopping 5% more performance for applications that will fully utilize the speed and you will pay 42% more money for it. I think it's just foolish to buy the 8500 personally.

 

[Smidget85]

^^ Plus you can overclock it VERY easily to 3.6GHz and a lot of the time without having to increase the VCore on the stock cooler.