Need advice on a CPU . .

[digitizer123]

Been away from all this for a while and need your advice on best value for OC'ing

Moving up from a C2D e4300 oc'd to 3.5 on Gigabyte P965 -DS3 mobo

Building a new system . . . don't need the best - just the best value - I do music - any extra power would be useful for the hungry audio plugins.

wanna keep it under 300 for mobo+CPU+cooler+4GB ram

Core i7 looks nice but not willing to pay for pricey mobo and ram . .

E8400 looked good, but not sure between that or C2Quad or Phenom II . . .


Please suggest a cpu+mobo+cooler around 250 that is great for oc

Thanks

 

[heyheybooboo]

Probably this or this.

I imagine either would hit 3.2-3.3GHz or so on stock volts. Can you reuse your HSF?

If you want to cool yer FETs look at this.

 

[Denithor]

You're not going to see much difference between e4300 @ 3.5 and any of the C2D chips.

If you want a real step up your choices are: C2Q on same/different mobo, PhII + mobo or i7 + mobo + DDR3.

Depending on which revision board you've got, you might be able to just drop in a Q9400 and see a major improvement.

If not, go for either a PhII 920/940 + mobo combo or a Q8300/Q9400/Q9550 on a new board. But keep in mind, I've seen deals in the Hot Deals forum that put an i7/mobo/6GB DDR3 in the $550 range so if your total hits $450 or higher you're going to be better off spending an extra $100 for an i7.

 

[Markfw]

I would get the Q9550 for the extra cache. Your motherboard is fine (bios update first!) If your memory is short, then get 2 gig more.