Should I get a new CPU?

[fwtong]

Pretty soon, I'm going to mess around with the innards of my machine and was wondering if it was worthwhile to upgrade the cpu along with video card and cooling. I'm currently running a 2400+, and my mobo can go up to 3200+. During the summer months, I typically use my machine for gaming (basically, in about a week, I'm going to be playing UT2004, Far Cry and Halo like there's no tommorrow!), but during the school year it's much less gaming and more MS Office work. I also do some light video encoding when I'm bored.

Possible CPUs that I was looking at are the 2800+, 3000+ and 3200+. The 2800+ looks like it'll cost me about $30 after selling my old 2400+ with the retail HSF (no need for retail HSF with my new ALX-800), but I'm just not sure if the performance boost is worth it. Either that, or if I'm going to upgrade my CPU, if I should just max out mobo at 3200+.

I don't really overclock, because my memory is limited at Kingston ValueRam PC2700, and I'm not going to get new memory unless there's a good memory deal coming up soon.

 

[4x4expy]

The bump from 2400+ to 2800+ is worth the $30 but not a lot more. You didn't say what vid card you are using. With the games you are playing, you might spend your money better on a new card if your current one is aging. If you have less than a FX5600U or 9500pro you might see huge bumps in frame rates with the upgrade to a DX9 card.

 

[bdjohnson]

I would hold off on a new cpu but if you want something faster go with a 2500+ barton and oc it to 3200+ like i did. You just need to bump the fsb from 333 to 400 and it becomes a 3200 which i can do with no voltage gain.

 

[fwtong]

Originally posted by: bdjohnson
I would hold off on a new cpu but if you want something faster go with a 2500+ barton and oc it to 3200+ like i did. You just need to bump the fsb from 333 to 400 and it becomes a 3200 which i can do with no voltage gain.

I already thought about getting a Barton and upping the fsb, but I'm limited because my memory is only PC2700, so I can't hit a 400 fsb with it. I'm not looking to up my memory unless there's a really good memory deal soon.

My new video card is going to be a 9600pro. I already picked it up from Best Buy. I'm expecting to see a huge leap coming from the Sapphire crippled 8500LE.

I tried overclocking my 2400+ using on the retail HSF, but didn't get very far. Since I'm getting an ALX-800 that'll go with a Sunon 50cfm 40dba 80mm fan, maybe I can try overclocking with better results. I'd really like to up the fsb from 266 to 333 with my memory. I just hope that the ALX-800 will fit onto my Shuttle AN35.

 

[4x4expy]

Yea, with the new vid card, your computer is going to feel new again for a while. That should be enough of bump in performance to satisfiy you for now. If your CPU is multiplier locked(?) then it may be hard to get to 333fsb, but even if you could get it to 300 or above you would get another performance kick without a costly mb/cpu/ram upgrade. Good luck.

 

[fwtong]

Originally posted by: 4x4expy
Yea, with the new vid card, your computer is going to feel new again for a while. That should be enough of bump in performance to satisfiy you for now. If your CPU is multiplier locked(?) then it may be hard to get to 333fsb, but even if you could get it to 300 or above you would get another performance kick without a costly mb/cpu/ram upgrade. Good luck.

I know that some of my multipliers aren't locked because I did the wire unlocking trick for T-Bred Bs, don't know which multipliers are available. I haven't messed with BIOS in 4-5 montsh.

 

[serialb]

the boost from 2400-2800 is noticeable, but definitely not worth the $30 AND the hassle of spending all those time buy/sell/uninstall/cleanup/reinstall/tweak.

If you are sure your 2400 is not locked, drop the multi down to 12 in BIOS and raise the FSB to 166 and see how it works. Then work your way up to your limit. As long as you have good RAM, your shuttle should bring you to near 2800 no problem.