Should I overlock or upgrade?

[SeductivePig]

Currently I have an E4400, 2gb of ddr2 800 ram, P5B motherboard, 450vx, and 4850.

I was wanting to upgrade to a Q6600, 4gb (4x1gb sticks) of ddr2 800 ram, and a p35 motherboard, if I decided not to overclock my current setup. I will not be overclocking if I upgrade.


Which route do you guys think is better?

Overclock what I have now (I'm a complete newb to it), or upgrade and not overclock?

 

[DSF]

Depends completely and utterly on what you want to do.

I see no reason not to test your free performance before you think about dropping hundreds in upgrades though. The E4400 should overclock pretty well with DDR2-800. My E4500 goes to 2.93 undervolted.

 

[CurseTheSky]

If you're doing major video encoding, certain graphics work, or anything that's quad core optimized, you'd notice a difference. If you're gaming, surfing the web, etc. you may notice a slight improvement, but probably not much.

 

[SeductivePig]

I will be primarily watching movies, surfing the internet, and playing games at max settings.

If I decide to overclock my current setup, I have two concerns:

Will my motherboard http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813131178 be good enough to do overclocking to 3+ghz?

and,

If I upgrade my ram to 4gb, should I get 2gb so that I have 4x 1gb sticks, or 4gb so that I have 2x 2gb sticks?

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

2x2 and no, don't get that chipset, go with an intel chipset, p35, p45

 

[SeductivePig]

Originally posted by: BTRY B 529th FA BN
2x2 and no, don't get that chipset, go with an intel chipset, p35, p45

So my current 2gb is a waste?

And I HAVE to upgrade my motherboard to overclock?

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: CrazyDesi
And I HAVE to upgrade my motherboard to overclock?

No, you can overclock your E4400 just fine with that board, just don't try overclocking a quad-core with it.

 

[RussianSensation]

Unless there are specific games in which you feel your setup is slow, I'd keep what you have. Just crank 8AA in the games you play and you should be more or less GPU limited in the majority of them. Also it only makes sense to upgrade to a quad today if you are going to be overclocking or you are doing something heavy intensive. The lack of quad-core optimized programs, increased energy costs just don't make it worthwhile for surfing the internet and games.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Originally posted by: myocardia

Originally posted by: CrazyDesi
And I HAVE to upgrade my motherboard to overclock?

No, you can overclock your E4400 just fine with that board, just don't try overclocking a quad-core with it.

+1

 

[SeductivePig]

Ok well I decided to hold off on overclocking anything yet. I believe I need to upgrade other things first to ensure cooling, stability, etc.

I'm just going to get 2 more gb of ram (does xp recognize 4gb of ram?), a new cooler for my video card, and a new case.

Right now the only game that is a little slow on high is Crysis, and that's only the demo version.

I guess I'll save my $.

 

[CurseTheSky]

If it's Windows XP 32 bit (unless it specifically states x64, it's 32 bit), then no, it will only recognize 3 - 3.25GB of RAM.

4x1GB configurations generally put more stress on your Northbridge. If you're just doing some modest overclocking (+300MHz, maybe a bit more) it shouldn't be a problem. Otherwise, you'll benefit from switching to 2x2GB configuration.

If you're using the stock Intel cooler, consider shelling out $25-35 or so on a much better tower cooler (such as the 92mm Freezer 7 Pro or the 120mm HDT-S1283 depending on what your case will fit).

 

[nanaki333]

Originally posted by: CurseTheSky
If it's Windows XP 32 bit (unless it specifically states x64, it's 32 bit), then no, it will only recognize 3 - 3.25GB of RAM.

4x1GB configurations generally put more stress on your Northbridge. If you're just doing some modest overclocking (+300MHz, maybe a bit more) it shouldn't be a problem. Otherwise, you'll benefit from switching to 2x2GB configuration.

If you're using the stock Intel cooler, consider shelling out $25-35 or so on a much better tower cooler (such as the 92mm Freezer 7 Pro or the 120mm HDT-S1283 depending on what your case will fit).

3.5gb actually. i actually got 2 laptops from dell with 4GB of memory and the dingbats had vista x86 and xp x86 and they both only saw 3.5GB of memory. grrrrrr!