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Should I upgrade my CPU

Hellotalkie

Golden Member
Currently at:

Q9300
Asus mATX board
8gb ddr 3 ram
560 ti
2x samsung f3's
650watt corsair psu


Seeing if I should upgrade to a i5 2500k w/ board 254.99 bundle

Looking to play BF3 at max settings @ 1280x1080
 
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Hmmm also looking at deus ex, dead island, crysis 2

Just wondering if my cpu is going to bottleneck this new 560ti coming in.
 
The CPU will probably hold back performance in those games only using 2 cores(Starcraft 2 for example)...I'd guess it won't drag performance down by a significant degree in those games with good multicore support though
 
Can you overclock the Q9300? On one of my desktops, I can run it at 400FSB all day without touching the vcore. SpeedStep enabled.

On the other desktop, identical CPU and mobo, I had to bump up the vcore a notch or two.

But both systems run at 400FSB on a P35 mobo all day long, without overclocking anything else, or touching any other voltages.

Try that with your system, you might have some success. (As long as you have DDR2-800 RAM or better.)

I see you have DDR3, it depends on the mobo whether it runs it at 2.0 DRAM multi (1:1), or 4.0 (2:1). If your mobo runs it at 4.0, you would need DDR3-1600. If your mobo is capable of running DDR3 at a 2.0 ratio, then you only need DDR3-800, which is trivial.
 
sorry meant 1920x1080.

Anways I put the q9300 w/ board on ebay
I also put my spare q8300 with generic board and 6gbs of ram on ebay.
Hopefully this will get me very near a 2500k combo
 
I dunno... I guess you don't need more than one PC, but those parts could easily be put towards an HTPC build or something like that. Or a nice little box for a girlfriend or something.

Like I said personally I wouldn't do it. I went from a q9400 to a i7-875k and didn't really notice a difference. I'm now using a 2600k and still don't notice a difference (only reason I'm using a 2600k is the 875k died on me). At the very least step up to the full monty and grab the 2600k instead of the 2500k if you are coming from a quad.
 
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