some hardware advice needed

Philippart

Golden Member
Jul 9, 2006
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Hello TeAm,

I have been out of the hardware upgrading game for quite some time, except for a corei7 laptop my fleet consists of Q6600, Q9450 and Rudy Toody's old Phenom X4 9850 which have all reached a rather advanced age :p (about 6 years, which is impressive for 24/7 use!)

Since some of my hardware starts to fail I would like to upgrade, however the last time I looked into motherboards and cpu combos was around 2007/2008. I guess a lot has changed. Luckily it seems that I can reuse my DDR3 RAM from my Q9450 setup if I want to save a few $.

What motherboard socket/chipset combo would you recommend, what cpu currently gives me the best bang for the buck?

I absolutely love the cpu coolers/heatsinks that I am using on socket775, can I still use them or has the design changed? The heat produced by the cpus doesn't seem to have changed.

Edit: Projects: I mostly do boinc projects (especially WCG), f@h only intermittently
 
Last edited:

Ken g6

Programming Moderator, Elite Member
Moderator
Dec 11, 1999
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What motherboard socket/chipset combo would you recommend, what cpu currently gives me the best bang for the buck?
[thread=2192841]Here you go[/thread]. :) Unless you'd be interested in buying used. 2500k's and 3570k's aren't much slower than 4570k's, and 2500k's can often be overclocked better. Also note that Intel is supposed to be coming out with some new chip packaging in a couple of weeks that lets the current chips overclock better. Bang unknown, buck unknown.

But the real bang-for-buck comes from GPUs, for projects that support them. F@H does, and GPUGrid which is somewhat similar supports Nvidia (only!). I don't think WCG's had a GPU project for some time. :(

Yes, you can reuse most CPU coolers, but you need new mounting brackets for them.
 

GLeeM

Elite Member
Apr 2, 2004
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Also note that Intel is supposed to be coming out with some new chip packaging in a couple of weeks that lets the current chips overclock better. Bang unknown, buck unknown.
Called Devil's Canyon ... I am waiting to see how these new i7's overclock :)

But the real bang-for-buck comes from GPUs
For this reason I would recommend an eight thread i7 versus four thread i5.
GPU projects will use some (or most) of one thread.
 

GLeeM

Elite Member
Apr 2, 2004
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Current Z87 chipset with Hazwell CPUs - 4770K (8 thread & OC'able) 4670K (4 thread & OC'able). The non-K not overclockable are a little cheaper. But most Hazwell CPUs can OC to at least 4.4, not my experience though :( Thus I am hoping the changes to Devil's Canyon help OC better so I can give my two month old dud overclocking 4770K to my son.

Brand new Z97 chipset with new Devil's Canyon Hazwell CPUs (in June) & future Broadwell CPUs (next year?). This may be good if you might upgrade CPUs in two years?

The above are 1150 socket.
The below are 2011 socket.

Current X79 with SandyBridge or IvyBridge i5 & i7 CPUs. The high end here can be hex core with 12 threads!

Future X99 chipset with Hazwell CPUs (biodoc mentioned these). The high end rumor says will be octo core with 16 threads WOW!! (but probably cost more than $1,000 USD) The "X" chipsets can usually handle more GPU cards and more memory.

The newer CPUs will use less electricity and help in the bang for buck area. Same for newer GPUs.
 

Philippart

Golden Member
Jul 9, 2006
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Thanks everybody for all this advice.

I did some research based on your suggestions over the past week. I will probably order the new components tomorrow.

My coolers are scythe mugen and xigmatec hdt-1283 coolers. The q9450 ran at 3400mhz for quite some time, even at 3.6ghz for a limited but less stable time ;) I still feel that if I gave some crazy voltages to the motherboard, the cpu could do even more. I might even keep this box running and have some fun with overclocking to see how far it really goes :)
 

Assimilator1

Elite Member
Nov 4, 1999
24,118
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LMK what you get out of it ;), oh & Intels max rec vcore is 1.3625, general overclockers opinion was don't exceed 1.4v! Probably find you won't get much more speed out of it over ~3.6 GHz, although what vcore was that on?