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Tightwad's Conroe experience coming your way

Conky

Lifer
May 9, 2001
10,709
0
0
Couldn't see throwing out this recent gig of Corsair XMS DDR RAM yet nor my excellent AGP ATI X850XT. Plus I was wanting to go cheap.... real cheap! :laugh:

I should be cashflowing better in a few months so then I can throw down on whatever is best motherboard-wise but honestly, the idea of spending $270 for a mobo is out of my way of thinking. I've never spent more than $100 for a mobo and ain't about to start.

My biggest processing issue is encoding. And this upgrade should help that. Shouldn't hurt my gaming although my gaming is not an issue with my LCD limited at 1280x1024.

I will update when the parts show up and I get it all together. :D

$300 for a Conroe upgrade over my old Northwood HT seems like a bargain right now. :beer:
 

Conky

Lifer
May 9, 2001
10,709
0
0
Originally posted by: Mr Vain
A wise decision dude!:thumbsup:
Thank you. :beer:

I think this is a good cheap compromise between a full system rebuild and gives me the chance to buy the other parts, DDR2 and PCI-E videocard when I deem them replacable.

My gaming sure won't be hurt by this and all this encoding should hopefully take a lot less time even if I don't overclock.
 

Some1ne

Senior member
Apr 21, 2005
862
0
0
the idea of spending $270 for a mobo is out of my way of thinking.

Actually, given that the mainboard you use determines a number of factors such as stability, overclockability, future upgradability, and so on, and given that the spread between a "value" board and a top of the line model is *at most* about $200, the mainboard is probably actually one of the most sensible components to go high-end on (that, and a graphics card if you're into gaming). A slower HDD or a cheap optical drive won't really be noticed when performing everyday tasks, nor will RAM with poor latency, and even a "budget" CPU can typically be overclocked to levels that rival the top of the line model, but everything kind of becomes moot if all of a sudden you want to try a RAID array, but find that your mainboard won't support it, or if your budget CPU can't be overclocked successfully because the board's BIOS doesn't expose the options you need, or allow a wide enough range of settings, etc.. Generally speaking, I think that the price gradient between a low-end and a high-end board is actually pretty small when you consider the features that are typically gained (though of course they are kind of irrevelant if you *know* you'll never use them, like that E-SATA port that my board has...what would I ever want that for?), since the mainboard really is the glue that holds the entire system together.

That's just my opinion though, and really any Core 2 build whatsoever should be pretty awesome for encoding or gaming, even if you only are able to get a mild overclock on your E6400. Even if you only manage to hit 2.4 GHz, you're already looking at something that will perform nearly on-par with an FX-62, and anything beyond that is just gravy.
 

Conky

Lifer
May 9, 2001
10,709
0
0
Originally posted by: Some1ne
the idea of spending $270 for a mobo is out of my way of thinking.

Actually, given that the mainboard you use determines a number of factors such as stability, overclockability, future upgradability, and so on, and given that the spread between a "value" board and a top of the line model is *at most* about $200, the mainboard is probably actually one of the most sensible components to go high-end on (that, and a graphics card if you're into gaming). A slower HDD or a cheap optical drive won't really be noticed when performing everyday tasks, nor will RAM with poor latency, and even a "budget" CPU can typically be overclocked to levels that rival the top of the line model, but everything kind of becomes moot if all of a sudden you want to try a RAID array, but find that your mainboard won't support it, or if your budget CPU can't be overclocked successfully because the board's BIOS doesn't expose the options you need, or allow a wide enough range of settings, etc.. Generally speaking, I think that the price gradient between a low-end and a high-end board is actually pretty small when you consider the features that are typically gained (though of course they are kind of irrevelant if you *know* you'll never use them, like that E-SATA port that my board has...what would I ever want that for?), since the mainboard really is the glue that holds the entire system together.

That's just my opinion though, and really any Core 2 build whatsoever should be pretty awesome for encoding or gaming, even if you only are able to get a mild overclock on your E6400. Even if you only manage to hit 2.4 GHz, you're already looking at something that will perform nearly on-par with an FX-62, and anything beyond that is just gravy.

My P4P800 ASUS Motherboard for my current system has provided me with all the options and upgrades I could ever imagine from this motherboard and it was priced well under $100.

Price is not the only determining factor of somethings worth. ;)
 

Pabster

Lifer
Apr 15, 2001
16,986
1
0
Originally posted by: Some1ne
That's just my opinion though, and really any Core 2 build whatsoever should be pretty awesome for encoding or gaming, even if you only are able to get a mild overclock on your E6400. Even if you only manage to hit 2.4 GHz, you're already looking at something that will perform nearly on-par with an FX-62, and anything beyond that is just gravy.

At 2.4GHz it wipes the floor with the FX-62. A stock E6400 is better than FX-62. Any extra you get out of it is just icing on the cake.