Upgrading CPU/mobo/ram, Going Intel

[HeXeD OSOK]

Ok, I know everyone is sick of these types of posts, but then again, I know many of you like to live vicariously through other people's purchases. Here is the deal.

I am dealing with a ~500 budget for the ram/mobo/cpu.

I was thinking of getting the following:

CPU:
Q6600
or
E6750

Ram:
2G of (insert decent manufacturer here) DDR2 800
or
4G of G.Skill DDR2 1000

Mobo:
Abit IP35E
or
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L


Current use: I mainly game. Anything from Bioshock, Call of Duty 4, Crysis, Oblivion, etc..etc. When I am not gaming I will be using this as a HTPC running 1080p MKV's to my 42" 1080p LCD. Sometimes I also edit audio in these MKV's, since sometimes they are out of sync or loose sync at a specific part which involves cutting, then re-encoding. That is not TOO often though. I am running Windows Vista 32-bit, but when I go to 4G I will be switching to the 64-bit version. Just holding off as long as I can because of the shoddy drivers out there.

Predicement: After this upgrade I will be severely strapped for cash. I will have about 450$ to upgrade to the Nvidia G92 whenever it gets down to that price or is released. After that, I most probably won't be able to upgrade until mid to late 2009. So I need something that will last a while and give me top notch performance on upcoming games.

Current thoughts:

CPU: I am torn between the E6750 or the Q6600. The 6750 is cheaper by about 60-70 bucks, and I don't reallly multitask THAT much and when I do I'm not doing anything time sensitive. BUT.. because of what I mentioned above, I will not be able to upgrade for a while. So would the extra 60-70 bucks be worth the possibility that within the next 2 years games will come out that are utilizing the multiple cores better than today's games? I almost feel like the 60-70 bucks might be worth it for just the quickness in Winders. Plus my E-Jimmy will feel at LEAST 10 pounds heavier. Anybody want to convince me to stray away from the Q6600? Or even worse... put everything on hold? One of the problems I am having is knowing that there is a possibility that right after Christmas, prices may drop. But if it isn't a significant frop ($30+), then I really don't want to wait till the Penryn quads come out in March (or whenever they are delayed to), because 30$ is worth 3 months of happiness to me. And I have this upgrade money burning a hole in my pocket.

Cooler: I think I'm gonna go ballls to the wall and get the same setup Anand tested. The Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme, with that Scythe 120mm fancy fan. I can get it off Directron for 59.99 for cooler, and 13.99 for fan. Sound good?

Memory: I am almost completely decided on the 4G of G Skill. It can be had for 114 on Newegg, so I think I will be pulling the trigger on that shortly.

Mobo: I am more leaning to the Abit IP35-E in this. I kno both are good and almost the same quality so weigh in on this too. What ya think?

GPU: Ok, I know this is a CPU forum, but I gotta ask. Do you think I will be able to get the "Midrange flagship" G92 for ~$450? In comparison with the 8800's.. not the GTX but something more in the line of a GTS or GT? I bought my 8800GTS 640 for $450 the day it came out, so I would expect the same for this generation.

All this leaves me at about 534$ for this setup.

CPU: 255 at the Egg
Mobo: 89.99 at the egg
RAM: 114 at the egg
Cooler: 59.99 at Directron
Fan: 13.99 at Directron

My current System:
CPU: AMD 4600+ 939 pin
Mobo: MSI Neo-4 Plat. (N-force 4 Ultra chipset)
Ram: 2G (2x1) Patriot PC3500 DDR1
GPU: GeForce 8800GTS 640M
Power Supply: 550W Mushkin
DVDRW
19" Samsung LCD
42" LCD @ 1920x1080
Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatality
320G Seagate 7200.10



Sorry for the novel.. but let me know what you think.

 

[BlueAcolyte]

All of those should do you well. If you want Penryn, go with the E6750, as it can overclock rather well and costs less then the quadcore. Both of those motherboards work well, and are about equal, go with whatever you want. The 4GB GSkill is a good deal.

For the GPU, you can get G92 for anywhere from $200-350, silly. Depends on if you want the 8800GT 256 (200-220) 8800 512 (250-300) or 8800GTS 512 (300-350)

Honestly, you already have a great video card, I see no reason to upgrade as it would bring only slight improvements.

 

[sutahz]

I like my Q6600, its powerful enough at 2.4GHz im sure, but oc'd to 3.2GHz on 1.3V for me.
Don't upgrade your video card, what you got is fine. Wait for 8900 series or 9000 series.
I have that 4GB kit of G.Skill and am satisfied (all ram has to do in a Core2 system is do its job[not have errors]). I have both the DDR2-1000 and DDR2-800 4GB kits by G. Skill, 1000 i got to 1100 and 800 i got to 1050... 525x8 = 4.2Ghz, 7x525=3.68GHz, not a bad oc on your cpu either way.
Go w/ your gut on the mobo, both are great.

 

[hclarkjr]

look at my signature for my recommendation

 

[HeXeD OSOK]

Sorry people.. I mispoke. I am not upgrading to G92. I got my core names messed up. Basically I am going to wait for the new Nvidia card in Feb/Mar. I would assume it would be a 9800 (however that would be lame since ATI already had a 9800). So I think I will go with the gigabyte since the Abit is out of stock.

 

[smaky]

you already have the 8800gts 640

why do you think you need a new one that is only marginaly better?
with my setup crysis, call of duty 4, UT3 and World in Conflict run great. Save your money and get a new graphics card a year or so from now.

Overclocking the e6750 from 2.66 to 3.2 was easy as pie, no voltage increase needed. Memory running at 800mhz . No need for q6600 since it gets eaten up in games by the 6750.

edit: and dont' worry, the water cooling was only because I already had it sitting on my desk. It used to cool my 3.8ghz pentium4.

 

[nyker96]

personally if you game probably the g-card is the main thingy. If you pour your cash into g-card you will probably get lot more. But anyhow, as for RAM, 4gb in 32-bit OS (most gamers use 32-bit) you not gonna see more than 3.1 or 3.2 esp. the g-card took up 640mb of addressing space so 4gb upgrade not gonna make too much diff for your games. I say do the following:
get IP35-E, E2140, 2x1gb DDR800, oc this rig to 3.2+. You then save the cash for your G92, quad penryne that is upcoming next year. I recently did exact same built for: IP35-E (80AR), E2140 (75), DDR800 2gb (45AR) total less than 200 bucks. OCed the chip to 3.2 now it goes faster than the E6xxx stock. planning to go Geforce 9 series//penryne next year. probably do G92 upgrade when it comes since that do more for my games, then a quad upgrade but honestly, probably another year or two before most game go 4 thread.

 

[Denithor]

My recommendations:

DFI BLOOD IRON P35-T2RL $115
(P35/ICH9R, single x16 PCI-E, raid, no firewire)

e2180 (2GHz, 1MB cache) $85
(Easy OC to 3GHz, read this article for why)

mushkin 2x2GB DDR2-800 $88
(After $25MIR)

COOLER MASTER 92mm Hyper TX2 CPU Cooler $2
(After $20MIR, good to 3-3.2GHz)
-or-
Tuniq Tower 120 $45
(Fan included, excellent performance in Anandtech testing)

Total: $290 (cheap cooler) or $335 (Tuniq)

Comments:
This system should easily OC to 3GHz (or higher) which will be enough cpu power to drive any GPU on the market today. In about 6-8 months, sell the e2180 and upgrade to a Penryn dual/quad core.

 

[badnewcastle]

E6750 for your CPU and I would go with some solid DDR2 400 (800mhz) the extra money towards the Q6600 and 1000mhz ram won't net you enough to warrant it besides the Q6600 getting beat by the E6750 in games.

 

[Tempered81]

e6750 - gigabyte motherboard - 2gb and not 4gb of memory - overclocking reasons.
8800gt. You should get all of this for about 500.

I just dont understand why people would go with the q6600 & 4gb of memory the abit/gigabyte tossup is more of preference here. but if you would like similar performance benchmarks, and throw in that video card also. heheh, i'd go with the Duo and the 2gb.

Your e-johnson will not be as big.

but your e-wallet will be bigger

 

[HeXeD OSOK]

Thank you to the people who actually posted recommendations to the items I actually had listed (or the items closest enough to them). Like I said, I'm doing this all right now, and will not have the money later on. I wouldn't even thing about an upgrade from a X2 4600+ to a Intel 2140 or 2180. That would be a worthless upgrade to me. I have enough to buy what I listed, as well as the GeForce 9 series when they come out.

I just pulled the trigger though, this is what I bought:

Q6600 G0 stepping
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L
4Gig Patriot LLK


I picked it all up from Fry's since their in store deals were better than most online stores for some reason (that's a first).

Reasons I went with Q6600 are simple. An extra 60-70 bucks is worth it to me to not only have the multitasking capabilities of the Q6600, but I'm pretty sure within a year we will start seeing games that will utilize more than 2 cores more effectively than the ones out right now. The whole "don't get a quad core because the dual core is better" Is similar to the "don't get a dual core, get a single core since the single core is better for gaming" arguments we saw about 2 years ago. Back then, if you had a AMD 3800+ Orleans, vs a 3800+ X2, you would see the Orleans doing slightly better for less price. Now, you see the 3800+ X2 doing much better than a single core 3800+. Plus the WHOLE TIME your windows experience was WAY better with a dual core than a single core. That is what I am banking on, and only time will tell. But if I can't upgrade for the next 2 years or so, I'm betting on the quad core to add a little more life to my setup. If I got a 6750, could I sell that and upgrade to a Penryn Quad later next year? Maybe I could, but I'm not really excited about ebaying my stuff in order to upgrade. Plus, an extra 60-70$ is worth it to me to have Quad core right now. If I could afford a Quad core Pennryn in 4 months or so, I break that down to having a Quad core 4-5 months in advance, basically paying about 13$ a month.. hhehehe. Like I said, I definitely game, but I do a whole lot of other things on my comp that I could benefit from Quad with. And like I said, this upgrade is not so much for right now, but for the "later on" when I know I will be happy I went with Quad core. I hear besides overclocking, and voltage, the Penryn quads will really not out perform the current Q6600 by too much. They just may be able to push closer to 4GHz I assume.

Also, someone hadd mentioned it, but for gaming, the CPU upgrade is not THAT important as getting that GeForce 9 series. I will have the money for that too that I am putting in a nice little folder in my closet to be broken out the DAY I can get my hands on one. In the meantime I really want some goood processing power in my pc.

And for the ram explanation, As I had said, I am going to upgrade to Vista x64. Once I put this new system together I am not going to use 32-bit Vista anymore. My company has several volume licenses for Ultimate that they have no problem letting me use. the ram was 99$, and since I have a Q6600 with a 1066 FSB, I don't have to worry about getting DDR1000 in order to overclock. This should be just fine.

 

[Tempered81]

wow, that dual /single is a good argument. maybe it will turn out the same for the dual /quad. (i dont think it is so at this point). 99 bucks for the ram isnt bad and a volume liscence for vista is good too. I wouldnt go with the 4gb in xp, vista may want it, but i wouldnt want vista in the first place. I hope the quad/dual argument turns out the same as the dual/single did with the orleans. If you have the cash, go for it. about 10 months ago i paid $108 for my core2duo, $65 for my motherboard, and $76 for 2gb of ddr200. last week i bought the 8800gt for 209.43 at bestbuy. running at 3.27ghz, 940mhz ddr2, and a 740/1770/1900 8800gt.

60fps in crysis, and 100fps in cod4 maxed out with 4xaa

 

[HeXeD OSOK]

yeah.. I hope that works out.. but I know right now today, it is not the case. Only a few games are out with true optimization for more than 2 cores. But at LEAST there are a few games out.. whicch means more to come. the most important part though will be the GPU, which is why I will be getting the Geforce 9 series when they come out. I think at that point you will actually see more of a bottleneck at the processor. That is when it will benefit me to have this Core 2 overclocked and not my 4600+ X2.

All I can say so far is I don't even have this thing overclocked and I can see a significant difference in my Vista experience. My Vista runs faster now than XP did on my 4600+ and 2G. It's like instantaneous. so far the games I have played seem to maintain a better FPS.. much smoother. Haven't even cranked up Crysis though, but I know that is more GPU bound than anything.