X2 to C2D upgrade

[mancunian]

A month or two back, I asked on here whether it would be worth upgrading to a C2D from my X2 @ 2.6Ghz. I decided back then that I would just hold off for a new graphics card. As it turned out, my boss gave me a much nicer bonus than expected (it was the first time I had been given any kind of bonus in over 20 years of working, so really didn't expect it). I decided I could do a complete system upgrade. Not got a card yet, waiting for the new Radeons. But for those curious about whether an upgrade would be worth it, my own personal opinion is that it is. My system was:

Asrock Dual Sata 2 board
X2 4200 Toledo @ 2.6Ghz
2GB DDR400 RAM
Radeon 3870
Thermaltake 560W PSU 22a 12v rail

It has now become:

Gigabyte GA P35 DS3L board Rev 2.0
Intel E7200 @ 3.4 Ghz
4GB DDR2 800Mhz RAM
Radeon 3870
Corsair VX550 550W PSU 41a 12v rail


I'm very pleased with this upgrade. It cost me in total about 300 quid, I also bought 2 x 500GB SATA hard drives, 2 x 16x SATA DVD writers and a few other bits. I've sold my old stuff for about 150 quid in total. So for 150 quid, this was a superb upgrade, bearing in mind we get majorly ripped off in the UK with PC parts. Games utterly fly now compared to the old system.

I suppose the point of this is the following. If you run a lower end Athlon X2 and you can resell your old stuff, doing an upgrade like this one is certainly worth doing. And that's without a graphics card if you have a half decent one already.

Because this question gets asked quite a bit. Just thought my real world experience might be of use. I'm not into benchmarking frames per second and such, prefer to just run 3dmark once to make sure everything is running as it should, and then run my games.

Well, this system scored 11,400 marks on 3dmark06 so I figured it was probably running as it should. Running my games proved that, can turn up so many settings. This thing runs very cool at 3.4Ghz, Realtemp shows almost identical temps to the BIOS so it must be fairly accurate, the chip idles at about 31-32c and loads at about 50c. Outstanding IMO. And there's more left in it, only had to up the CPU voltage to just under 1.2v. But I'm happy with the speed for now.


Can't wait for the new Radeons.

 

[error8]

I did the same thing as you, upgrading from a 4000+ X2 at 2,9 ghz to a E7200 at 3,8 ghz. And that's a big difference, games, windows, everything works and loads faster. No more stuttering in some games and scoring 13700 points in 3dmark 2006 with a 8800GT overclocked as well. The only thing that bothers me, is that I haven't switched to Intel earlier.

 

[kpo6969]

Same here
Went from a Dell X2 5000 @ 2.6 to an E8400 @ 3.6
transferred my 8800GT, X-Fi card, and one of the optical drives to it and now I have my sig rig and leaves me with the Dell with my old 8600GT, an older sound card, and 4GB of 5300 ram. $820 total involved. Should of done it a long time ago.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Running my 8400 at stock is faster in games. I had an FX60 at 3Ghz running a fsb of 250x12 HT 750 and the thing was fast. You can tell the difference between these machines. I'd say running desktop apps the FX was faster, but gaming, the 8400 wins. Once Nehalem comes out, it will be hard not to upgrade again.

I still do have a 3+Ghz capable Opteron 175 with some DDR 533 memory that i'd like to do some overclocking tests, i just need a solid mobo to do it with. I think my A8R32 MVP D was holding me back. Stepping: LCB9E 0704XPMW (Very Good 3 ghz + chip) - quoted from Extreme Overclocking.

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: BTRY B 529th FA BN
I'd say running desktop apps the FX was faster, but gaming, the 8400 wins.

Really?? I find my E7200 at stock faster in Vista then my 4000+ X2 at 2,9 ghz. Programs seem to open faster, alt+tab works better, switching windows, boot time and quite about everything works faster on the Intel cpu and believe me, I'm not imagining things.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Originally posted by: error8

Originally posted by: BTRY B 529th FA BN
I'd say running desktop apps the FX was faster, but gaming, the 8400 wins.

Really?? I find my E7200 at stock faster in Vista then my 4000+ X2 at 2,9 ghz. Programs seem to open faster, alt+tab works better, switching windows, boot time and quite about everything works faster on the Intel cpu and believe me, I'm not imagining things.

It could be cause of the L2 cache difference. The 4000+ had 2x512, the FX60 & Opterons have 2x1mb L2 cache but yeah, it felt faster. Same drive too.

 

[vexingv]

I've been on the fence with a similar upgrade too (currently S939 X2 4200+). As someone who doesn't upgrade CPU's all too frequently, the better questions is whether waiting for Nehalem would be a better option.
I skipped the whole DDR2 generation (went from AthlonXP, S939 A64, and X2) and Nehalem will be DDR3--I'm not sure I would want to limit myself by hanging onto DDR2, which is what happened when I avoided DDR2 b/c of its cost and got myself one of those newegg A64/939 motherboard combos in fall 2006.

 

[bryanW1995]

x2 systems are very sensitive to memory timings. an x2 using 1t timings that wasn't under any stress at all could very well feel faste r in simple tasks like web browsing or ms office.