LGA775 System - Performance Upgrade question

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Vitrolic

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Hi, these are my current specs:

Intel E8500 - stock
Thermaltake Golden Orb
Gigabyte G41M-Combo (impossible to OC with this mobo)
XFX HD4890 1GB
Transcend DDRII-800 RAM (2x2Gb)
Seagate 500GB SATA
Corsair TX-650W

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Before it popped, I had an AMD Phenom 965 Black edition which ran perfectly and I was very happy with it. It raped CoD4 (only game I play) and general windows tasks.

After I replaced it with an E8500/cheapie gigabyte motherboard I haven't been happy with performance, my windows / general tasks are a bit sluggish and my CoD4 FPS is inconsistent. Just for those who don't know, comp cod4 players play on low detail configs in order to get consistent, high FPS settings in order to get the most out of the quake engine. Generally speaking, the better the CPU the more consistent your FPS. With my old AMD setup I got 250 FPS rock solid - chips like a Q9400/QX9650 bla bla will easily do it. Also the new i5's and i7's can do it.

Anyway so my question is, whats the best bang for buck in terms of a performance increase with my current setup. Here are the options I've been considering

1) Replace RAM with something like Corsair Dominators DDR2-1066
2) Buy/trade better motherboard and OC the E8500
3) Just upgrade to i5-2500, 4GB DDR3 1333mhz, entry Asus mobo

So in a nutshell I think my question is am I actually going to get any noticeable improvement in performance from options 1 and 2, or should I just bite the bullet and go for option 3. At the moment I'm leaning towards 3 as I'm not keen to spend money on old tech.
 
1) will make no difference at all
2) yes depending on the OC
3) Definitely but more costly..
 
If you want to replace the memory with the motherboard consider there is new LGA775 motherboards that support DDR3 1333

The Intel ByField board has 4 x dual channel DDR3-1333 (XMP support) memory slots.
It is also a full ATX motherboard if this matters to your build. It also has a firewire out and it's onboard audio has a optical spdif out. This is a sub R700 board.
http://www.intel.com/Products/Desktop/Motherboards/DP43BF/DP43BF-overview.htm


There is also DDR3 capable 775 motherboards that fall in the sub R500 price range.
This boards is micro-ATX with 2 x DDR3 slots. Asus P5G41T-M LX or Asus P5G41C-M LX
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_775/P5G41TM_LX/
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_775/P5G41CM_LX/
 
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Option 2 with a better cooler (minimum Cooler Master Hyper TX2, I personally like the Thermalright MUX-120 - better but more expensive).

You can pick up a decent 775 board for R500, something like P35/P45.

Golden Orb is a kak cooler.
 
ye its horrid, only using it cos I won it a comp :D:D::D

May as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, probably just going to go with the i5 option. I know nothing about overclocking and I'm not really keen to fiddle (as that normally ends with me breaking something) ;-D.

Thanks for the advice guys.

I was thinking:

i5-2500
Asus P8H61-M LE
Corsair CMV4GX3M1A1333C9 VALUESELECT 4GB DDR3-1333 1.5v CL9 Desktop

How does that sound? Comes to ~3k

Also, am I right in saying that for my needs 8GB ram is pretty much overkill and I should just stick with 4 (not using any hectic programs like encoders, photoshop bla bla bla. Just games/browsing/office/media players 99% of the time)

edit: also, win 7 32-bit or 64-bit with this setup?
 
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Poor mobo for OC, P8H67 is the minimum you should look at.

8GB is not overkill.

You need 64-bit for more than 3.5GB RAM.

Honestly though you can easily get away with LGA775 for much less.
 
Haven't really thought about overclocking, never done it properly before.

If I got a P8H67 mobo would it not also make sense to get a 2500k version and a decent CPU cooler? That will probably end up being about R1000 more then though?
 
PostmanPot said:
Poor mobo for OC, P8H67 is the minimum you should look at.

8GB is not overkill.

You need 64-bit for more than 3.5GB RAM.

Honestly though you can easily get away with LGA775 for much less.
Click to expand...

Erm. Don't get the H67 they are terrible for OC, P67 is what you want
 
Most people won't need more than 3GB, but I'd strongly suggest that you get at least 4GB of RAM.

Don't even consider getting a 32-bit OS.

Just go for a better motherboard. You don't have to buy an aftermarket cooler from the start, which would save you at least R300.
 
Firstly, try getting ddr3 1333MHz board(Esquire have one on special R299excl. vat), use ddr3 1333MHz ram. My Q8400 was also slow with ddr2 800MHz board/ram, upgraded & a lot better now :-)
 
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