e6300 -> E8xxxx or Q9xxxx upgrade?

I have a c2d e6300@2.9ghz on a MSI P965 Platinum motherboard. I recently bought 4gb ballistix ram and a xfx gtx 260 Black Edition which was a good jump from the ATI X1950Pro before.



You could say there is a slight bottleneck in my system and the graphics card is being held back. My question is which CPU shall I upgrade to? My price range is in the E8500/Q9300 range but wonder if such an upgrade would be beneficial & if dual or quad is the best bet - I will not be encoding or image processing.
I am not taking the i7 route now, as I can't justify the price. :sofa:


Another question is if the P965 can supply the bandwidth from the CPU/RAM to the PCI x16 v1 slot that the GTX 260 is sitting in, though from what I have read it should not be a limiting factor and I will benefit more from the larger L2 Cache, smaller process, new Instructions (SSE blah blah) and ultimately the much higher clock frequencies of a new CPU.



FYI I am getting 12331 in 3dmark06, P13075 in Vantage and 4448 in Furmark.

Well if your just going for gaming & surfing, I would get a dual core. But the quads sure are sweet. Youll get a higher multiplier with the e8500 than you would with the q9300(meaning a higher oc).

If you go the quad route, stop by the WCG section & put those spare cycles to use. :up:

I would go dual-core if you plan on overclocking and try 4.0Ghz, but a quad-core would be great too and more future proof

either will be a huge step up , i went from a e6400 @3.3 to my 4.1ish e8400 and itsa huge jump .
if you just want to tlak 3d06 i went from about 14k to 18500 !

I would buy an E7400 mate, nice 10.5 multi so you don't need 450FSB to get to 4ghz, I run mine at 4ghz at 1.3volts ( 400 x 10 )
The quad OC on this board is really a no go ( high FSB required and power usage )
Also take note that on some 965 mobo ram performance takes a big hit when going over 400FSB... (unless you can set the strap or boot via a lower strap and clockgen ya way up)

Take a look at this:

http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=807&p=0

It basically compares a bunch of CPU's paired up with the GTX 295. Overall the E8*** series @4.0ghz is by far the best value for the performance. Many times it is above the i7 920 due to larger cache size and clock speed on the E8***.

There are very few games using Quad cores and hell some games still today can't use dual core, so if you are a gamer I would definitely recommend the E8*** series.

***
To the user above, 1.4V is an awful lot of voltage to only hit 4.0ghz (48C Full Load), I manage it at 1.23V (0.050V above stock). Using 1.4V almost doubles the temps, 45nm doesn't need that much.

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Originally Posted by LedHed

To the user above, 1.4V is an awful lot of voltage to only hit 4.0ghz (48C Full Load), I manage it at 1.23V (0.050V above stock). Using 1.4V almost doubles the temps, 45nm doesn't need that much.

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Is that referring to me :confused: the E7xx series cannot be comapred voltage wise to the E8xx but for bang for the buck it's a far better cpu... I payed mine 100 euro's while an E8500 retails at 170 euros here.... Oc is ofcourse totally different as my E7400 doesn't go over 485FSB and needs more Vcore and hits higher temps...

compared to the E8500 which needed 1.18Vcore for 4ghz and 1.36 for 4.5Ghz ops max temp on air was 65°C with prime small FFT's... with the same cooler and mobo setup I need 1.31Vcore for 4ghz ops and temps already are around 60°c prime small FFT's... but it's 60 euro's less...and in games performs almost on par...

I just want to state again that it's far easier with the 10 multi to get to eg 4ghz and that it's crucial for max performance that he checks where his mobo changes strap ( and looses performance )

Is that all you can get out of your E6300? If you can get it to 3.2GHz+, you'll be good for gaming.

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Originally Posted by Leeghoofd

Is that referring to me :confused: the E7xx series cannot be comapred voltage wise to the E8xx but for bang for the buck it's a far better cpu... I payed mine 100 euro's while an E8500 retails at 170 euros here.... Oc is ofcourse totally different as my E7400 doesn't go over 485FSB and needs more Vcore and hits higher temps...

compared to the E8500 which needed 1.18Vcore for 4ghz and 1.36 for 4.5Ghz ops max temp on air was 65°C with prime small FFT's... with the same cooler and mobo setup I need 1.31Vcore for 4ghz ops and temps already are around 60°c prime small FFT's... but it's 60 euro's less...and in games performs almost on par...

I just want to state again that it's far easier with the 10 multi to get to eg 4ghz and that it's crucial for max performance that he checks where his mobo changes strap ( and looses performance )

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They are both 45nm Wolfdales, why can't you compare them? You don't have to defend your hardware purchase, no one here is attacking you.

Also the E7400 is $120 while the E8400 is $160, it's an obvious choice if you are going to overclock IMO.

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Originally Posted by LedHed

They are both 45nm Wolfdales, why can't you compare them? You don't have to defend your hardware purchase, no one here is attacking you.

Also the E7400 is $120 while the E8400 is $160, it's an obvious choice if you are going to overclock IMO.

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Price difference is way smaller in your country than it is here... here it's about 50% cheaper

E7 seris IHS is not soldered onto the IHS, so they run hotter. It's standard FSB is 266, it has 3mb cache... Usually it's max FSB is lower then eg the E8 series ( there are +500FSB exceptions ) but mine is very itchy at 500FSB, 480-490 is totally stable, but at 500FSB I have a hard time to stabilise it...

If there wasn't any difference everyone would buy these instead of eg an E8600 as it has a high multi too... when you buy one of the 7 series you know you are prolly limited around 3.8-4.2Ghz... an E8xx series will get you up to 4.5 for daily use and even 5Ghz for benching under air or water...

It's just for the OPs current mobo that it might be easier to get to 4ghz with the high multi then it will be with the E8... I say again that runnign a a low multi quad on this board is a waste of money as he will upgrade the mobo in a week due to OC frustrations

If I try to push over 3ghz with the low memory:fsb ratio I have, it wont boot. The MSI board is crap, but I reckon I have the best OC for this board/CPU/Memory config. The board is so lame that when I power on, it does not boot strap. I have to hit reset after 4 secs or so, then , I presume as the voltages have stabilised it boot straps and is rock solid at 2.9. Weird, I know! I am running all this on a 430watt PSU...error I know but I draw up to about 60% of the output with this current setup (factoring in efficiency too).

Leeghoofd is right, I want the highest mhz from the lowest fsb so I need a high multi. I also want low temps though as my machine is very quiet (apart from when gaming, but I don’t care about that). I did not think about the e7 series…..what would be best choice then?

oh yeah, maybe its important to state that I game in 1680x1050@60hz, so CPU is most likely my bottleneck right now.

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Originally Posted by YukonTrooper

Is that all you can get out of your E6300? If you can get it to 3.2GHz+, you'll be good for gaming.

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Agree, bump that thing up nothing to loose. :)

Maybe a better motherboard if problems exist, just keep those temps in check.

I regret selling my E6600 my 6850 clocks no better, really one of those spur of the moment deals that seemed like a good idea at the time. :shakes:

trhe E7400 will give you at 333FSB already 3500Mhz, probably at stock volts, if your board can do 400FSB, 4ghz is within reach... I would buy a tray model mate and get a decent cooler for it ( do not run it with a boxed cooler )

And plz make sure your board supports the newer 45nm CPU's, eg Asus P5B Dlx had some issues when OC'ing them, latest beta bios fixed that..

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Leeghoofd

trhe E7400 will give you at 333FSB already 3500Mhz, probably at stock volts, if your board can do 400FSB, 4ghz is within reach... I would buy a tray model mate and get a decent cooler for it ( do not run it with a boxed cooler )

And plz make sure your board supports the newer 45nm CPU's, eg Asus P5B Dlx had some issues when OC'ing them, latest beta bios fixed that..

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The board has support for all 45nm chips. I am running the board at 417FSB. There is a strap at just under 400 I belive and I can not get the board stable between 350-400FSB. So Ideally I want a chip that I can hit an excellent clock with an FSB of 400-420....let the ideas/suggestions roll on!

I am using a AC freezer 7 for cooling and have rigged the box for a clean air passage front-back so temps won't be a problem.

Now I feel gutted, bought a e7400, installed it under my freezer 7, reset my BIOS and then booted up...........to be greeted by.......just the BIOS splash screen. DOH! no keyboard/mouse input works :(

MSI's websites states compatibility with Wolfdale:
http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?f...ncat_no=1#menu
But not the 7400, only the 7200 & 7300.

I wonder, could this mean a dud e7400 or a dud buyer (me)? What should I do to troubleshoot or fix this?

/unhappy user back on a e6300@2.95GHz