PCTech Forums

My pc keeps crashing and it is doing my head in, however I just haven’t got round to doing what you suggested, I’ve been a busy man! I will look properly into it soon. This question is unrelated.

I want a new cpu and Christmas seems a good time to buy one.
I have seen two that seem in my price range.

Firstly there’s the
Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 "LGA775 Conroe" 3.00GHz (1333FSB) - Retail
which is priced at £169. To me a 3.00GHz core 2 due processor seems pretty damn good. I would buy a new motherboard as well, as this ones fsb only goes up to 1066.

The other one that has caught my eye is the
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - OEM which is priced at £159.

I would still probably buy a new motherboard and a new case for the new pc.
Which of the two processors would I be better with? Quad pro at 2.4 or Duo at 3.0?

Anything above those two processors is insanely priced.

I already have 2 gig of ram for the new pc, I have my two hard drives which i would use (the ones I use now).
Id buy a new motherboard which I will look into closer to the time.
I have a 500W PSU which I am using at the moment as well.
I would probably use the dvd drive I have as well, unless I find a decent one for cheap.

I already have my x1950 graphics card as well. So basically I would use everything I have apart from the new cpu (i will probably use the standard cpu cooler).

What’s peoples opinions?
I’ve not really looked into AMD processors, but i would be open minded if someone really recommends them.

A quick look tells me that there aren’t many AMD processors at the moment.
The best one they have is
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 6400+ Black Edition 3.20GHz (Socket AM2) - Retail which is only £140, which actually seems a really good price.

Hey Venney,

I've always been an AMD man myself, theres some really fast Intel chips out but when you compare pricing to performance, AMD wins every time. I've found them to be extremely stable, even when overclocked. I can run my 2.2 GHz chip at 2.7 GHz all day long with no issues.

Take a look at this one, read the customer reviews. You get much more honesty reading what actual owners have to say than reading marketing campains.



The 6400 Black edition is a awesome CPU, it boast a 2MB L2 cache which is great. It doesnt come with a heatsink and fan like the others do so you will have to purchase one separate.

I would definatly explore your options with AMD. Wish i could advise more on intel products but AMD has never given me a reason to cross over.

This is going to be a difficult choice I think! If I got AMD, I could get a crossfire ready mobo and stick another x1950 in there which wouldn’t be bad. But I’m not too fussed about it lol.

I’ve found the new case I’m going to buy, much more expensive than i was going to spend, but it looks awesome, link below.
. I think the case looks epic. Should be absolutely perfect for keeping my pc cool. Im half tempted to go for water cooling, its only around about 60 pounds, but it just seems too risky for me. So I’m staying clear I think.

I imagine i will go with the Intel, all the fans I’ve been looking at for amd say their really hard to install, and I’ve installed a socket 775 fan before so I’m safe with that.

My upgrade doesn’t look like its going to be cheap unfortunately
CPU 170 + 60 for the case + 60/70 for mobo. So I’ve applied for a part time job, and hopefully ill get some money over the Christmas period from a part time job 2.
So around 300 for the upgrades, not cheap but should be really good for gaming (this is assuming i get the job I’ve applied for!!)

thats a nice case

as far as cpu fans, their basically all the same. Some fan designs are tougher than others to press down on but they are usually latch on to 2 sides of the socket, just like intel fans. Its far from something to be afraid of, if you can install a fan on Intel, you can do the same on AMD.


Guess im gonna have to buy a plane ticket to come install your fan just to get you over to the "green" side





Hope you get the new job!

lol if only you were being serious!!
im thinking of possibly getting water cooling, but ive not made my mind up!

Wouldnt mind having it but still not sure.

i've always been scared of it, they make non-conductive fluid but it just makes me nervous. I like the idea of not having fan noise but i dont want to have to deal with a pump, radiator and hoses. Dont know how much maintenance in involved either, you'd do good to research it some.

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_2007.html

^^^^^Chart of current CPU's performance.

Use whatever site to compare prices too.
I think you'll find out AMD do give the better performance for price (at the moment)

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/ ... 13/penryns
New intels on the way. Even better than Core2Duo stuff out now (of course) because of 45nm process. Out this/next month/year
New AMDs too.
Quad cores and such so crysis will make use of it.

Don't bother with crossifre, or SLI, ever, in my opinion. Only do so if money is no object and highest possible framerate is.
speaking of GPUs, I'm looking into the 8800GT since it's half the price of the GTX and barely underperforms it.
New ATI cards are out to (try to) compete with it soon too so I may upgrade soon.

Water cooling is good, I know you like how quiet mine is.
My exact one isn't on the site I got it from anymore, but the closest thing to it is.
http://www.tekheads.co.uk/s/product?product=606533

I think you should be fine with JUST a cpu upgrade, but before you do that, find the reason your PC is crashing!!

try a memory test like gecko said.
I'd say keep an eye on your CPU temp too, although it's doubtful that's the problem.

venney,

I too have always been partial to AMD, I didn't sound in earlier because I'm not a gamer.

Of the 6 systems we have, only one is Intel and it is rarely turned on. It's only used to convert files from odd software to name brand software like Corel draw to Adobe Illustrator.

As liljim said if you can put on one cpu fan you can put on any cpu fan.

Good news people, I have started buying

Firstly, i went with the CoolerMaster BLACK CM 690 CASE - £54
MSI S775 Intel P35 ATX Audio Lan mobo - £71
Thermaltake CL-W0075 BigWater 735 Liquid Cooling System - £51
Postage - £4.50 (even thought I bought from two different sites )

So that’s £177.50 for a new case, water cooling and a new decent mobo.



So alls bought minus the new cpu, which I’m REALLY wanting to buy, but wanting to wait for the new ones to come out for price cuts, does any one know a definite date?

What do people think?

edit...
I have bought the
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0 Stepping (2.4GHz 1066MHz) Socket 775 L2 8MB Cache (2x4MB (4MB per core pair)

Apparently the GO stepping is much better for over clocking.
All ordered and should be here by thursday/friday.