My CPU needs upgrade

[Darth Vader]

Hey guys

So I've been thinking since a while that my aging cpu is a bottleneck for some of the more cpu intensive games.

So without further bullshit, here are my current system specs:

- 2.4 ghz pentium core2duo
- asus striker extreme mobo (quad core capable)
- 8 gb ram (800 mhz)
- his 4870 1gb iceq4+
- coolermaster 650 watts psu

I'm one of the people who upgrade only when games simply become unplayable or, in recent cases, when they fry my gpu. My old 5900 ultra died to Oblivion while running it admirably. Then my 6800 died to hitman blood money. My 8800 gtx died recently to fallout 3 and days of online AoC which is the most hardware hungry game by far. I have these gpu corpses with me for nostalgia. 6800 was under warranty so it got repaired after waiting a few months so i gave it to my nephew. And after the 8800 died (anyone wana buy its corpse?), I moved over to the ATI club with a 4870 since my standby card is an old faithful 9800 pro which has never failed me all these years.

I had this 2.4 cpu overclocked to 3.0+ ghz on air and stock cooling solution. At stock speeds it is a bottleneck for sure even with the 8800 gtx which was a damn good gpu (may it rest in piece). I think the optimal cpu speed I needed with a 8800 gtx was 3.6 ghz but 3.0+ was doing just fine even in AoC which isn't fully optimized yet anyway. Now that my 4870 has been doing well and doesn't seem to be suffering from a terminal disease, I'll spare some money to invest in a cpu upgrade.

So there is my problem and I have thought of a few solutions:

- Buy a cooling solution good enough for our summers and overclock the 2.4 beyond 3.0 or up to whatever is cool enough at full loads. If I'm going to buy a new chip, I'd rather squeeze all service I can get from this one first. The cooling solution would serve well later with a newer chip.

- Second option may be considerable if I can sell this 2.4 chip. I'll look for the fastest dual core or even a quad core if the prices in HC aren't still insane now that ppl have the new corei7s to drool after. Quad core support in games is still rare in my experience. Most programmers optimize their games for dual cores if at all. So a fast dual core might be my choice. But then how do i sell this 2.4 chip?

Lastly, I have no idea of the prices. I would appreciate some advice and guidance in this matter. Thanks in advance.~

[Ali Tayyab]

1. Get rid of 4 GB ram, if u arent using it (image editing etC)

2. How are u oc'ing in the bios? if u're keeping things on auto chances are that is the cause of most our cards frying. (auto = take voltages and PCI-E bus speed as high as the mobo wants)

3. Sell everthing, get the cheapest p55 board and a core i3-530. it is in most cases faster than a comparitively priced core 2duo. see #4

4. Any "meaningful" quad is still very expensive. it is better idea to simply switch to a core i5-7 rather than buying a expensive core2quad, DESPITE the fact u've already got a mobo + ram to boot.

[c0d3r]

Adding to Ali:

1- what c2d do u have atm? not all c2d's are good overclockers.

2- Although not many games are thread optimized, but games do utilize most of the threads available to them. Source engine games, and rts esp are examples of games that use thread optimization/utilization.

3- What amount of money are u willing to spend? Eventho i absolutely agree with ali, that an i3/i5 wud overtake a c2q, but it also will be monetarily demanding, coz u wud have to add to the money whoch u get after seiilng the old system.

Also. taking a 2.8 to say 3.2 wudnt give u a big boost, whereas going from 55nm to say newer 45nm processors ideally wud.. it all depends on what c2d u have got atm.

PS: ur pc specs are pretty.. well odd :/ (the one in ur profile).. Classic, but odd for this time frame

[Darth Vader]

@Ali: Bro I need the 8 GB RAM for Age of Conan which is a monsterously resource heavy game. I have a 64 bit OS so every megabyte of it is put to good use, don't worry. And of course, I have the advantage to not use a swap file on the hard disk which makes texture loading/recall much faster.

I never let the bios AI overclock anything. I overclocked my cpu very carefully and safely to 3.0ghz for a couple of weeks only by following a very leet guide and manually setting each thing. I miss that performance boost. The gpu's didn't die to overclocking I'm sure of it.

I'm not buying a core ix. I hate haggling and bargaining with people so I'm not selling anything. I have no idea where to / who to sell and I'm sure I would be ripped off if I do so which I do not wish. I can't spend the remainder, which I'm sure will be quite large, to get a new coreix rig. So kindly suggest some other solution from the given options bro.

@Coder:

My c2d is a E6600. I'm not willing to spend more than 10k rupees for now. The system is serving me sufficiently enough than to spend a lot more than that amount.

At times it feels that the processor is being a bottleneck especially after seeing it perform overclocked.

[c0d3r]

well, simplest solution... sell of ur e6600 and add money to get a second hand (brand new are hard to find) e8400/e8500 and a medium level CPU Cooler. Then overclock it to 3.5G easy That wud more than suffice

[Leo05]

add a decent cpu cooler too if u want more clock speed for e8400.