Which CPU to upgrade to?

[Mike Barnard]

Hi all.

I built my PC 3 years ago. It was fairly high spec then, but is now
mid rate. My specs are in my signature, and the only thing I really
think could do with an upgrade at the moment is the CPU. So, what
socket 775 cpu would be the most worthwhile to put into this machine?

Thanks.

--
Mike Barnard, Worthing, UK.

Homebuild gaming PC:
Tsunami Dream case & Thermaltake 750w PSU.
ASUS P5B-E mobo (1807 bios) / Intel Core2 [email protected] / 4 gig DDR2 ram
Nvidea GTX260 graphics.
Creative Labs Xfi Xtreme Gamer - Logitech 5.1 surround sound
Sennheiser RS140 wireless headphones.
C 256gb WD sata300
D TSSTcorpCD/DVDW SH-S182M Lightscribe
E 675gb WD sata300
F 250gb Maxtor sata150
G 250gb WD sata300
H 320 WD sata300
I USB Card reader
J USB Card reader
K USB Card reader
L USB Card reader
M 500gb WD external MyBook pro.
Razer Copperhead gaming mouse
Old, but comfortable, Logitech keyboard
Windows XP Pro, SP3, all patches. Legal.
Zone Alarm, free version.
Eset Nod32 anti virus.
Webroot spysweeper.
Ad-Aware

 

[John McGaw]

I find that major upgrades are seldom worth the trouble on a
several-year-old system but if you must then Google would have given you a
complete list:

http://www.cpu-upgrade.com/mb-ASUS/P5B-E.html

Probably your best bet would be a Core-2 Quad or Core-2 Extreme CPU
depending on what is still available. Power dissipation is going to be a
consideration if you are pushing the processor and graphics so you may be
buying a new CPU cooler and upgrading case fans too.

 

[Mike Barnard]

I find that major upgrades are seldom worth the trouble on a
several-year-old system but if you must then Google would have given you a
complete list:

http://www.cpu-upgrade.com/mb-ASUS/P5B-E.html

Probably your best bet would be a Core-2 Quad or Core-2 Extreme CPU
depending on what is still available. Power dissipation is going to be a
consideration if you are pushing the processor and graphics so you may be
buying a new CPU cooler and upgrading case fans too.

Thanks for the list, and yes, I can get a list of CPU's from Google.
But, from those with experience, which are worthwhile upgrades? The
list you supplied is just a list. I could randomly choose any one and
not know which is better, i.e. faster.

 

[peter]

In my opinion you would need to upgrade Mobo,Ram and CPU
to get a worth while increase in performance.

peter

 

[Brian Cryer]

Hi all.

I built my PC 3 years ago. It was fairly high spec then, but is now
mid rate. My specs are in my signature, and the only thing I really
think could do with an upgrade at the moment is the CPU. So, what
socket 775 cpu would be the most worthwhile to put into this machine?

What makes you think you need an upgrade? If its CPU bound (use task-manager
to view CPU usage) then yes a faster CPU would help. If its not CPU bound
then is it the disk which is letting you down? (how often the disk light is
on is a reasonable indicator.)

Looking at your disks I'd be inclined to replace your C drive with something
much larger - not that space is an issue but that simply larger capacity
disks tend to be faster disks. But you should be able to judge whether
that's a performance bottleneck for you.

RAM looks fine, as in my experience XP doesn't really make much use of any
RAM over 2GB.

If you managed to get a CPU which was twice as fast that's unlikely to
translate into a twice as fast PC because other factors limit the
performance. To be honest, I think that Peter is right, to get a significant
speed improvement you are probably looking at replacing your motherboard and
cpu (and therefore ram), at which point you might as well upgrade to Windows
7 which performance wise is almost as good as XP but with the added bonus
that if you go 64 bit then you can use more than 4GB or RAM.

I know this isn't addressing your question of which cpu would be most
worthwhile as an upgrade, but I hope my comments are useful.

 

[Mike Barnard]

have you tried looking at passmark software
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/

Never heard of it, but I'll have a good rummage. Thanks.

 

[Mike Barnard]

In my opinion you would need to upgrade Mobo,Ram and CPU
to get a worth while increase in performance.

peter

Which is an (almost) new PC. Oh well, it was an idea. Thanks for the
comments.

 

[Mike Barnard]

What makes you think you need an upgrade?

Greed, and the need to buy myself a pressie.

If its CPU bound (use task-manager
to view CPU usage) then yes a faster CPU would help. If its not CPU bound
then is it the disk which is letting you down? (how often the disk light is
on is a reasonable indicator.)

No, the CPU is always a third high with the occasional full peak.
Plenty of HDD space and no real issues, just the greed!

Looking at your disks I'd be inclined to replace your C drive with something
much larger - not that space is an issue but that simply larger capacity
disks tend to be faster disks. But you should be able to judge whether
that's a performance bottleneck for you.

Actually the C drive is a partition off of a 1 Tb WD drive. The E
drive is the rest of it.

RAM looks fine, as in my experience XP doesn't really make much use of any
RAM over 2GB.

It's the best I can get, I think, for the mobo.

If you managed to get a CPU which was twice as fast that's unlikely to
translate into a twice as fast PC because other factors limit the
performance. To be honest, I think that Peter is right, to get a significant
speed improvement you are probably looking at replacing your motherboard and
cpu (and therefore ram), at which point you might as well upgrade to Windows
7 which performance wise is almost as good as XP but with the added bonus
that if you go 64 bit then you can use more than 4GB or RAM.

If I haven't been ripped off, I've just bought Windows 7 Ultimate for
about £70. If I have been, Amazon have their A - Z guarantee...

"We want you to buy with confidence anytime you purchase products on
the Amazon.co.uk website. That is why we guarantee purchases from
third party sellers when payment is made via the Amazon.co.uk website.
The condition of the item you buy and its timely delivery are
guaranteed under the Amazon A-to-z Guarantee."

....I hope it's worth the electrons it's made of.

I know this isn't addressing your question of which cpu would be most
worthwhile as an upgrade, but I hope my comments are useful.

Very, thanks to one and all.

 

[Paul]

the amd phenom II x6 1055t would be a better bet $197.99 5,168
Intel Core2 Duo E8500 @ 3.16GHz $194.99 2,403
taken from http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

It really depends on what the OP does with the computer, as to
what would make a good upgrade.

Also, it helps to have an artificial rule in place, to prevent
you from doing upgrades too frequently. I like to see a doubling
of performance, with respect to my previous processor. So if I
owned a Q6600 2.4GHz quad core, and Q9650 3.0GHz quad core was
the best upgrade possible on the same motherboard, that would
fail my "double or nothing" upgrade policy. I could probably
overclock the Q6600 to Q9650 level anyway, just to test whether
that makes a difference or not.

http://support.asus.com.tw/cpusupport/cpusupport.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&model=P5B-E

If you were going from a dual core processor, to a quad core, then
it's easier to meet the "double or nothing" rule in that case.

Paul