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LGA775 upgrade from e4400

Associate
Joined
7 Oct 2009
Posts
17
Hi all,

I have an e4400@3,1GHz and I'm considering upgrading. I bought an HD5850 to replace my busted old gfx card and I'm now worrying about all the lost potential because of my CPU.

How much would an upgrade to e8400/8500@4GHz help my situation? I'm not really big on upgrading my mobo, cpu & memory for £350/400€ if I can regain lost potential with a second-hand sub-100€ CPU upgrade. Or should I go for a quad?

I'm a bit cynical about quadcoring up my GAMING machine, paying 50+€ extra for a couple of new cores which aren't used in 99% of games and clock lower than duals.

A new e8400/8500 would be ~150€, Q9550 ~200€.
 
Soldato
Joined
11 Sep 2008
Posts
3,322
Location
Co. Durham
Had you posted this 6 moths ago i would have said e8500 hands down for gaming machine, however as you say you not a fan of changing you mobo and more and more games will begin to take advantages of quad cores for the defference in price my advise is quad this time.

I will say though if your palnning of upgrading to a new platform within 12months go e8500 any longer go Q9550 hope it helps ;)
 
Joined
5 Oct 2008
Posts
8,977
Location
Kent
There is also the Q6700 to consider. What chipset does your motherboard have? If it's P35 or higher then go with a Q9550 or E8400/E8500. If's it's older than the P35 chipset then it may have trouble supporting the 45nm cpus.
 
Associate
OP
Joined
7 Oct 2009
Posts
17
My mobo is Abit IP35-E. Thanks for your input BBA, I'm now considering a Q9550, as new stuff excites me and quad is new for me. :) Hope it'll bring me more on par with the HD5850.

Link, any insight on the "quads+gaming" dilemma? :)
 
Soldato
Joined
24 Jul 2006
Posts
2,988
Location
Essex
Found out that a beta bios on my mobo allows it to run q9550 without problems. Any more thoughts on Dual vs Quad in gaming? :)

I looked into getting an E0 Q9550 or Q9650 and from what I've read on various forums, the beta BIOS is hit and miss and best, sometimes it's ok & sometimes it's not. If it does work, it's highly likely that the BIOS will give incorrect temp readouts. The older C1 stepping Q9550 should work on the most recent BIOS without issue though.
 
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