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help on choosing a 4 core intel cpu out of 3 options.

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Hi all

I am after a new suystem build to run my new windows 7, now i was wanting a i7 but to be honest its way to much for me so then i looked at the i5 chip and to be honest it was a bit of a joke as theres only £60 difference in price from the i7 and i would have thought these would be abit better priced.

so my question is how good are the Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 LGA775 'Yorkfield' 2.66GHz. I know they will not be as good as the i5 or i7 but is there much in it.

I dont game i use my pc for internet and movies and compressing and multi tasking and also media streaming.

can a Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 LGA775 'Yorkfield' 2.66GHz be pushed to 3ghz on a stock cooler and stock voltage.

and also what about the Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 LGA775 'Yorkfield' 2.66GHz 6MB-cache cna that be overclocked to 3ghz wiht stock voltage and fan.

i dont have a lot of cash and i was wanting a 4 core cpu and as these seem to be a good price i was wanting to know how much poor they are to the i5/i7 chips.

I have a intell prescott single core 3.6ghz up to 4ghz and want a very good speed incress over my older system as my new system will be running windows 7 and media centre and hi-def.

could anyone give me some tips or help on this as the i5 & i7 are to expensive

thanks
 
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my system i have now is 5 years old its a asus p5ad2 pro

is it best to use the stock cooler or get a better one as i want my pc to be silent as possable as my system i have now has a hugh thermal take heatsink with 120mm fan on it as i dont know what the fans are like on the cpus
 
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Soldato
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Oh, right.

Then in that case, this:

333i5.png


Not much more money than a Core 2 Quad system - but soooo much faster.
 
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thanks all

never had a amd before and always had intel like to try and stick with them

what is this motherboard like

Asus P7P55D PRO, Intel P55 Express ?

anygood

is the cooler above realy good for cooling and low sound levels

worked it out it would be £55 more for the i5 setup not much in it in the price i suppose, can nyou get the i5 to 3ghz without uping the power voltage ?
 
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Soldato
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thanks all

never had a amd before and always had intel like to try and stick with them

what is this motherboard like

Asus P7P55D PRO, Intel P55 Express ?

anygood

is the cooler above realy good for cooling and low sound levels

worked it out it would be £55 more for the i5 setup not much in it in the price i suppose

That motherboard is very good. It's £40 more expensive, but for that you get many more features. If you don't mind spending the money - then get it. Just check that you will make use of the additional features, or it won't exactly be worth it.

The cooler above is good and the fan is reasonably quiet. It is not the best performing cooler, but in terms of performance for cost it is hard to beat. If you want the best performing (non custom water cooled) cooler that works with the P55 - this is it.
 
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can you get the i5 to 3ghz without uping the power voltage ?

is there a better fan cooler but not water cooled than posted £65 is abit much for a cooler
 
Soldato
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I'm not sure about doing 3Ghz on stock volts. But increasing the volts is nothing to worry about so long as you have good cooling to back it up. From what I have heard: with most P55 motherboards, 3.6Ghz i5 is not tough so long as you have a half-decent cooler.

This looks to be a good cooler from reviews.
 
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Only concern with 1156 boards is not getting a Foxconn setup due to the connections not being made correctly and burning out the chips.

All in all getting an i5 seems the best balance between power and money, its what I plan on getting.
 
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Only concern with 1156 boards is not getting a Foxconn setup due to the connections not being made correctly and burning out the chips.

All in all getting an i5 seems the best balance between power and money, its what I plan on getting.



is there any listing currently with all the boards that have foxconn or a list of the ones that dont?

also planning on getting an i5 in the next week or 2, was looking at the MSI P55-GD65

but im pretty sure i read some place that it has a foxconn socket which has put me off abit, i know its mostly people doing extreme OC that have had issues. but what damage will it do over time etc.
 
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I have no idea which do have Foxconn, however I feel for you, I'm really wary right now about which mobo to go for.

From what I've read, its not just a problem with extreme overclocks, but with overclocks in general, less pins makes each connection hotter, even running at stock volts its dangerous and over the peroid of a year or more, its worrying. Of course, thats probably me being paranoid, but at this amount of money I believe I have every right to be.

I'm currently trying to find a board that doesn't have a Foxconn socket, but the information is so hard to come by I may end up having to wait until I can afford an i7...
 
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I have no idea which do have Foxconn, however I feel for you, I'm really wary right now about which mobo to go for.

From what I've read, its not just a problem with extreme overclocks, but with overclocks in general, less pins makes each connection hotter, even running at stock volts its dangerous and over the peroid of a year or more, its worrying. Of course, thats probably me being paranoid, but at this amount of money I believe I have every right to be.

I'm currently trying to find a board that doesn't have a Foxconn socket, but the information is so hard to come by I may end up having to wait until I can afford an i7...

DUDE, source please.

The article that started this was specifically about extreme overclocking, sticking a poor 1156 chip at over 5ghz on liquid nitrogen then finding the pins starting to melt.

Where did you read there was a problem running at stock?

So many people have misread or misinterpreted the problem. I am using a P55 board and it has a Foxconn socket on it. It does not have the issue that can cause a problem at extreme overclocking levels.
 
Soldato
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No I wouldn't worry too much, based on what you said, I wouldn't even give it a second thought. Basically Foxconn is the company that makes the cpu sockets on a good number (most) of the P55 motherboards at the moment, there was an article a few weeks back about how the pins in the socket weren't correctly making contact, with the all of the pads on the bottom of the cpu (due to the retention mechanism not being quite 100% I believe)...this was yielding some issues with high overclocks using high voltages.

The same problem was not observed with the Lottes socket, there is another one too, although I forget who makes that one. Basically most of the P55 on the market do use Foxconn sockets at the moment, the only ones that are known to always use a certain socket, and that socket not be a Foxconn, is EVGA and DFI. I'm not sure if that is true of all of EVGA's boards though, or just certain models.

Basically, I wouldn't worry about it, if you are going to run the cpu at or near stock voltage. I've been saying this a fair bit over the past week ...I do hope it doesn't come back to haunt me in a year or so, but I'm not going to suggest people avoid the vast majority of the current P55 motherboard crop based on some findings by a website who were pushing these things to the edge, LN2 cooling, high voltages etc, you're talking in most cases in excess of 66% overclocks.

However, it is true to say that the long term effects of this on more modest overclocks or stock settings are not known …and they obviously wont be for a while.

All said and done the I5 and the new I7s are great cpu’s …and would serve you well. The motherboards known to use only Lottes sockets at the moment are on the higher end of the spectrum and thus quite expensive.

If you really want to play it 100% safe as you can, I'd suggest you go the AMD route since they use a totally different socket type, they use good old fashioned ZIF sockets with holes, and the cpu has the pins. But as I said, I wouldn't worry about this too much really, I don't think it will prove to be a problem for you or most people for that matter, at least not based on what I have read so far. Not surprisingly there is some degree of hysteria about this right now in the enthusiast community.
 
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