'Upgrade' to a P35 from a P43

RichBowman · 10 Jun 2010 at 09:57

Hi there,

Bit of an odd question, possibly... I've an E8400 running at 3.6 to 3.7ghz on a Gigabyte P43 motherboard (has been a bit of a pain, really, but it's working none the less).

I'd quite like to keep the CPU ticking over for the next 6 months to a year before I upgrade it to something quad core-like, so was hoping to get it to 4ghz or so. My MB won't go past 410mhz on the FSB, maybe 415mhz tops, when I'm looking for 450 really to hit the magic 4ghz...

is it worth me picking up (a relatively inexpensive) P35 for about £30-£40 to tinker about with, or will the gains made be outweighed (or even unnoticeable) compared to the effort put in?

Cheers,

Rich

pastymuncher · 10 Jun 2010 at 10:05

To be honest it's not worth the hassle for a couple of hundred mhz. It's even likley that you won't notice the difference as once past 3.8Ghz the gains get smaller.

It would be a downgrade too as the P43 has a better NB/SB and has PCI-e 2.0.

RichBowman · 10 Jun 2010 at 13:35

Cheers for the reply. Sounds sensible to me.

Might just have a few more fine tunes to see what I can get it up to on the current board, failing that, I'll work on tightening up the RAM timings as I've got them a bit looser at the moment while I've been fiddling with the FSB.

Ta,

Rich

pastymuncher · 10 Jun 2010 at 19:04

I don't think you will get much more out of it. I have a Gigabyte EP43-UD3L rev 1.2 with a E8500 in it running at 3.8Ghz (9.5x400). I did'nt need to do any voltage tweaking for the motherboard and only a slight voltage bump (1.28v) for the cpu. The cpu will do 4.5Ghz but this board tops out at 417mhz so i left it as it is. There is no noticeable performance difference beyond 3.8Ghz anyway.

RichBowman · 10 Jun 2010 at 22:54

I think you're right - I'll have a wee play and see how far I can push it, though I'd probably sit back and enjoy a nice comfortable OC at 3.6 or so and tighten up the RAM a bit.

Did you notice much difference going from the E8500 to the Q9550?

Cheers,

Rich

pastymuncher · 11 Jun 2010 at 09:54

I had a clockspeed drop but it was'nt that noticeable. I had the E8500 running at 4ghz (no noticeable increase between that and 4.5Ghz so settled at 4Ghz), but i could only get the Q9550 to run at just over 3.6Ghz (stock volts) on my DFI X48 board. X38/48 are fsb limited with 45nm quads. The plan was to swap out the X48 for the MSI P45 Platinum in my second rig and to give it some more clocking. I got the Gigabyte P43 brand new and sealed for £35 and stuck that in the second rig. Stuck the P45 in the main rig and sold the DFI for £115 on the bay. Had it all running at 3.6Ghz and then last week the MSI failed on boot up. Pressed the power button got to the usual beeps, heard a zzzzzzzttt and it went into infiniet boot loop. Waiting for the replacement which should be here today.

In multithreaded stuff i noticed a considerable improvement with the quad. Vista seem's snappier too. Anno 1404 is a lot smoother with the quad. Overall i have'nt noticed any particular loss of performance due to the slower speed. I hope to get it to at least 4Ghz in the new board so there should be a lot more to come yet. On top of that, the prices have gone through the roof so i should make a killing on it when i sell it sometime next year.