Upgrade fork

[steelcity_ballin]

I currently have a Gigabyte 965p-DS3 (LGA 775) and was wondering your thoughts on upgrade from a Core2Duo Allendale running at 1.83ghz and moving to something along the lines of a Core2Quad (Thinking THIS is a good fit). The additional cores, speed, and l2 Cache should all around be a significant upgrade for under $300. Alternatively, I could start squirreling money away for a complete overhaul seeing as my platform is aging. Suggestions? I believe I've asked this question in the past, but prices slide and inhibitions wither.

My main concern is the compatibility - has anyone had any problems with the motherboard I have? The reason I ask is that it originally required a bios flash to enable quadcore support. I'm fairly certain I flashed it to the latest years ago.

thanks

[Flying Fox]

Check the specific revision of the motherboard (I believe there were at least 3?) to see if the CPU compatibility chart lists the quad CPU that you are thinking. IIRC you got in on the C2D scene pretty early so it could be a rev1 board.

$300? You thinking like the Q9550? IMO this is one overpriced processor with respect to the price relative to what a new build would cost. However if you go for a full blown upgrade you need to change the motherboard and RAM as well so it may be even more expensive.

[steelcity_ballin]

$300? You thinking like the Q9550? IMO this is one overpriced processor with respect to the price relative to what a new build would cost. However if you go for a full blown upgrade you need to change the motherboard and RAM as well so it may be even more expensive.

$280 w/ free shipping and I would equate the saves over a new system + the cost across the months I continue to use the same machine. The i5/i7 scene is tempting though. Thanks for the feedback.

[glacius555]

+1 for platform upgrade, in you're ready to invest around 300 bucks. Besides, you can sell you old board, I sold mine for app. 40 bucks. Even DDR2 RAM blocks can be sold for quite some money, now that RAM is still expensive

[steelcity_ballin]

+1 for platform upgrade, in you're ready to invest around 300 bucks. Besides, you can sell you old board, I sold mine for app. 40 bucks. Even DDR2 RAM blocks can be sold for quite some money, now that RAM is still expensive

Is your username based on the character from killer instinct?

[glacius555]

+1 for platform upgrade, in you're ready to invest around 300 bucks. Besides, you can sell you old board, I sold mine for app. 40 bucks. Even DDR2 RAM blocks can be sold for quite some money, now that RAM is still expensive

Is your username based on the character from killer instinct?

You win!!! ULTRAA, ULTRAAA!

[mattsteg]

Upgrade to a spork.

[morphine]

I have that exact motherboard. I'm contemplating a full upgrade because the Core 2 Quads are as far as you can go, and it seems pretty foolish to me to spent $280 on a Q9550 when the Core i5 760 is only $210. $70 is ~3/4 of 4GB of DDR3 RAM. All that's left is the new 'board.

[JustAnEngineer]

It's hard to let go sometimes, but you're usually better off to upgrade to a current processor socket rather than buying obsolete processors, motherboards or memory.

How about one of these?
GA-H57M-USB3
GA-P55-USB3

[bthylafh]

Add my vote in for upgrading. You could get away with just CPU, motherboard, and RAM, depending on your other components.

I'm in the same boat, actually - i965 mainboard, C2D E6300, no supported CPU upgrades past a Q6700. I'd like to upgrade, but babies are expensive.

[Prestige Worldwide]

I have that exact motherboard. I'm contemplating a full upgrade because the Core 2 Quads are as far as you can go, and it seems pretty foolish to me to spent $280 on a Q9550 when the Core i5 760 is only $210. $70 is ~3/4 of 4GB of DDR3 RAM. All that's left is the new 'board.

That's what led me to choose to get an i5 750 last month when I was looking to upgrade from an e8400. I snagged it at $185 which seemed like a steal.
I need to get selling my e8400 / gigabyte p45 / mushkin 4gb ddr2 800 ram now and make my money back

[Shining Arcanine]

I currently have a Gigabyte 965p-DS3 (LGA 775) and was wondering your thoughts on upgrade from a Core2Duo Allendale running at 1.83ghz and moving to something along the lines of a Core2Quad (Thinking THIS is a good fit). The additional cores, speed, and l2 Cache should all around be a significant upgrade for under $300. Alternatively, I could start squirreling money away for a complete overhaul seeing as my platform is aging. Suggestions? I believe I've asked this question in the past, but prices slide and inhibitions wither.

My main concern is the compatibility - has anyone had any problems with the motherboard I have? The reason I ask is that it originally required a bios flash to enable quadcore support. I'm fairly certain I flashed it to the latest years ago.

thanks

Last fall, I upgraded from a Core 2 Duo 1.86GHz E6300 Allendale to a Core 2 Quad 2.83GHz Q9550 Yorktown. It cost $180 at microcenter before taxes. If you have not purchased one yet, you should probably see the pricing at your local Microcenter/Fry's. It should be significantly cheaper than buying online.

On the topic of compatibility, it depends on which motherboard revision you have. It appears that revision 1.3 will not support yorktown processors while revisions 2.0 and higher will:

http://www.gigabyte-usa.com/Support/Mot ... d=965p-DS3

[drsauced]

Upgrade to a spork.

And not just any spork mind you. When you think spork, you want to think titanium spork.

[BloodSoul]

I don't know about you but I would feel TERRIBLE spending ~$300 on a low end processor (to todays standards) when I could just upgrade the entire system for a little bit more money. I personally bought a Core i7 930 for $200 recently, even though the mobo/ram is expensive, the performance increase is worth it.