Early Christmas in the WT household

[WalkinTarget]

I stopped over at a friends house - this is the guy that taught me everything I know about PCs - and he mentioned getting a pack-in freebie from Newegg on a recent order. He orders easily over 20k a year from Newegg as a self employed computer builder for local businesses, and on one order the combo deal was a 2gb RAM kit. He opened the box and found no RAM but found this instead:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103727

In dealing with businesses, its Intel or no deal, so he literally had no use for an AMD quad core chip, and I jokingly said, well now, looks like you will be getting an AMD board soon, to which he replied, ohhh not me, this is now yours !



Note: this isn't the first time its happened to him, and in every case Newegg has told him its their mistake and to keep the part and no return it.

So here I am, no upgrades to my rig in 2+ years (my last upgrade was when I turned 40 two and a half years ago) and I really don't know what to do with the chip either. My Q6700@3.5 is running fine and I don't want to sink a lot into another PC. But a quad core black edition and the chance to move on to DDR3 has me thinking its time to retire my beloved workbench rig.



I'd do it if I could find a 24 pin power supply to match the existing 20 pin. And don't even mention a 20->24 pin adapter ... if it isn't green, I am not putting it in that case

Its hulking up ->

Any cheap AMD boards that look like a nice fit ?? DDR3 is officially dropping fast, and I can finally forget about spending $60 on a used 4gb DDR2 kit.

[Caddys83]

Clearly you should trade me that AMD CPU for one of my 80 mm green UV fan

[WalkinTarget]

80 ?? Meh ... if it was 120, I'd think about it

But I did manage to find a PSU that would replace the old Ultra unit:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...scrollFullInfo

Blowing the hell out of my non-existent budget, but the workbench rig is showing its age. A dual core chip at 3.0ghz is all but a boat anchor these days !


I found this board for cheap -> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813138179

Note that it does not come in those garish colors anymore .. its a black PCB with red PCI slots, so it looks like a good enough board f or this chip.

[Devilguns]

I liked those ultra power supplies. I had the same ones in blue.

[juneau]

Nice present WT.

[WalkinTarget]

I liked those ultra power supplies. I had the same ones in blue.

Yanno, Ultra took a lot of flack (well deserved at some point) for some of their model line PSUs (especially the X3 !!) but this X-Connect has been an absolute pillar of stability. Its powering an AMD X2 5000+ Black Edition at 3.01ghz stock voltages with an eVGA 7950GX2 (SLI on a single card).

No complaints, but just like my main rig, its OS is suffering heavily from 'OS bloat' so I am thinking of the following upgrade plan:

Main PC - eVGA i750 FTW SLI board with a Q6700 2.66@3.5. Pull this board and chip and put it into the above case, along with the linked XFX 650w PSU as well as an old eVGA 8800 GTS G80 card. If I can find a match, I'll go SLI on that setup and it will be used as my workbench rig. I'll do a clean install of my main rig's Vista Ultimate retail on this rig.

'New' main PC - use the existing GTX280 and PCP&C 750w PSU to now power the AMD X4 965 with a BioStar 770 board and 8gb of G.Skill DDR3-1600 RipJaws, cooled by a Corsair H50 water block. I'll do a clean install of Win7 Ultimate 64 on this build.

Total price would be $350 for the board, RAM and Corsair H20 setup, as well as the XFX 650w PSU for the bench rig. I guess it been that long that I am getting bored with my own PCs even tho I continue to build and sell at least a PC every month here lately. In fact, I sold 6 over the past two months, so its getting busier.

Juneau, I will be bugging you to look for those oh so hard to find matching fans and parts that you know I enjoy greatly
I'll probably wait until after the holidays to see how much hardware I sell to finance this build.

[Donziboy2]

I dont want to throw any water on your plans but wont that BE chip be about as fast as your current chip?

Unless you clock it faster then your Q6700 its not really an upgrade.

Using some bench charts for base lines you would have to get 4ghz outa the BE to be even with the OC'd Q6700.


Toms hardwar chart for baseline

[WalkinTarget]

Depends on what its doing ... if its gaming, it will best it by a nice margin. If its anything else, it only shows an 8% gain.

So you're saying also that the Q6700 isn't much of an upgrade over the AMD X2 5000+ @ 3.0 ??


Keep in mind this is sort of a double upgrade, one minor and one major. I really don't NEED to upgrade, but what else do I so with a Deneb 965 chip ?? Opinions welcome !! I'm just getting an itch to delve into hardware and software here to keep me entertained.

[Donziboy2]

No im saying that your only going to get a 5-10% increase in power over the q6700 but only if you OC it.

I wish i had friends like yours, my e8500 (4ghz) is showing its age and I cant afford to upgrade to a q9650. Or buy a mobo/ram.

Im just saying you wont see a huge improvement over your q6700.

[WalkinTarget]

I hate to agree with you on this fact, but it really is true. It isn't much of a performance bump for me ... Cripes, that Kenstfield is still a beast of a CPU. 3.5ghz at stock voltages out of a 2.66 chip is crazy when you think about it.

Donzi, if you buy 20k worth of parts from Newegg, chances are they may toss one of these 'surprises' into your shipping box as well !

Decisions, decisions .... I may just sit on it for now and just reload the OS on both rigs. My Win7 64 Ultimate is gathering dust.

[Donziboy2]

Ya Intel does a good job on there cpu's, im actually undervolting my e8500. Only had to bump voltage when i upgraded to 8gb ram.

I probably have 20k in the 10 or so years I have been shopping at newegg does that count?

[juneau]

Juneau, I will be bugging you to look for those oh so hard to find matching fans and parts that you know I enjoy greatly
I'll probably wait until after the holidays to see how much hardware I sell to finance this build.

Awwww ok.