[Nuke]

after reading that last article im still somewhat happy with my q9550, and how it ranks near top on most of those benchmarks. its not an i7 but its not slow enough to upgrade yet. maybe next year. im also glad to see the power requirements of cpus dropping as well. for awhile i was buying a new psu every time i upgraded my hardware, unless they come out with new power connectors for hard drives, video cards and mobos again.

[Bob-san]

shows how far behind the tech i am. when did they start putting gpus into the cpu?

Intel's been doing it with Clarksdale so about 9-10 months now. It's AKA Core i3 & Core i5 600. The IGP still pretty much sucks--it's better than the older GMA X4500 & variations but it's still slower (iirc) than HD4200 IGP for example. In laptops, Intel usually has a pure CPU performance advantage while AMD usually has a GPU performance advantage. With IGP you can play more games (Source runs fine, for example, so long as you don't want ultra-high).

[Rodo]

What's your budget like?

500 US$ tops :C

It seems that your board, the M2N-SLI Deluxe, has beta support for Phenom II X4 processors (and most under)

Knew that already, I flashed it to 5001 version, my plan was getting a Phenom 945.
Everything was fine, a week passed and then it would restart itself randomly.
A few days later a friend came by, plugged a usb drive and boom, it wouldn't start again.
Got continuous warnings about usb overcurrent stuff, after messing around with the bios setup and a restart it just refused to boot, mobo started, fans worked but no post... 3 to 5 secs later it just shut off itself everytime.

I tried everything:

-Reseted the bios, nothing.
-Tested with another psu, nothing.
-Unplugged everything but micro, nothing.
-Pulled out of the case and tested it, nothing.


So my options are, buy mobo + micro + mem , but that's gonna hurt like hell.
Or get the mobo fixed (if possible, if not a replacement) and keep upgrading what I've got now.
I'm more in for the second option, given my budget, unless someone can talk me out of it.

[Bob-san]

As I said, an AM2+ board would be compatible with your memory and current CPU. Even so, you have the money to upgrade to a Phenom II X6 or a Core i5-760 (or perhaps to an i7-870 or, possibly, even an i7-950).

[Admiral LSD]

What's your budget like?

500 US$ tops :C

...

So my options are, buy mobo + micro + mem , but that's gonna hurt like hell.
Or get the mobo fixed (if possible, if not a replacement) and keep upgrading what I've got now.
I'm more in for the second option, given my budget, unless someone can talk me out of it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115222 $114.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128430 $119.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145251 $84.99

Which comes to USD$319.97 and is better than anything you can get out of your current setup. I'm actually giving serious thought to dumping my AMD setup in favour of something like that.

[Herra Tohtori]

Everything was fine, a week passed and then it would restart itself randomly.
A few days later a friend came by, plugged a usb drive and boom, it wouldn't start again.
Got continuous warnings about usb overcurrent stuff, after messing around with the bios setup and a restart it just refused to boot, mobo started, fans worked but no post... 3 to 5 secs later it just shut off itself everytime.

I tried everything:

-Reseted the bios, nothing.
-Tested with another psu, nothing.
-Unplugged everything but micro, nothing.
-Pulled out of the case and tested it, nothing.


So my options are, buy mobo + micro + mem , but that's gonna hurt like hell.
Or get the mobo fixed (if possible, if not a replacement) and keep upgrading what I've got now.
I'm more in for the second option, given my budget, unless someone can talk me out of it.

I got the same motherboard, and it doesn't boot itself but there are some... irregularities in how it boots up. It's a bit like Millennium Falcon, you need to know how to start it up and it'll boot up just fine. My particular plank seems to dislike being booted up immediately after shutdown (I don't know if it's about temperature or static charge somewhere), but when I nudge a certain part of my computer case a bit, it boots up just fine. I never really understood what causes it but I'm past caring, as long as the PC boots up it works just fine...

You could try taking the motherboard out of the case entirely, putting it on non-conductive material and trying to boot ut up that way. I have no idea why, but that always worked with my particular specimen, while putting it in the case sometimes doesn't. Go figure.

[Admiral LSD]

It's actually possible for mobos to short out to the case which can cause all kinds of problems. My brother had an old A7N266-VM that wouldn't boot up properly in a case he had. I honestly thought I'd killed the BIOS chip when I borrowed it to hot-flash another identical board I had a BIOS update go bad on and it wasn't until after I replaced it and had it going in another case I realised what was going on. Happened out of the blue as well.

[Rodo]

I did pull it out and placed it onto a cardboard plank and nothing.

I really love my current config, but I guess I could go on a start checking other possibilities right now.. somehow I think this might be the last time I send my good old deluxy to repairs :c

EDIT:
Thanks Admiral, those are interesting options in case I decide to go the other way

A question that might be stupid for ya, but... here I go:
I've got 2x1GB Gskill mem modules cas 5, if I'm getting the other two slots filled up, what can I use?
Should I go same brand and latency on the other free slots, or can I change brands/latency with no problem?

[Admiral LSD]

Ideally you want them all matched, but as long as they're all the same speed and timings (faster RAM will downclock to the speed of the slower ones, but overclocking slower RAM can be hit and miss) you should be fine.

[Bob-san]

I did pull it out and placed it onto a cardboard plank and nothing.

I really love my current config, but I guess I could go on a start checking other possibilities right now.. somehow I think this might be the last time I send my good old deluxy to repairs :c

EDIT:
Thanks Admiral, those are interesting options in case I decide to go the other way

A question that might be stupid for ya, but... here I go:
I've got 2x1GB Gskill mem modules cas 5, if I'm getting the other two slots filled up, what can I use?
Should I go same brand and latency on the other free slots, or can I change brands/latency with no problem?

$45 over your budget (AR) but...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.492640
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220503

[Rodo]

*drolls*

I'll start looking for another option then.... just in case.

[Bob-san]

*drolls*

I'll start looking for another option then.... just in case.

Core i5-760 @ $205
Intel P55 @ $120
2x2GB DDR3-1333 @ $90
===
$415 (4C/4T)

Core i7-870 @ $280
Intel P55 @ $120
2x2GB @ $90
===
$490 (4C/8T)

Athlon II X4 640 @ $100
AMD 870 @ $100
2x2GB @ $90
===
$290

Phenom II X6 1055T @ $200
AMD 890FX @ $150
2x2GB @ $90
===
$440

[Admiral LSD]

Considering you can get an i3 setup for only about USD$30 more than that Athlon II setup, USD$100 less than the Phenom II X6 one and it'll generally outperform both, neither are terribly good value. Same story with the 9xx i7's, the 7xx and 8xx Lynnfields are just as good, if not better, and cheaper to boot.

[Flipside]

I'm very pleased with the performance of my i7 with Windows 7 Ultra 64, possibly the most stable system I've run.

[Admiral LSD]

The Bloomfields aren't slouches, it's just they're made to look ordinary by the price/performance offered by the Lynnfield platform.

[Flipside]

Oh, I'm sure there are systems that are better, I'm even moderately sure my system isn't running at optimal performance as it stands, I'm not really trying to knock the other processors, I'm just stating how impressed I am with modern computer setups and how remarkably few problems I've had with this machine compared to its predecessors