Help with new processor please.

Leopold Butters

New Member
Okay, so I was thinking of buying a new processor for my computer, a Core i7 860. Now I have a few of questions. How hard is it to remove my old processor and install the new one? and do I need to wipe my harddrives before I install to do a clean install after the new processor is in? Also will my motherboard come into play as well? And lastly, How much better is a Core i7 860 over AMD Dual core 6400+?
 
If you purchase a Core i7 860, you will also need a new motherboard and RAM.

Core i7 860 is brand new and only runs on a socket 1156 motherboard.
1156 motherboards run DDR3 RAM.
 
yeah you're going to need to upgrade your Mother board^ socket 1156 RAM(DDR3) to buy that CPU Core i7 860 vs Athlonx2 will be a pretty big difference in performance (In a good way :D)
 
It would be a big nice good difference. You should do it and try out how it works. You'll def. Need a new mother board.
 
Okay, so I was thinking of buying a new processor for my computer, a Core i7 860. Now I have a few of questions. How hard is it to remove my old processor and install the new one? and do I need to wipe my harddrives before I install to do a clean install after the new processor is in? Also will my motherboard come into play as well? And lastly, How much better is a Core i7 860 over AMD Dual core 6400+?

You would have to change your Processor/Motherboard and Memory. What board do you have now? There is a chance it might support the Phenom II and you would save a bunch of money.
 
You would have to change your Processor/Motherboard and Memory. What board do you have now? There is a chance it might support the Phenom II and you would save a bunch of money.

i have an Asus M3A78 Pro, i found the guide book for it and it only supports AMD socket AM2/AM2+ for AMD Phenom FX/phenom/athlon/sempron processors

Here is the new motherboard I was thinking of getting. http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX25733(ME).aspx

Now, I might just get the new motherboard/cpu and ram and a new case, and take out my GFX card , HDD and DVD drive from this computer and put it in the new one because my brother is going to buy my current motherboard/case/ram/cpu. Now Should i clear my entire HDD before changing over? and can i back up my games that i have downloaded from steam so i don 't have to download them again?

Also one other thing, The i7 860 says it has Intel turbo boost technology up to 3.46 GHz, what does that mean exactly?
 
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No I'm not saying it would be better then a i7/5. Pretty close and hell of a lot cheaper. The only thing you would have to buy is a Processor and a better heatsink if you plan on overclocking. I would get a Phenom II 955 instead of the 965. They are both BE models and I dont think the 965 really clocks that much better then the 955. Saves some more money.
 
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No I'm not saying it would be better then a i7/5. Pretty close and hell of a lot cheaper. The only thing you would have to buy is a Processor and a better heatsink if you plan on overclocking.

okay, So how does it compare to what i have now? I am trying to play supreme commander but after a while my units don't even know what to do because there is so much going on, from what I understand it is because the game is really CPU heavy. also, will the Phenom 2 bottleneck the new GTX 3xx series that badly? because someone told me that my GTX 280 is already being bottlenecked by my cpu i have now.
 
The Phenom II 955/965 would wipe the floor with the 6400. You would see a big improvement even with the GTX 280. They overclock easy to 3.6/7, even more with the right chip and a good cooler.
 
The Phenom II 955/965 would wipe the floor with the 6400. You would see a big improvement even with the GTX 280. They overclock easy to 3.6/7, even more with the right chip and a good cooler.

Cool. Thanks for all your help, I think I might go with the 965 so I can save myself 500 dollars.
 
Also one other thing, The i7 860 says it has Intel turbo boost technology up to 3.46 GHz, what does that mean exactly?

That means that i7 860 and auto-overclock up to 3.46GHz when not all the cores are active
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3634&p=5

so a quad core phenom 2 would be a better choice than the core i7?

Core i5 750 is faster than any of the Phenom II

However, you will need to buy a new motherboard to use i5/i7
 
Okay, So I recieved my new processor and am wondering, should I back up my computer before installing it? Will I have to reinstall windows from scratch or will my files all carry over with the new precessor?
 
No, your fine. Changing your processor will not effect anything, you will get a bios reading AMD data change, then when windows boots you might get system processor change pop up. You did update your bios before hand like I suggested?
 
No, your fine. Changing your processor will not effect anything, you will get a bios reading AMD data change, then when windows boots you might get system processor change pop up. You did update your bios before hand like I suggested?

I havn't put the processor in yet, my friend is coming over next week when he gets back from vacation to update my bios and install my processor and water cooling unit because I have never done any of those before so he is going to show me how. I just wanted to know if i should back up my files before we did it.
 
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