upgrade advice needed please

N

nindisp

New Member
Hi,

I'm trying to decide which is a better option out of the two. A quad core or a i5 upgrade. If someone could point out how big an improvement the i5 setup would be vs. the quad core. I will be playing a few games e.g. fifa, football manager, civ4, and using for net, movies, spreadsheets.

Option1:
Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 2.33GHz 1333FSB (Retail 775)
1x £79.95
Asus P5KPL SE Intel G31 Socket 775 Motherboard
1x £41.95
OCZ 4GB PC2-8500 DDR2 1066MHz Gold Dual Channel (2x2GB)
1x #42.95

option2:
Intel i5 750 CPU [2.66GHz, Retail, Socket 1156]
1x £155.19
ASROCK P55M Pro Intel Motherboard LGA1156
2x £83.89
OCZ DDR3 PC3-12800 / 1600MHz Gold Edition Low Voltage 4GB Dual Channel Kit
1x £74.69
G.SKILL DDR3 1600 PC12800 4GB (2GB x 2)
1x £68.94
 
I agree w Matthew. I'd go with the i5 just because I don't think quad-core is gamer friendly. I'd focus on getting 4gb of RAM and a nice graphics card if you want top game performance.
 
nindisp said:
Hi,

I'm trying to decide which is a better option out of the two. A quad core or a i5 upgrade. If someone could point out how big an improvement the i5 setup would be vs. the quad core. I will be playing a few games e.g. fifa, football manager, civ4, and using for net, movies, spreadsheets.

Option1:
Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 2.33GHz 1333FSB (Retail 775)
1x £79.95
Asus P5KPL SE Intel G31 Socket 775 Motherboard
1x £41.95
OCZ 4GB PC2-8500 DDR2 1066MHz Gold Dual Channel (2x2GB)
1x #42.95

option2:
Intel i5 750 CPU [2.66GHz, Retail, Socket 1156]
1x £155.19
ASROCK P55M Pro Intel Motherboard LGA1156
2x £83.89
OCZ DDR3 PC3-12800 / 1600MHz Gold Edition Low Voltage 4GB Dual Channel Kit
1x £74.69
G.SKILL DDR3 1600 PC12800 4GB (2GB x 2)
1x £68.94
Click to expand...

The i5. Socket 775 is about dead. Plus the i5 would perform better. Get a better board then a Asrock. Gigabyte/Asus/EVGA/Foxconn

jbrett said:
I'd go with the i5 just because I don't think quad-core is gamer friendly.
Click to expand...

They are both Quad cores.
 
Imo just the pricing is a bit of an obvious answer :P

I have quad core @ 2.5-GHz and it is fine, but for future proof I would get i5 :)
 
Optional 2 if you can afford.

Or go for Athlon IIx4 620 + GA-MA770T-US3P + 4GB DDR3 RAM.
It should have a similar performance with that Q8200, but it would be more future proof than intel LGA 775
 
I can afford the i5 (even an i7), but if the quad core will do the job for £150 less then i want to consider it. I'm just trying to figure out if it is worth spending more or not?

Thing is I want to do a cheap upgrade if possible, and if the upgrade starts hitting £600 mark I may as well just get a new prebuilt pc with windows 7 as i will have to buy that too.

Could you recommend a better i5 motherboard?

I was thinking of getting a HD 5770 about £145 for the graphics card.
 
daisymtc said:
Optional 2 if you can afford.

Or go for Athlon IIx4 620 + GA-MA770T-US3P + 4GB DDR3 RAM.
It should have a similar performance with that Q8200, but it would be more future proof than intel LGA 775
Click to expand...

In gaming Athlon II X4 is not good, it performs worse than Q8200 most of the time
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/athlon-ii-x4-630_6.html#sect0
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3638&p=8

The L3 cache seems to have big impact in gaming.

I would recommend to get Core i5 (or Phenom II X3 if he can't afford i5)
 
nindisp said:
I can afford the i5 (even an i7), but if the quad core will do the job for £150 less then i want to consider it. I'm just trying to figure out if it is worth spending more or not?

Thing is I want to do a cheap upgrade if possible, and if the upgrade starts hitting £600 mark I may as well just get a new prebuilt pc with windows 7 as i will have to buy that too.

Could you recommend a better i5 motherboard?

I was thinking of getting a HD 5770 about £145 for the graphics card.
Click to expand...

ATI 5770 not recommended unless you want DirectX11 and lower energy consumption
A 4870 1GB is cheaper and faster. And you can find faster 4890 at £150
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/172361
 
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