[Taima]

I was just looking at this thing on tigerdirect: MSI 975X Platinum Motherboard CPU Bundle - Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Processor 2.40GHz OEM at TigerDirect.com

in case you don't feel like looking, it has a 2.4Ghz quad core processor. I was talking about it with someone I know, and he said quads really aren't that good. I asked him why and he said one reason is that most games don't know how to use the whole quad thing. They're only accustomed to using up two processors at the most. Is this true or not?

If it isn't, then would having a quad core processor be like 2.4 x 4?

Oh and if it is bad, then dual cores are definitely good right

[Daveskater]

Quad cores are good, and they will be utilized more when more people have them. You can set programs to an "affinity" in the task manager so that it is run on a certain core as well, just like with dual cores, only there's 4 options.

You can see this post here: AMD / Intel ??? Quad or Dual Core ???

The Q6600 is a good CPU, and one of our Admins Josh (Joshuashawharvey) has one, so he can tell you more about what it's like. Thinking about it, Albert has just put one in his machine as well.

Yes, it does mean that it is literally 2.4GHz x 4. The Q6600 is basically two C2D's stuck together, so it's two dual core CPU's in one casing and working together, really.

Dual cores are good, but Quads are literally twice as good. There's nothing wrong with them, and if you have a tidy case and good cooling, you can run all sorts of stuff with low temps. In a post somewhere (I'll find it in a sec ) Josh had multiple applications running, including WMP, using only 1% CPU time and the temp was 18C. Mine isn't even that cold when it's off hehe.

Edit 1:I might have been thinking of another post where this came up as well, but here's one post: http://www.techsupportteam.org/forum/6894-post9.html

Edit 2: I think in m mind I put that post and this one together : http://www.techsupportteam.org/forum/4443-post4.html

[Taima]

In that case would you recommend I buy the one that I linked to?

[Daveskater]

If it's in your budget then yeah, it looks good. Do remember that you'll need thermal paste and a heatsink, because the processor will not come with one, because it's an OEM one. It will literally be the CPU in an anti-static bag, and the mobo in the retail box with all the bits it normally comes with.

You could buy that mobo and this CPU, which is faster and is the retail version so it comes with a hsf etc, but it's not a quad core Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 Processor BX80557E6750 - 2.66GHz, 4MB Cache, 1333MHz FSB, Conroe, Dual-Core, Retail, Socket 775, Processor with Fan at TigerDirect.com. It would come out $10 cheaper as well.

One thing to look at before you get that mobo, though, is this: what is the speed of your RAM?

If you wanted to get that bundle then that is fine, and I'm pretty sure it will work alright, but that mobo only goes up to 667MHz with RAM.

Another option is the CPU I linked to, and this mobo (which supports 8GB RAM if you decide to go x64) EVGA nForce 650i Ultra Motherboard - T1 Version, NVIDIA nForce 650i Ultra, Socket 775 , ATX, Audio, PCI Express, Gigabit LAN, USB 2.0, Serial ATA, RAID 122-CK-NF66-T1 at TigerDirect.com.

Alternatively, if your current RAM is 800MHz, you could get that mobo, and the CPU separately, but it would cost more because you would need the cooler etc as well, and you wouldn't get the discount.

I hope I'm not bombarding you with too much info!

[Taima]

I was following most of it until the halfway mark....kinda confused now lol...so...much...info...*brain explodes*

[link590o]

it's just that there are several things you need to look at with a motherboard:

-the type of processors it supports
-the video card slots and other slots it has
-the type of RAM it supports
-and whether it is for a large or small case

you've looked only at one of the 4 aspects. you know that your motherboard supports an intel quad....ok, what about everything else?

video card slots are important because...well...if it's custom built and you want to game, how will you game without a good graphics chip? so making sure it has enough PCI-Express 16x or the same slot except better PCI-Express 2.0 slots is one issue to take into account. only certain chips will fit in certain slots so making sure you have at least one of the aforementioned is a surefire way to handle that.

RAM...as you might know, RAM comes in several speeds and sizes depending on the computer it's going into. there are 3 basic types of RAM. DDR, DDR2, and DDR3. the oldest of course is DDR and it's the slowest. DDR2 is the standard at the moment, and DDR3 is one of the newest and fastest, but it's too expensive and not mainstream.

so with RAM, you want to look at a motherboard that supports ddr2 and ddr3 for the future when ddr3 DOES become mainsteam. the most common speed for ddr2 is 800mhz. it's one of the most efficient, and it's one of the cheaper types. you can get 2 gigabytes for like...45 bucks.

the last aspect is important to a degree. bigger motherboards fit a larger case..duh. and bigger mobos tend to have a higher, what's known as Front Side Bus. the front side bus speed, or FSB speed is the speed at which all the parts in the motherboard can talk to each other. obviously, the higher the better. 1066mhz and 1333 mhz are two of the best and most common out there for motherboards. so make sure you aren't getting the short end of the stick by ordering a motherboard that fits a small case rather than a normal or large size case.

once you know all of those things about the motherboard, you're pretty much set. you know a fair amount about processors it looks like.

your friend was right. a lot of programs out there don't take advantage of quad cores. quad cores are more efficient for people that are doing video and graphic editing and stuff like that. strangely, only a handful of games even use quad core technology. but dave is also right. the more people that start using quads, the more games will be developed to fit those specs.

for you, i would strongly suggest getting this board:
Newegg.com - MSI P35 Neo Combo-F LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

i don't know of any cpu-mobo combo deals that give you this motherboard and a quad. and buying a quad on top of this would make it at least 90 dollars more expensive than your combo deal.

but it's a much more suitable motherboard that will last a long time. and you could easily settle for an intel core 2 duo. those work very very nicely too. and it might end up being cheaper. i'd strongly advise looking at the E6750, or the E8400 models. they're fantastic.

[Taima]

Very nice reply there Link, I'd say that is quite a bit to think about.

I was looking at the mobo/cpu I linked to in the first post and one thing I've noticed is that it apparently can't even run 800mhz DDR2. Even worse than that is that I only have DDR RAM. Since I know now that my friend is right, I think it would probably be better for me to just go w/ a nice dual core. It'll probably take some time before games start making full use of quad core capabilities.

Now that I know for sure about the quad, I'll probably want to go for a dual core. Probably my biggest concerns with the 4 aspects would be the RAM and the processor. I suppose I could always buy a mobo/cpu combo that comes with some RAM to eliminate the worry but I'd still also want to get the most for my money. I'm really trying to keep it under $300 but I'm not sure if that's going to be possible anymore.

I appreciate both you and Dave's help btw. Now just gotta find the right stuff

[link590o]

we'll be more than happy to continue the help. hell if you want me to, i can look up some parts on newegg right now and see if i can work the price to around that. y'know what? i think i will. the RAM i have in mind is actually not 45 dollars anymore. apparently it went down to 35 bucks . and the mobo itself that i showed you is about 85. the only difficulty will be the processor, i know that for sure. so you'll be looking at a processor that is priced at about 180 bucks to keep the price down. and that will help you get all three. mobo, proc, and RAM. and the E6750 fits that bill exactly . last i checked, it's 179.99.

so you could get all three. right now if you have the money.

here they are linked from newegg:
Processor:
Newegg.com - Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 Conroe 2.66GHz 4M shared L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - Retail

RAM:
Newegg.com - G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail

and mobo:
Newegg.com - MSI P35 Neo Combo-F LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

best of all, they ALL have free 3 day shipping. you can buy every part for $299.97 if you got them RIGHT THE HELL NOW! and i say that with enthusiasm and emphasis because it tends to change every day sometimes. one day it'll be free shipping, the next they'll tag on between 5 and 20 dollars.

[Taima]

You're the freakin' man.

One thing though. The absolute earliest I'd be able to order this stuff would be the 7th but probably still some time after that. All that stuff looks pretty sweet though. I'd still need a heatsink right?

[samjohnson]

Nope you don't need one, comes with the CPU.

Unless you plan on overclocking like crazy, then the heat sink + fan that comes with it will be fine.

[Taima]

Even more awesome lol...one thing tho, is there a payment plan thing for it cuz I'd really come up about a $100 short and I'd rather not wait till the 21st to order it (altho my parents are probably gonna be jerks about it and make me wait anyway )

Something I noticed Link, is that your basically having me get a duplicate of your computer. Same things for the most part...

[link590o]

hahah. actually it only really worked out that way because of three things. the first being that i always recommend the p-35 chipset. it's just an amazing chipset. BUT! i have the p35 neo combo. not the neo-f chipset. mine doesn't support ddr3. and the second is that the E6750 just HAPPENED to be 180 bucks. the RAM was also some of the cheapest around and it worked out to bring the price down to almost exactly 300. it was purely coincidence. i did notice that it was mimicking mine too at least. but it wasn't exactly the same.

but hey. my computer is awesome. i can vouch for the E6750 being amazing. i just remembered something critical though which you may not like. i'm not sure if the heatsink comes with thermal paste pre-applied. thermal paste is necessary or your cpu will fry itself from the heat it makes in about 15 seconds. no joke. so i'm weary about that. it might be an idea to buy some thermal paste along with all of the stuff. i recommend arctic silver 5 compound. it's like...5 dollars off newegg. but it's gonna obviously push you like..5 dollars overbudget

if it doesn't matter then whatever. i'm only angry because i thought i managed to get it perfectly under 300 bucks by 3 cents.

and there is a payment plan, but payment plans are never a good idea because they throw interest onto the payment. and you'll be overcharged in the end. so if anything i would just wait. i was just under the idea that you had the money in your hand.

BUT, there is some encouraging news. parts tend to also lower themselves in price. who knows? by the 21st, the processor might have gone down in price by a few bucks so it won't even matter

[Taima]

What is the chance of the parts going out of stock by then?

And don't worry about the Thermal Paste. I bought some a while back for the computers I have now (tried swapping processors and noticed they both needed some) so lucky for you it'd still be under $300. But then again it wouldn't because if they throw up some shipping costs on there, it'd suck lol. Do you play anything with your computer? How's it run?

[link590o]

chances are that there are other parts that will go out of stock before these will. while the E6750 is awesome, people are recommended to go with the E8400 because it's the absolute best bang for the buck.

but

the performance difference between the 6750 and the 8400 is negligible. so the 6750 should be in stock for a while. the motherboard is nice, but i've rarely seen them go out of stock. the RAM is your biggest worry really. RAM goes out of stock fairly often. not as often as video cards, but it happens. 2 gigabytes of ddr2 800mhz RAM for 35 bucks is an amazing deal. and as you might have noticed, that RAM already won an award for being such an excellent purchase. if there's anything to be worried about, it's that.

i don't think there's anything to worry about at all because when i built mine, i was watching over that RAM, and waiting to gather up all of my cash. it went out of stock like...once or twice, but it was available when I wanted it and had the money. newegg is fairly decent about getting parts back in stock. the best thing to do is just keep an eye on the parts. visit the links maybe once a week and check up on prices and stock. if it does go out, it'll be back relatively soon.

as for gaming, i am an avid FPS fan. find me a good shooter and i'll play the crap out of it and beat it in like...9 hours. call of duty 2 was one of those i couldn't put down. i didn't even stop to eat lol. started at 5pm and stayed up until 1 am until i finally beat it.

that was with my old computer though. with this one, i play games like Portal, Half Life 2, World of Warcraft, and i've played demos of Call of Duty 4, Bioshock, Prey, and my computer completely SHREDS them. my frames never dipped below 40 frames on any of the aforementioned even on maxed out detail. and i've even played crysis maxed out on high detail with between 15 and 30 frames. considering i don't have absolutely top of the line equipment, that says something.

it was only a few months ago that the E6750 was the absolute best dual core processor out there. add a decent graphics card to it like my 9600gt or an 8800gt, and nothing save crysis should stop you in your tracks.

[Daveskater]

That does looks like a pretty good mobo, and it's definitely future-proofed as well.

You would get better temps with the Arctic Silver thermal paste (if that's what you have) so I would put it on anyway, rather than use the standard stuff if it comes with it pre-applied or otherwise.

What graphics card do you have at the moment? If it's not PCI-e or PCI then it won't go in that mobo because it doesn't have an AGP slot, and it doesn't have integrated graphics so you'd need a new card as well.

Link is spot on with everything he said about RAM, you quite often get DDR3 or GDDR3 RAM on graphics cards, but some of them are still using DDR2.

[Taima]

that's not good...i'm pretty sure my graphics card is AGP.
It's a BFG GeForce 6200 256mb OC. So much stuff to buy...so little money...lol.

What I'll probably end up doing is if I can't afford to get it all, I'll get the mobo and the RAM...I think lol idk...

[Daveskater]

Most likely that is AGP. I think they only did a few of the higher end 6-series with PCI-e versions.

Do you have a socket 775 Intel CPU at the mo? Because if you do then you could keep that and get the 6750 later. You can get a decent graphics card for the same price as that CPU, and you could actually save money if you get the right one. The main reason that Link's PC gets high framerates is becaues he has a brand spanking new card, the 9600GS. Seeing as you currently have a 6200, you wouldn't get what he gets now. I have a BFG 8600GS OC (AGP) and get fair framerates on some games, but I have a slow-ish single core CPU so it could be better, plus my mobo is only AGP 4x and not 8x, so the data transfer between the graphics card and my mobo is half of what it could be.

I'll take a peek at Newegg and see what graphics cards I can find, if you want

This card is good, and pre-OC'd by 140MHz, plus it comes with a Zalman cooler already on it: Newegg.com - XFX PVT84JUSD4 GeForce 8600GT 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail

[link590o]

aha...that could indeed present a problem.

i should've remembered to ask about the graphics card you already had...man that was stupid.

well, at least i can enlighten you as to why it wouldn't give you amazing performance even with an awesome processor and such. the reason being that the 6200 or any other lower-end card can only do so much. it'll max out at a given point, and then the rest of the computer actually has to slow down to match the graphics card.

dave has the best idea of where to go from here. if your processor will fit the LGA 775 socket of the new motherboard, then you'd be in great shape with a new video card mobo and ram until you found the money to get a new processor. it's just going to be tough to find a mobo, proc, ram, and video card deal for under 300 bucks if not impossible. you'd have to dip down into the lower end models and that's never a good idea because your screwing yourself over and you might be getting a very low quality product.

had i the money i'd buy you a graphics card . and i would do so because i was in almost exactly the same position you were in. i could buy almost everything i needed but the graphics. but i had a very basic card. an old ATI pci card. that card was meant for office work and displaying graphs in 2 dimensions. not hardcore gaming haha. but i had to rely on that until i found the money for my current which i bought only about a week ago.

[Taima]

lol how sweet of you. I'm gettin even more sure that I'm gonna have ot wait for more paychecks which means the 21st or more
What do you think about buying a couple of parts when I get paid on the 7th and worrying about the rest for the next check? If you agree, then which ones should I get first.

Also, I have a Socket 762 so that wouldn't work. I also know that it's gonna be over $300 if I'm getting a processor. it's inevitable if I want a good one.

btw link, your sig is funny "Guess wher this from wthout searching or asking and you will win at life" well I know it's Dragonforce - Through the Fire and the Flames but I doubt i'll win at life lol

[link590o]

hahaha good job! i honestly didn't expect anyone to guess it. i'm surprised by how few people actually know it. on another tech forum i signed up for, almost everyone was governed by techno music. very few rockers. so i was a bit disappointed. the few rockers that were there at all barely listened to anything that i did. hence the sig. the song and the group is getting more fame now that they're in Guitar Hero 3.

as for the parts you should buy...it really depends on what you'd like to make sure you have above all else. the sad thing is they'll just be sitting there gathering dust until you finally get the rest of the parts.

since you'll be waiting anyway and would like some parts in your hands now, i'd suggest getting a nice graphics chip or failing that your motherboard, and RAM. if i remember right, you have something to the effect of 200 dollars or so? 200 will allow for a 9600gt or an ATI 3870. either one is good, just go by your preference. ati or nvidia. a lot of people will say nvidia.

at least you'll be able to plug the new power supply straight into your tower right away. your PC will definitely thank you for that and so will your electric bill. higher efficiency power supplies maintain the flow of current better and they end up drawing out less electricity than a lower efficiency one. that power supply up there is very sweet for the price.

there's one other important thing to look at with building this PC. will the new motherboard recognize your hard drive? if you're using an ATA/IDE drive that uses the really wide ribbon, then you'll probably be out of luck when you get the new mobo and try to install windows.

when i bought my new PC, i thought i'd skimp on getting a new hd, but i ended up buying a new one after all when it refused to see the darn thing. one other crucial detail to look into.

doesn't this sorta suck? you want to upgrade maybe one or two things and it forces you into buying everything new

oh and i just remembered one other thing. your power supply. if you're using the one that came stock with the computer, that'll be no good for the new one. if you want to game, you need good graphics and a good processor and that requires high energy. and if you have a basic 250 or 300 watt, you'll be screwed. if you don't have a good one, i'd recommend looking into a Corsair 450 watt psu. 70 dollars on newegg.