I built my own computer about 3 years ago. I have only done this once from scratch, so I am not real savvy about the fine points. I am considering upgrading the processor and am trying to figure out what my options are without having to upgrade the mother board also. How do I determine what processors are compatible with this motherboard, especially those released after the motherboard was made?
The motherboard has a LGA 775 socket. I am currently using an Intel E8500. Th motherboard specs say it supports “Core 2 Quad / Core 2 Extreme / Core 2 Duo”. I am thinking of, for example a Q9550but I don’t know if my hardware/software will take full advantage of a quad core.
Do I look at the socket type? Is there a one-to-one correspondence for compatibility of sockets and chips?
If I need to upgrade the motherboard to increase options or to be able to use more modern processors, feel free to make a recommendation.
I am currently using Vista Home Premium 64-bit but would also like to upgrade to Windows 7. I play very few games but I do some video editing, which pegs the CPU. Right now, for example, my video software is projecting 4 hours to generate an HD video of 15 minutes.
hoo boy, this one is a bit tough. DFI apparently got out of the consumer motherboard business, but the bags of dicks also seemed to pull all of their support pages for those products. The page for the P35 chipset:
I hope I’m not stepping on toes, but you can get an i5-2300 processor with a motherboard and 8gb of DDR3 memory for $25 more than the price of the processor you’re thinking about. You’d be looking at much newer technology all around and the i5-2300 is a stronger processor. Obviously you can spend more than that and get better still but, for the price point, I’d drop the extra twenty-five bucks.
Also, I don’t much about video encoding but you can compare potential CPU choices using the chart at Tom’s Hardware. The last four categories are about video work. The i5-2300 out performs the Q9550 in each test.
I should also mention that I’m assuming you have, or will be upgrading to, a 64-bit version of Windows as you’ll need it to use the 8gb memory. Otherwise, you’re limited to 4gb.
My apology for a bump but the memory I linked was a little off for that board. This is more appropriate (same gb, same price, correct speed). Also I saw you already have a 64 bit OS so no worries there.
Not trying to shill for a site, but I’ve been a Newegg customer for over a decade for building all my pcs.
One thing I like that they do - you can search for a processor by socket type. Here’s the search for LGA 775 sockets. I won’t promise every one would work with your mobo, but it’s a good place to start.
That said, I agree with the earlier posters. Especially since you said your main processor concern was in video encoding. Newer processors (and their required chipsets/sockets) are much, much better at video encoding; the incremental increase you’d get from a new 775 socket chip wouldn’t be worth the price. Time to upgrade that mobo and CPU.
Not all CPUs that fit a socket will work in every motherboard with that socket. Often revisions of processors get released that have the same socket, but require a different BIOS to properly interact with them. Usually a motherboard manufacturer will update their BIOS to properly support the new revision, but not always.
In this case, I’m fairly sure it would. I actually had that exact motherboard with my E8400 - and the Q9xxx series is the same technology as the E8xxx series, just with more cores. Before you upgrade the CPU, make sure that you’ve got the latest version of the BIOS, but it probably wouldn’t be an issue.
That said, those who say that the CPU is 2 generations behind are correct and for something that old you may as well buy something new, unless you can get a good deal on a used one.
I understand the attraction of doing a fairly simple upgrade rather than building a new machine, but here’s something you should take a look at.
Anantech, one of the premier computer hardware websites, has a wonderful little application that let’s you directly compare 2 CPU’s based on how each performs on a huge variety and number of benchmarks.
Since the 9550 is the same price as the much newer i7-2600 (both by Intel), I plugged those models in. Here are the results. You will see that while the 9550 is markedly better on a handful of related benchmarks, the 2600 blows it’s doors off with respect to almost everything else (actually I used the 2600k, but unless you plan to overclock the computer, you won’t care about that).
Part of the reason for the difference is that i7 chips have an advanced form of hyperthreading that makes the 2600’s 4 cores perform like between 6 and 8 cores. In fact it can actually run 8 simultaneous threads on the 4 cores. I think the 2600 also has video capabilities built into the CPU, but you will need an LGA 1155 board that can access that part of the CPU in order to use it for driving a monitor or tv. Only some 1155 boards have that feature.
Of course it’s not really fair to compare just the chips though. If you went with an i7, in addition to a new motherboard, you would also need new DRAM. I think all of the socket 775 boards used DDR2 RAM and all of the new boards use DDR3. However that memory is cheaper so you will get more memory that is much faster for less (probably) than what you paid for the RAM in your system right now.
The thing is that I could go back and forth like this all day first telling you all the cool stuff and then turning around and bumming you out. For example you could get something like an i7-2500 that’s about $100 less and would therefore cover the cost of the new motherboard.
Anyway, if you’re still reading, I just wanted you know what some of your options are.
Thanks to all for the information, I will be looking at a whole new mobo/processor combo of some sort. I am hesitating because the only time I really feel constrained is when my video editor (CyberLink PowerDirector) renders the video file, and it’s not something I do that frequently.
Does the OS or application have to be designed to take advantage of a quad core?
The OS has to support multi-core and Windows does. A single application needs to support multi-threading and PowerDirector does. It can also use your graphics card processor to speed rendering. Even if a particular application doesn’t support multi-threading, running multiple applications do.
In computer enthusiast circles, there is always the pressure to “buy up”, so I will refrain from telling you what level of performance you need. In general though, the level of performance in switching out a CPU for a faster one is typically minimal. These days I replace the motherboard, cpu and ram all at the same time, which guaranties compatibility. That said, if your motherboard isn’t over two years of age, a BIOS upgrade will make it compatible with modern CPUs of the same socket type most of the time. You have to confirm this with the motherboard companies website ahead of time.
I’d say the stickler here is that “buying up” with a new MB/CPU/RAM is only minimally more money than he was already looking to invest in a new outdated processor.
More hassle though since now a lot more has to come out, so there’s that.
I agree. The OP is already hitting bottleneck on at least one application. So this isn’t a situation where someone has an old Pentium but only uses it for web surfing and email. That means that not only is an upgrade justified, but that it is appropriate to weight the cost of various options against the performance gain. Better performance will mean longer periods between upgrades but will also mean disproportionately higher costs as you move toward the high end of the curve.
One thing that was mentioned by someone else and which I’d like to highlight is that since the app the OP is concerned with does video encoding, it may be possible to drastically improve performance with just an upgrade of the video card. While AMD/ATI cards tend to have better price/performance, I think nVidia’s CUDA architecture is more widely supported.
Right now things are getting a bit stagnant, though. Unless you’re doing something that taxes the CPU to its limit, there isn’t a whole heck of a lot to be gained going from a Core 2 Duo/Quad to an i5/i7.
yeah, I can understand exiting the market, but getting rid of the support information was a total dick move.
Thanks again for the additional posts. If I do anything at all, it will be a combo upgrade as suggested, mobo+CPU+memory. When I render a video file, both processors run at 100%, but nothing else I do is an issue. I don’t do much gaming. I do a lot of photo editing but those tasks tend not to be overly CPU-bound. So this isn’t exactly urgent. But it’s been 3.5 years since I built the thing so it wouldn’t kill me to spend $300 or so on an upgrade. The benefit to building my own machine is that this type of upgrade is cheaper than buying a whole new machine.