Topic: Mobo and memory upgrade.

[cookiemonster]

Hello to all and if i may say so this forum does look the bee's knees. Followed a link from Simon (Mod) over at Idnet and here i am. I do like building and tinkering with PC's so this place should suit me down to the ground. Ok...

I currently have a Quad Core Q6600, but the motherboard and Ram it came with are very inadequate and seem to be holding the CPU from it's full potential. I have done some research and I'm aware of the various chipsets for Intel..P31,P35,X38 and the new X48 which i believe is DDR3. My question is which one? Is it worth while moving to DDR3 while Ram prices are slightly cheaper?

Now on the subject of Ram which speed would be best for the above mentioned CPU, i currently have 2Gb of PC4200 which i think is seriously limiting my CPU, which has a rated FSB of 1066Mhz. I do play a lot of current DX10 games so the faster the Ram the better. Would adding another 1Gb benefit me also? I would not venture over the 3Gb mark as i heard Windows Vista has problems addressing Ram over 3Gb.

Any info and advice is greatly appreciated.

Regards Jester.

[Simon]

Hi Jester, and    Thanks for your nice comments. 

I'm hoping Sandra will be in tonight, as she would be great at advising you on this.

[Sandra]

Hi Jester and

Afraid Simons confidence in me may be a little over optomistic on this occassion 

I wouldnt have thought that your current mobo was the bottle neck, unless its FSB was a lot lower than that of the CPU.
DDR2 ram is cheap at the moment as you say but I think we are limited in choice and therefore price for DDR3.
I would be tempted to go for 4 gig DDR2 at the fastest speed that your current mobo can take and get low CL ram.

I know you said about Vista not addressing over 3 gig but I think this is the 32 bit OS limitation and applies to XP as well as Vista.
I recently read that someone upgrading Vista to SP1 has found that its now reporting the correct amount of ram when using 4 gig and seems to be running fine with it.

[cookiemonster]

Hi Jester and

Afraid Simons confidence in me may be a little over optomistic on this occassion 

I wouldnt have thought that your current mobo was the bottle neck, unless its FSB was a lot lower than that of the CPU.
DDR2 ram is cheap at the moment as you say but I think we are limited in choice and therefore price for DDR3.
I would be tempted to go for 4 gig DDR2 at the fastest speed that your current mobo can take and get low CL ram.

I know you said about Vista not addressing over 3 gig but I think this is the 32 bit OS limitation and applies to XP as well as Vista.
I recently read that someone upgrading Vista to SP1 has found that its now reporting the correct amount of ram when using 4 gig and seems to be running fine with it.

Hi sandra and thanks for the comments.

The problem with the current Motherboard is that it can only take 2Gb of PC4200/533 single channel Ram which i already have installed. I would really like to have faster rated and dual channel Ram.

[Rik]

I could get very confused with so many of us appearing in both forums.

[cookiemonster]

I could get very confused with so many of us appearing in both forums.

Is there anywhere your not at Rik?

[Simon]

Have to admit to being wary of upgrading one or two components, as I have often found that this or that isn't compatible, and the amount of components you have to replace starts to snowball. 
 
A probably worthless thought, but would it be worth checking if there are any upgrades available for your existing motherboard, to enable it to accept more RAM?

[cookiemonster]

Have to admit to being wary of upgrading one or two components, as I have often found that this or that isn't compatible, and the amount of components you have to replace starts to snowball. 
 
A probably worthless thought, but would it be worth checking if there are any upgrades available for your existing motherboard, to enable it to accept more RAM?

Yeah i did look into that, but it seems the chipset of the motherboard is not the greatest and is no longer being used in the mainstream. It would seem my only option is new Motherboard, Ram. I've already replaced the PSU and DVD drive, apart from that the rest of the components are reasonably good.

[Sandra]

Sorry I didnt realise that your mobo was restricted to 2 gig ram and would only take 533 in single channel mode.
So I agree with you that your mobo is restricting your CPUs performance, I wonder why they used that CPU with such a poor mobo  

So that leaves you with the dilemma of going with a mobo that takes DDR3 or DDR2.
I personally would go for a mid range mobo which takes 4 gig DDR2 in dual channel mode and use that for the time being.
When DDR3 capable mobos are more common and there is a better choice of DDR3 manufacturers and speeds then you could possibly have another reasonably cheap upgrade to put you on for another 6 months or so.

Hope that gives you some food for thought  

[cookiemonster]

Sorry I didnt realise that your mobo was restricted to 2 gig ram and would only take 533 in single channel mode.
So I agree with you that your mobo is restricting your CPUs performance, I wonder why they used that CPU with such a poor mobo 

So that leaves you with the dilemma of going with a mobo that takes DDR3 or DDR2.
I personally would go for a mid range mobo which takes 4 gig DDR2 in dual channel mode and use that for the time being.
When DDR3 capable mobos are more common and there is a better choice of DDR3 manufacturers and speeds then you could possibly have another reasonably cheap upgrade to put you on for another 6 months or so.

Hope that gives you some food for thought 

Thanks for the info. Well i think your right about going down the DDR2 route. I can pick up 4GB PC2-8500C5 1066MHz for £99.86 inc VAT...or 4GB PC2-6400C5 800MHz for £64.61 inc VAT. As for motherboard i'm not sure which current chipset to go for. Do you have any knowledge on the latest range..X38,P35?

[Sandra]

I havent built or upgraded a pc this year so havent really been looking at the latest developments recently.
So you are probably more up to date with what the flavour of the month is than I am.
I am a bit tied up with various non pc things at the moment but if I get chance over the next few days I will try and find time to look into what seems to be the best bang per buck at the moment, as I will probably end up having to build one in the next few months for someone.

[Rik]

Is there anywhere your not at Rik?

Second Life - I need to get a life first.

[cookiemonster]

I havent built or upgraded a pc this year so havent really been looking at the latest developments recently.
So you are probably more up to date with what the flavour of the month is than I am.
I am a bit tied up with various non pc things at the moment but if I get chance over the next few days I will try and find time to look into what seems to be the best bang per buck at the moment, as I will probably end up having to build one in the next few months for someone.

Ok and thank you for your suggestions and input. I shall have a look around and see if i can find any reviews etc etc.