New processor and mobo

[The Professor]

Right basically I bought this PC 2 years ago and have upgraded everything in it apart from the processor, RAM and mobo. Atm I have an AMD Athlon FX processor @ 2.6GHz and 2GB DDR2 RAM. I wanna upgrade to play games and just basically make everything run coolio.

I was gonna go for a core i5 but I priced up a mobo and processor and that alone came to £240ish for the 2.66Ghz Core i5 750 and like the cheapest mobo. So I looked at the core 2 quads cos they're older and cheaper, saw a core 2 quad Q9400 and again cheapish mobo and that comes to around £180. Is it worth the extra £60 to go with the i5 or should I go for the cheaper one. Or a different one altogether. Bear in mind I have a water cooling system so overclocking isn't really an issue.

+rep for bare help

[N!ck]

i5.

Are you still going to be using an OEM case and PSU?

[The Professor]

Replaced PSU a while ago, keeping same case

[N!ck]

Replaced PSU a while ago, keeping same case

So does that mean you need a m-ATX board then?

[Tomm]

i5. Make sure your cpu backplate for your watercooling will fit though.

[The Professor]

So does that mean you need a m-ATX board then?

Newp its ATX afaik. Its a packard bell ipower one, this one:

http://www.zdnet.fr/zdnet/i/edit/pr/2007/07/packard-Ipower-x9710-sidedark.jpg

Ta Tom, why wouldn't it fit? Thought the size of all that stuff was all standard.

[Tomm]

Nope, you need to make sure it can fit the socket you plan to get. Especially considering its some OEM stuff.


Newp its ATX afaik. Its a packard bell ipower one, this one:

http://www.zdnet.fr/zdnet/i/edit/pr/2007/07/packard-Ipower-x9710-sidedark.jpg

Ta Tom, why wouldn't it fit? Thought the size of all that stuff was all standard.

[The Professor]

Nope, you need to make sure it can fit the socket you plan to get.

I love you :D is there like an easy way to find out? I don't know the model number of the cooling system which isn't helpful :(

[Tomm]

What socket do you have at the moment?


I love you :D is there like an easy way to find out? I don't know the model number of the cooling system which isn't helpful :(

[The Professor]

Socket 939 I do believe

[N!ck]

It's unlikely to fit to be honest.

[Tomm]

Ill second this. However, you could always take the risk. If you did get a retail CPU and found it did not fit you could always fit the stock cooler until you either find a way to fit your watercooling, implement an alternative cooling solution or simply leave the stock cooler on if you don't plan to overclock it.

Although if you find you are unable to locate any means of fitting the watercooling I'd just scrap it along with the case and start fresh since it is useless except for cooling CPUs that are no longer produced :P


It's unlikely to fit to be honest.

[Stephen!]

What CPU block do you currently have?

Please don't say thermaltake

[The Professor]

m8 seriously I'm a PC noob :P No idea what a CPU block is :D The water cooling just came with the computer (H)

Edit: Erm from a google image search it looks like the bit that attaches to the cpu (duh would make sense :P). Afaik its all gigabyte stuffs.

[xxMATTGxx]

m8 seriously I'm a PC noob :P No idea what a CPU block is :D The water cooling just came with the computer (H)

Edit: Erm from a google image search it looks like the bit that attaches to the cpu (duh would make sense :P). Afaik its all gigabyte stuffs.

Probably would be best to take a photo of the inside haha. :P

[The Professor]

Could manage that I spose (H)

[The Professor]

Here is one, don't know how it helps but yknow :P

http://i50.tinypic.com/b97jpl.jpg

[xxMATTGxx]

I know for one thing, you need to clean that machine out. LOL!

[Stephen!]

Hmm, looking at how big the block is I would say that it is a pump+cpu block combo. I'm going to say that it's 100% not going to work with a socket 1156 setup and you'll probably have to build your own custom loop which is going to cost quite a bit. You could maybe recycle the res and perhaps the radiator if it's bigger than 120mm.

However, I think that getting a decent air cooler for the i5 will certainly give you better cooling results than the liquid cooling equipment you have right now.

[The Professor]

Ye I'm not going to go to any major efforts to save it, my friend says he'll buy it off me if I can't use it with the new parts so I'll just put that money towards air cooling. Like I say it just came with the machine :P

@Matt yeah i kinda do :P I'll do it when I get the new stuffs promise