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:



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:



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 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 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