Boris Liberman wrote:
Igor Roshchin wrote:
I am choosing between Core Duo and Intel I7 (Quad Core).
If I go for the latter, I will probably choose something close to this
set:
I7 2.66 or 3 GHz ASUS P6T motherboard, Otherwise:
Intel Core 2 Duo system: ASUS P5Q SE, E8400 or E8500 CPU
The I7 is probably a bit faster overall, even at a lower clock speed,
for normal usage. Get the fastest memory that the motherboard supports.
I expected things to get better, but was shocked at how much more
responsive my E8500 system was after replacing the 4GB of PC2-6400
(800MHz) memory with 4GB of PC2-8500 (DDR2 1066MHz) memory.
This is what I chose, I mean the E8400 and some motherboard by Gigabyte.
Personally, I always use Intel CPUs, and I buy Asus or Gigabyte or MSI
motherboards and not really anything else. I've had too many problems
with other brands, like certain boards only liking certain types of
memory, often inferior ones (quality or throughput). The Intel boards
are probably good, but I've never used them because they're often down
on the bang-for-the-buck meter.
I've 8GB memory on board [...]
If you're using a 64-bit Windows, be careful about 64-bit drivers. A
fair amount of gear that's as little as two or three years old doesn't
have and won't ever get 64-bit Windows drivers. I don't know what the
situation is for 64-bit Linux/BSD/*nix or MacOS. This seems especially
to be true of cheaper products, like by US$50 Canon LiDE 50 flatbed
scanner. In some cases, I think the 32-bit drivers can be used in
64-bit XP, Vista, or 7, but I'm not sure of that, and I am sure that
some just won't work without 64-bit Windows drivers.
One thing though, the CPU fan that came with E8400 sucked big time.
I always use Zalman fan/heatsink combos. The CNPS9700 series works
particularly well with the LGA775 socket CPUs and MBs. They are a
little pricey (around US$50 on NewEgg.com) but they work well and
they're quiet. ThermalTake is another quality brand for cooling
accessories and quiet cases, too.
Some say that E8400 is very much into overclocking, but so far I haven't
had a real need to do it. It works fine as it is.
With the right motherboard, the E8300/E8400/E8500 can be heavily
overclocked. The E8500 has a base clock of 3.16GHz but I've heard of
them run up as high as 4.4GHz with the right motherboard and cooling
solutions. Personally, I don't overclock, mainly because I don't have
the time or inclination to do the tuning.
BTW, my current main system, right at a year old is:
E8500 3.16GHz Core 2 Duo
Asus P5Q-E (P45, ICH10R)
4GB (2x2GB) PC2-8500 (DDR2 1066MHz) DRAM
nVidia 9800GT 512MB PCI Express 2.0 video
4 x 320GB SATA-II drives in RAID 10 (striped over two mirror pairs)
Windows XP Pro SP3 32-bit usually
Windows 7 Pro 64-bit occasionally now that I have the RTM version
64-bit Linux (Ubuntu or SuSE) when I spend the time to get the RAID
drivers to properly coexist with the Windows RAID
That motherboard (Asus P5Q-E), and many other Asus boards, have a bunch
of on-board overclocking support built in and settable through the BIOS
configuration screens.
--
Thanks,
DougF (KG4LMZ)
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