Does anyone have a Dual Core 2 extreme?

TonyLisaP

I have been thinking of upgrading my Dual Core 2 2.4 to a Dual Core Extreme but this is a very expensive operation. Has anyone done this and was the performance increase worth the wonger?

superscaper

I'm still chugging along on my Athlon XP 1800+.

So don't ask me.

Definitely going to have to get around to the major upgrade of my system one of these days.

TonyLisaP

I used to upgrade my Motherboard, CPU, RAM every six months or so but I cannot afford to do that these days.:mad:

globalds

Thats my next project .
I'm busy scouring hotukdeals for bits that will go together for the right price .
If any body has already made a list of reasonably priced components for a project like this ...Or who have tried with the Phenom (I know quad core,but just been reduced) ..It would be interesting to hear your oppinions.

turbobob

Not worth the money IMO. I am using a 1.86ghz (E6300) Core 2 processor which is running at just under 3 ghz, and has been for over a year. No stability issues at all.

Most motherboards (probably not Dell etc but most motherboards you buy seperately) will allow you to increase the FSB (front side bus) to some extent. This increases the speed of the processor.

Assuming you have an E6600 2.4ghz processor, increasing the FSB from 266 to 333 mhz will have the processor running at 3ghz. This would be easy in an overclocking friendly motherboard. You might have to adjust the memory speed to keep it stable, and experiment with the settings but its certainly cheaper than buying an "extreme" chip.

TonyLisaP

Trouble is that my RAM is DDR2 PC5400 and I don't think that will take a FSB increase very well at all. I suppose I could just buy better RAM and have a go at that.

turbobob

TonyLisaP wrote: »

Trouble is that my RAM is DDR2 PC5400 and I don't think that will take a FSB increase very well at all. I suppose I could just buy better RAM and have a go at that.

Obviously I don't know exactly what parts you are using. What I would do to get it running at 333mhz FSB with that memory on my system would be:

Go into BIOS
Look for a setting that sets the memory/FSB ratio. You would want to set it to a ratio of 1:1 (might also be labelled as PC4200) instead of the 2:3 ratio it probably is set to at the moment. That means if your FSB runs at 333mhz, your memory also will, which will mean the memory is not being overclocked.

TonyLisaP

No Wonder they call you Turbobob :T

ollyk

superscaper wrote: »

I'm still chugging along on my Athlon XP 1800+.

So don't ask me.

Definitely going to have to get around to the major upgrade of my system one of these days.

hehe I just did my major upgrade...

Abit KT7A raid to a second hand Asus A7n8x same processor an XP2100+ which was overclocked on the KT7A to 2Ghz (and very stable:cool: ) This processor has followed me round since year dot now and I think we have got a stable thing going on here :rotfl:

Now I have ordered a Dual core lappy so I bet this old bird ain't going to see as much use..

Sorry OP can't help with your question...

turbobob

TonyLisaP wrote: »

No Wonder they call you Turbobob :T

:rotfl:

Good luck with it. Something I would say is before you make changes, go and check out your BIOS settings and write them down. Also find out where the "clear CMOS" jumper is on the motherboard. Using this, if the worst happens and you make a change which results in it not booting, you can get it back to factory defaults by clearing the CMOS.

TonyLisaP

turbobob wrote: »

:rotfl:

Good luck with it. Something I would say is before you make changes, go and check out your BIOS settings and write them down. Also find out where the "clear CMOS" jumper is on the motherboard. Using this, if the worst happens and you make a change which results in it not booting, you can get it back to factory defaults by clearing the CMOS.

To be honest I will probably not overclock the machine, it runs superbly anyway. I will probably overclock it once I get some software on it that runs slow. Thanks for your help though, I will bear it in mind! :beer: