P965 DS3 Rev. 1 with 45nm Quad

[derek2006]

Currently I have a Gigabyte P965 DS3 Rev. 1 paired with an E6400 2.13ghz. It is at 407mhz fsb for a total speed of 3.27GHZ. However, I would like to get a quad core chip. The Q6600 is very expensive compared to other chips like the Q8300 or Q8200 (The ones im looking into). The bios updates for this board stopped at F10. But for rev 2 and 3.3 they go up to F15 and all support some of the 45nm line. Mine claims that the 45nm chips are unsupported. But I am running the bios F14 (6 months now) which is also claimed to be unsupported for my board. If I bought a Q8300 would it work or is there a specific problem that would arise? Also I would like to clock it up to about 3-3.2ghz.

 

[badge]

The 965 with proper BIOS 'may' support a 45nm quad, but a lot of problems with the 965 chipset and 45nm processors have been reported. I have two 965's and have never tried my 45nm processors on either. Q6600 65nm runs great. I would suspect the 965 chipset does not provide the proper voltage and/or wattage for the 45nm. I dont know that for sure.

 

[derek2006]

That's kind of what I was thinking. But, I just really want to go the cheapest route here. I'm gonna wait to see if anyone knows for sure. Is there a link to some of the reported problems? Also if it will work but not be able to overclock the way I want it that would also be fine. Because then I can upgrade in "steps." First I will get the CPU then later the motherboard.

 

[derek2006]

Should have done more searching. I found the Q6600 OEM style for 190$. Thats in my price range. But I have another questions, can anyone find any benchmarks for GTA IV that show the difference of equally clocked dual cores and quad cores?

 

[The Third Level]

If you can spend 300 i'd just go for a Phenom II 720 + an AM2+ mobo. Easy to OC, more upgrade paths, no issues with chipsets, etc., and possibility to unlock the 4th core.

 

[apache_lives]

Should have done more searching. I found the Q6600 OEM style for 190$. Thats in my price range. But I have another questions, can anyone find any benchmarks for GTA IV that show the difference of equally clocked dual cores and quad cores?

http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,672004/GTA-4-PC-Intel-Core-i7-far-ahead-of-Core-2-Quad-in-CPU-benchmarks/Reviews/

http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,669595/GTA-4-PC-CPU-benchmark-review-with-13-processors/Reviews/?page=2