Upgrading an e2160 to a e5200 worth the money?

[jay29geo_31]

anyone know if its worth while to upgrade my e2160 to a e5200. i have a gigabyte ga-p35-ds3l and two sticks of patriot ram oc to like 1088. the cpu is oc to around 3.06. My nvidia 8800 gts went bad on me after only about a month of use, its over a year old but ive been using my laptop for the last 11 months and barely put any use on it. So, im going to buy a ati 4870 512mb card from new egg for around 150 i believe and i was worried the 2160 might be a bottleneck on it. i was thinking perhaps the extra cache and being its 45 nm instead of 65 i might be able to run it closer to 4ghz but im not entirely sure of this board will support that high of a oc. anyone have any ideas and thoughts? its about 75 bucks for the new cpu and im thinking going from 3 to 4 ghz plus extra cache might be a worth while upgrade, considering im using xp and not vista, and this is for gaming. if not this, i could get the unlocked tri core new amd chip, new mb and ddr3 ram, but honestly its quite a bit more expensive upgrade and im not sure if i would notice it using xp and just for games, any thoughts on this are welcome

 

[Shadow703793]

The E2160 @ 3Ghz will not bottle neck 4870. You need insane voltage and probably water cooling to get 4Ghz on E5200. Any ways, mind listing PSU?

 

[jay29geo_31]

my power supply is a cooler master 500 watt, i think its decent, i just got a antec 300 case at frys also, kinda small. ok see im agreeing with this last post, ive read its easy to get up near 4ghz with the e5200, and i have a cooler master cooler with a huge fan, it got good reviews when i bought it, so having said that, is it worth 75$ to go from 3.06 to near 4 ghz and a twice the cache? anyone anyone? i can always return the cpu to frys if im unpleased with the overclock, but at this point i dont see the benefit of getting a quad core, im trying to slightly upgrade my system till the prices drop on the new gen of stuff in like 6-9 months and or when they release windows 7

 

[jay29geo_31]

so do you think im losing out on staying with the p35 instead of a p45 chipset?
a new gigabyte mb is like 99 bucks with the p45

 

[jay29geo_31]

i figure at the point of $100 for a board and $75 for the chip i might as well get the new 45 nm unlocked amd tricore and oc it , $140 and $150 course then i need some ddr 3 ram, $89, i wish i knew how much faster the amd was then a 4ghz dual core, it might not be faster at all in most applications but nobody ever compares this type of thing that ive seen.

 

[jay29geo_31]

ahh crap, i have the f8 bios and my system wont boot up, and the chart says i need the f9 beta bios for this particular chip......how did i miss that = / lol, how do you update the bios when the system wont boot up at all? i can only think of one way and that seems like i would have to take everything back apart lol..........

 

[Shadow703793]

^Put old chip back in and use QFlash.

 

[jay29geo_31]

do you think it will boot with the f9 beta bios?, what is qflash

 

[Shadow703793]

^Read the manual. It will explain how to use Qflash to flash BIOS. NEVER USE @BIOS (Windows BIOS flashing util) to Flash BIOS

 

[ooo]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/overclock-e5200-radeon,2144-6.html
E5200 + p45 = 4.00Ghz at 1.504 volts ...

 

[Shadow703793]

I ALWAYS use @bios without a problem

Bad idea. 80% of the time it can lead to problems. Most here and other places (xtremesystems,etc) don't recommend flashing through Windows.

 

[jay29geo_31]

i dont have a p45 i have a p35, if i did i wouldnt need to update the bios that board ships ready

 

[jay29geo_31]

ok, i just got it up and running, without changing the voltage, i can hit 3.57ghz with a 10.5 multiplier and 1088 on the ram, at 340 mhz, this is a e5200 on the old gigabyte ga-p35-ds3l board with the f9 beta bios. anyone have any suggestions on if i should raise the voltage to speed things up? its unstable at anything past 3.57 that i have found so far? what voltage are yall using to get close to 4ghz?

 

[jay29geo_31]

ok, i raised the voltage to 1.357 and its running at 3787mhz according to cpu-z, though in order for it to be stable i had to lower the oc on my ram down to 1000 from 1088, 303 mhz instead of the 340 mhz it was stable at 3.57mhz, so basically i spent 74 bucks to go from 1mb to 2mb of cache and 3.06 to 3.787, was it worth it? how can i tell lol =/ i was really hoping for closer to 4ghz, i have a good cpu fan on it and a good case, theres no hot air coming off this deal at all, but its not stable at anything past this that i can figure out, someone help if they can, do i need to raise the voltage on the northbridge or anything else in the bios besides the cpu?

 

[Shadow703793]

^Try FSB over voltage and MCH.

 

[Shadow703793]

I ALWAYS use @bios without a problem

This is what could happen:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/257815-30-bios-gone-need-people

 

[jay29geo_31]

i dl the bios on a flash drive then used the gigabyte bios update software and added it while in windows xp, it worked fine, new subject ok so what do you suggest i raise the voltage to? on the mch and fsb? and is 3785 good for this cpu? honestly i cant tell any difference in the boot up, it almost seems slower but it cant be

 

[jay29geo_31]

ok so, i got it stable at 3979 running a 1.45 volts, sweet