E4400 C2D on an AsRock 4CoreDual-VSTA

[fritzfield1234]

The E4400 has 800mhz FSB and the board can do 1066, so I've heard that running this chip at the higher FSB is a no-brainer. My question is, since I'm not ready to fully upgrade my AGP/DDR, can the E4400 at 1066 on this mobo work with the lower clock speeds of the AGP/DDR or will these peripherals just not work? Will this mobo/CPU allow the lower AGP/DDR to run?

 

[apoppin]

i ran my current e4300 on an ASRock Dual-VSTA and was able to get 2.82Ghz with my AGP x1950p and current RAM

You can lock the PCI and/or AGP bus and play with the FSB without penalty. You also have plenty of options to change the CPU:RAM divider.

A decent MB for what it does

 

[dreddfunk]

Fritz - what type of RAM are you thinking of using (and/or have already on hand)?

apoppin - so the RAM you were using was the Corsair PC6400? I looked on newegg and there seem to be a number of different flavors of the XMS2 2x1GB. I'm just curious which ones you're using, and whether or not you've tried an OC with DDR400 memory on this board.

Just like fritz, this is an upgrade I've been seriously considering. But I've got Patriot 2-3-2-5 DDR400, and I've no real clue just how that will impact any OC on a board like this.

Cheers.

 

[Noema]

Originally posted by: apoppin

A decent MB for what it does

Agreed.

 

[Arkaign]

If you're going C2D, do it right. Back up your stuff, sell your current box for a decent price, then build on new tech. Buying an AGP-based mobo at this time is almost insane. You can find truly excellent boards for $100ish, PCI-Express video cards for cheap (1950XT for $150ish), cheap overclockable DDR2, etc.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: dreddfunk

apoppin - so the RAM you were using was the Corsair PC6400? I looked on newegg and there seem to be a number of different flavors of the XMS2 2x1GB. I'm just curious which ones you're using, and whether or not you've tried an OC with DDR400 memory on this board.

Cheers.

i sold my PC-3500 pretty quickly - i never bothered to even try it as DDR was at a premium and DDR2 prices were falling fast and my 2x1GB XMS was really cheap ... i think about $60 after $50 MIR - TWIN2X2048-6400C4 ... and i got the rebate this week!

i keep trying to buy 2x1GB PC2-8500 but each time a single stick is bad ... i guess that tells me to wait for 2x2GB of the fastest DDR2 ... i guess i won't bother trying WinVista32 with 4GB of RAM [3.2GB "seen"]

and you MIGHT consider just dumping your old stuff before it gets really devalued even more - DDR2 is really cheap - look in Hot Deals; e4300 is going for $70 at Frys [if still available; or a e4400 just over $100], and with a $100 P35 MB [i only spent more to get the Xfire option] it will make a much better system and allow you to really wait till Penryn if you don't mind OC'ing the crap outta C2D - all you need for 2900xt/8800GTS is 2.8Ghz which should be a given.

you can replace that x850xt with a cheap x1950xt and experience much better gaming and performance overall if you can afford to skip the "piecemeal" route like i did. Overall, i didn't spend a lot of extra money doing an in-between upgrade, but i sure wasted a lot of time with a bastage system.

 

[fritzfield1234]

Thanks for responding, Dreadfunk. I have DDR 300.

As far as a major upgrade goes, I would like to wait for PCIe 2.0 to become mainstream, as well as DDR3. By then, there will be lots of P38 mobos around. Thats why I only really want to upgrade the CPU (and of course the necessary mobo).

 

[dreddfunk]

apoppin - that's my other option. It's probably do-able, money-wise, it's just a little more than I'd like to spend. Then again, the components I currently have won't hold any real value much longer. It's really tempting to get a cheaper P35 board and stick an e2140/2160/4300/4400 in it and overclock the heck out of it until Penryn comes. Given that I'm coming from a 3700 Clawhammer, I'd suspect that even a 2140 running at 2.4Ghz would feel like a step up. I'd love to pair that with a GTS 320 but we're so near the fall launch season that I'm hesitant to buy a GTS right this second. I suspect that GTS 320-level performance is about to take a $50-75 drop in price. Oh well, it's the perennial problem.

fritz - makes good sense to me--good luck with the minor upgrade! I don't know that DDR3 or PCIe 2.0 will make a difference to me personally, though I'm sure they will become the best price/performance option at some point.

 

[imported_falacy]

I have a similar board (ASRock 775i65G Rev. 2) with a Pentium 4 531 (3.0GHz, 1MB L2, HT), with 1GB RAM (Kingston CAS 3 DDR 400 - Not certified to overclock to 1066MHz by ASRock) and I am wondering if purchasing the new Pentium Dual-Core E2140 (1.6GHz 1MB Cache) would be an upgrade in terms of xvid encoding, file serving, and gaming at 1024x768 (Windows XP). I have an Powercolor ATi 9800XT video card and for the games I play (WoW, Counter-Strike, Neverwinter Nights) it's perfectly fine, but when I am not gaming it still heats the house quite well...

The idea here is that I really don't play games much anymore (and when I do, I generally play from my laptop anyway), so my desktop is acting more like a server these days. Infact, I have been considering popping out the video card to save some electricity. My powersupply has seen better days and I'll be replacing it with at a high effeciency model shortly as well. So, with the E2140 being so inexpensive and power efficient, it seems to be the best bet for an upgrade - provided it will out perform the CPU I currently have.

As of yet, I haven't found a Pentium 4 HT vs Pentium D vs Pentium Dual-Core review, but that is essentially what I'd like to have look at.