[QUOTE="eikast"]

Save some more money and get an E8500.

Get rid of the glasses and get the Arctic cooler pro 7.

Also if you can, try to get the CM 932 HAF Case. I just got mine today and I must say, it was worth the 150 dollars :D

Slig0

I totally disagree. E8500 is only a higher clocked E8400. That is like buying an I7 950 over 920 for 0.4 clock difference that "justifies" $200 price difference. So, save money and get a decent PII or an I7, and of course a better graphics card like GTX260.

There is not a 200 dollar difference. Not even the E8400 to E8600 is a 200 dolalr price difference.

E8400 is 167.99

E8500 is 189.99

E8600 is 269.99

E8600 is not worth it unless you have a lot of money and don't mind upgrading when the time comes when more games make use of quad core, but when that time comes current CPU will not be that great. Also keep in mind there are very few PC exclusive games, even the new crysis game is going to be released on consoles.

Quad is okay for gaming, and would be worth it if the motherboard/ram wasn't so expensive. I have an E8500 @ 400*9.5 (E8400 has its multiplier locked at 9.0) and I have had no trouble with games. I have a HD4870 512 so I wasn't able to push the graphics on GTA because of the locked graphic settings. (I only tried it around the time it was released for the PC)

In my opinion the 20 dollars is worth the extra .5 multiplier. The difference is if you set the FSB to 400mhz would be 3.8ghz vs 3.6 ghz.

It will start up perfectly and will shutdown from windows. Yesterday I got my CM 932 HAF so I moved everything over. First the restart switch isn't even doing anything but I probably never configured the "restart"switch on my bios since I never used it with my old case. But my main concern is my computer will not restart from windows or even when I make a change in the bios, the settings will be saved but it will not restart.

MB: EP45-DS3L

I also inserted my Vista cd for repair but it said nothing needed repair.

I almost never restart my pc but obviously restarts are important for updates so that's what's scaring me.

I thought I may have damaged my motherboard but when I think about it, if I damaged it then it probably wouldn't even boot.

Save some more money and get an E8500.

Get rid of the glasses and get the Arctic cooler pro 7.

Also if you can, try to get the CM 932 HAF Case. I just got mine today and I must say, it was worth the 150 dollars :D

[QUOTE="eikast"]

First of all I'm not very knowledgable with AMD. But i'll tell you the general idea. First of all though, you should've gotten a HD4850/4870, since they're pretty cheap because of the 4890.

Anyway how certain people can OC better than others depend on multiple factors.

First are things you are in control of, such as CPU cooling. (People with water cooling keep their CPU cooler than people with Air therefore can push their chips better if both chips are exactly the same)

Now you should look for the defualt voltage for your CPU (Never have the bios set to auto). Then you can configure FSB or multiplier, for example I have an E8500 @ 400x9.5 which is 3.8 ghz, difference between E8400,8500 and 8600 is the multplier. Each other is set differenctly in order 9,9.5,10 being the max multiplier.

But okay now back to the current subject, start off with defualt voltage and make changes to your FSB then run a program to test stability. I use OCCT set for an hour. If there is a problem it's usually because the CPU doesn't have enough power to operate. So therefore you have to raise the voltage to the CPU.

Also remember more voltage= more heat to CPU. As the CPU stays hotter for a long period of time its life time decreases. That's where the cooling checks in, to keep the CPU cooler making it so you can push your CPU to its limits.

For example the max for the E8400/8500/8600 I believe is 1.35 or 1.40 Volt, I run on air with Artic Cooler Pro 7 with a mid tower case that doesn't have that great air flow so I have my voltage set to around 1.280 (defualt is suppose to be 1.25). 1.28 was the magic number that my CPU was able to be stay stable at 3.8 ghz.

Now the thing that is out of your control is the quality of your chip. for example, i've heard of some lucky individuals who were able to OC their E8500 to 3.8 ghz with barely changing the defualt voltage. Why is that? They were lucky and got a better quality chip. Things like that are out of your control.

I'm not a hard core OCer but I attempted my best at helping you.

P.S. not sure if I mentioned but I'm not very knowledgable with AMD.

SaPhIrX_lOl

learned something as well. but about "Never have bios set to auto"? if i have auto whats the consequence?

Well theoretically the life time of your CPU or any component will be reduced because of the extra heat. Think of it in simple turns with the heat of the rubber on your tires, after so many miles be driven the coeffient of friction will be reduced which will lower the quality of the tire. Although the material is completely different, it is some what similar with the issue of heat. However the CPU will last for more than you'll actually use it as long as you have proper cooling and know what you're doing with the voltage and don't fry your CPU.

Now with the auto feature, well from what I noticed when I had it set to auto in my bios, cpuz would show the voltage of my CPU fluctuate but it was mostly within the 1.30-1.33V range. Which is excessive since I can run it stable at 1.28V. Basically you want to reduce as much heat as possible, which is why you should try to avoid auto settings.

OC'ing is pretty fun, just experiment with marginal steps. Or if you want look on google to find people who have OC'd their CPU which is the same as yours. For example, before I OC'd mine I found from google that most of the people I read up on that had the E8500 had it OC'd to 3.8ghz then from there I just did the basic math. 9.5x400=3800

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4786505&CatId=17

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4914290&CatId=17

2.8Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 3MB Cache FSB 1066
Stock Intel LGA775 Heatsink and Fan
ASUS P5KPL-CM (Intel GMA 3100 Video, G31, PCIEx, 8-Channel Audio, LAN, 4xSATA2, 2xDDR2, 1333FSB)
2GB (2GBx1) PC6400 DDR2 800Mhz Memory Lifetime Warranty
320GB 7200RPM 16MB Cache Serial ATA300
22X LG Dual Layer DVD+/-RW/CDRW w/Nero
512MB nVidia GeForce GTS 250 GDDR3 PCI Express DVI/Tvout
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 32bit SP1
Antec Black 300 (3 5.25, 6 3.5 bays) 2 Fans, Front Audio/USB/1394
500watt Antec EarthWatts EA500
Onboard LAN included
Onboard Sound included
Standard 1 year parts and labor

ecollegepc.com
Total price (that includes shipping)$686.00
No tax.

Or mess around with cyberpowerpc.com

Itwouldnt be better to go ahead and get the 1gb one. i plan on playing games besides rts on it.

rolltide101x

If you're talking about 1gb video card, then no.

If the question was Hd4870 512mb or Hd4870 1gb i'd say go for the 1gb.

But with a low end card, no 512 is fine. You have a single core Celeron at 2.7 ghz, am I correct?

If so then a 9500GT is the best you should get. Also keep in mind better graphics card require good power supplies and HP usually gives pretty crappy power supplies. I use to use an HP, then I THEN(accidently put just) realized instead of wasting time on it i'd save and either build one or buy a custom made pc.

The old HP I had wasn't extremely bad at it's time though, it had an AMD 4600+x2, I had an 8600 GTS with it.

buy from tigerdirect, new egg and possbily amazon.

Just look around, some times one of those sites has a deal superior than the rest.

I live in CA, i have to pay taxes for newegg, but not for amazon or tigerdirect.

Tiger direct usually has 2 dollar shipping for certain items, while sometimes newegg has an item priced lower with free shipping. It all depends.

And honestly 1gb for Vista ultimated is really low. Upgrade to 2gb of ram. What's your curent graphs card? Or is it integraded (onboard)?

Also if anything that processor is really crappy.

Windows 98SE/ME/2000/XP
1.0 GHz Processor
256MB RAM
2.9 GB HDD space
8x CD-ROM drive
64 MB DirectX 9.0b compatible Video Card
DirectX 9.0b compatible 16-bit sound card

Honestly a 9400Gt would be fine for that game, anything higher would just be a waste with that processor.

Just get this

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9182831&type=product&id=1218049408411

9500 GT

First of all I'm not very knowledgable with AMD. But i'll tell you the general idea. First of all though, you should've gotten a HD4850/4870, since they're pretty cheap because of the 4890.

Anyway how certain people can OC better than others depend on multiple factors.

First are things you are in control of, such as CPU cooling. (People with water cooling keep their CPU cooler than people with Air therefore can push their chips better if both chips are exactly the same)

Now you should look for the defualt voltage for your CPU (Never have the bios set to auto). Then you can configure FSB or multiplier, for example I have an E8500 @ 400x9.5 which is 3.8 ghz, difference between E8400,8500 and 8600 is the multplier. Each other is set differenctly in order 9,9.5,10 being the max multiplier.

But okay now back to the current subject, start off with defualt voltage and make changes to your FSB then run a program to test stability. I use OCCT set for an hour. If there is a problem it's usually because the CPU doesn't have enough power to operate. So therefore you have to raise the voltage to the CPU.

Also remember more voltage= more heat to CPU. As the CPU stays hotter for a long period of time its life time decreases. That's where the cooling checks in, to keep the CPU cooler making it so you can push your CPU to its limits.

For example the max for the E8400/8500/8600 I believe is 1.35 or 1.40 Volt, I run on air with Artic Cooler Pro 7 with a mid tower case that doesn't have that great air flow so I have my voltage set to around 1.280 (defualt is suppose to be 1.25). 1.28 was the magic number that my CPU was able to be stay stable at 3.8 ghz.

Now the thing that is out of your control is the quality of your chip. for example, i've heard of some lucky individuals who were able to OC their E8500 to 3.8 ghz with barely changing the defualt voltage. Why is that? They were lucky and got a better quality chip. Things like that are out of your control.

I'm not a hard core OCer but I attempted my best at helping you.

P.S. not sure if I mentioned but I'm not very knowledgable with AMD.

Ya the BFG 8600 GTS that was on my old computer died about 3 months ago. My little sisters used that computer ever since I built my new one. I pretty much got that card the first week it came out but I still think 2 years is a short life for a video card. Specially when my Geforce Ti4600 can still work to this day on one of our very old computers.

Also don't think that way just because of one card. As I said, my geforce ti4600 works until this day. At the moment I am using a HIS HD4870 512 but I've had a lot of problems with my old Radeon 9800 pro back in the day (Which is why the ti4600 is being used, because the 9800 stopped working).