EBay still best bet for an X9100?

Or is there a better site for purchasing one (as far as price goes)?

 

Yes, ebay is about the best bet. Problem is almost all are stepping C0 anymore. The E0's of OEM and QS are all but gone from the listings. Most were all grabbed up and now if you do find an E0 stepping it will come at a premium.........

 

Sucks for the ones that don't carry a Fleabay account! Any other options?

 

You could start a WTB thread in the marketplace here and other forums.

 

Also some sellers have thier own web sites etc. You will have to search it out as each vendor offers one...................

 

It hard to find a x9100 E0 these days. Secondly, if you do find one, spending near $250 for one, IMO, is not worth it for 3-4 year old laptop.

 

Right E0's are almost a lost cause anymore. As far as the money each have their own priorities. With proper care the systems have held out well and can even run Windows 8 well. So if you use condones it then a CPU upgrade may be well worth it.............

 

CPU Intel CORE2 X9100 QBDW ES Mobile Processor 3.06G 6M 1066 | eBay

 

Unfortunately C0 and ES, QBDW (Intel Core 2 Extreme X9100)

 

Is there that much of a performance boost with the EO stepping vs the CO? Or is that just for overclockability?

 

No performance boost. Thermal efficiency. EO's generate a little less heat.

I've been running a CO @ 3.458 for 11 months with no issues. @ 3.591 it runs too hot under heavy loads.

 

Thanks for the info man!!! Can't seem to justify the premium price for a little better thermal performance.

 

TBH, while I could clock the C2D x9100 E0 QS to 4.0 GHz it was not worth it. I found on most everything that 3.2 Ghz was the sweet spot where overclocking further provided no real sence of speed increase while just generating more heat. Now some modern games may like a heavier CPU but the 9800m will limit the system well before the x9100 even at 3.2 GHz................

 

TANWare,

The only reason I can run @ 3.458 is I copied your cpu heatsink mod and epoxied a .9mm shim to the NB section. ICD on everything was the other component that gave me the stability that I have. 3.591 is stable but heat soak over long term is an ocasional problem.

You're absolutely right that 3.2 is the sweet spot without the mods.

Thank you for all your ideas.

 

Also, will the stock cooling solution found in the P7811 FX work okay on one of the x9100 chips?

 

Yes. You will need a good TIM for the CPU and a new thermal pad, copper shim or ICD for the NB IC. ICD will fill the .9mm gap and not run as other TIMs

 

Thanks man. Yep, I usually use IC Diamond anyhow.

 

Why dont you use an E8435, it gets hotter but looking at the price it's a better choice, i am using one on my P-7805 with the standard heatsink with no trouble, if i am using a heavy load then undervolting it to 1.1 V and it works like a charm

 

Does the E8435 actually show up as a quad with HyperThreading activated? Reason that this is important, is I am in a World Community Grid team and it would allow 4 instances of WCG if that is the case. I know the x9100 will show as a Quad core in WCG.

 

As far as I know the E8435 nor any other Core2x CPU supports hyperthreading.....................

 

Well I never have found a decent deal on an x9100. However I did get my hands on a T9400 chip that is a little faster and twice the cache. Rather than the 3mb cache with the stock P8400 the T9400 has a 6mb cache.

Installed it a couple of days ago and I really do feel a noticeable difference with the system.

 

If you have the larger L2 be sure to use the 9c.17.00 bios or above as it will utilize the larger L2 cache better. Yuo will erally not notice this much other than desktop responce etc. I don't kbow if 9c.12.00 had the improvement over the stock 9c.11.00 that came with the P7805, 9c.17.00 definately has the improvement.

 

So the 9c.17.00 bios is the preferred version for the P7811FX?

 

Yes but you have to use the legacy driver for the 1394 Controller if running Win 7(supplied by Windows 7).

 

Anyone selling their old cpu?

 

There's a huge difference in heating.

 

What's "huge". Based on experience?

 

Just temps and overclocking

 

TANWare, I was waiting for a reply from KawaFord. It sounds like he has done a comparison between the X9100 C0 and E0 stepping. I don't think anyone has but the consensus is there is a huge difference (not). I am running a C0. I can over clock to 4.123Ghz and run Win7 (barely). I do run at 3.458Ghz. Before I consider a setting stable it must pass the Intel2 Burntest (default settings) without shutting down.

I know that the E0 is more thermally efficient than the C0 but there are people voicing opinions that are driving people away from the X9100 C0 to the E8435 which in my "experience" is a bad choice (lots of missing features and much worse thermally).

When I purchased my X9100 C0 the E0's were over twice the price and available from only one vendor. The E8435's were about $25 cheaper.

I also "know" that getting a good processor is in the luck of the draw. I was lucky with this one.

The X9100 C0 is a excellent processor. The X9100 E0 has a slight thermal advantage. Don't get me started on Max TDP.

 

Agreed in that a C0 x9100 is way better than a E8435. Nothing wrong either with the C0's other than usually better temps and lower Vcores at specific clock settings. This especially for gaming where anything over 3.2 GHz is not usually used anyway.

Now for the P79 and the 260m the 3.4 GHz and above may be desirable for gaming insurance. Even then it is a bit of a stretch. In the end the C0 is more than fine here too.

The other advantage is the C0's are usually OEM's. Truth be told I would steer away from non OEM C0's as the ES's there can be very early examples. This could then yield sketchy results...........