upgrading processor , heat issues ?

hi guys.

im upgrading my gateway 6860 at long last, and i will be doing 3 upgrades. A new cpu, blu ray and ssd.

first on my list is the cpu.

would the t8300 be sufficient for me, i do play games quite often, i like gears of war, crysis, need for speed, and some other fps games.

Apart from that i use the internet, encode films, and some photoshop.

The reason i ask is that i can afford the t9300, but if the t8300 will do then id rather get that and save money for the ssd. What do u guys thin

and and for the past few days my 1.8 ghz one that was original in it has been wierd with temps recently, it was idle round about 45 - 50, now its 65 - 70, which is quite high, i think.

anything i can do to bring it down, the vents are clean, and i have ordered some aritc silver 5 so im hoping this will fix it

 

I could be totally wrong but as far as i am aware, the only performance gain you will see by getting a SSD will be significantly faster boot times/progam load times/start up times/file transfer times.

Everything else is CPU dependent. BTW, does your 6860 already have a native 1920x1200 screen? Otherwise, blu-ray is kinda pointless without that screen res.

 

The T8300 will be a worthwhile upgrade speedwise, and will run cooler than the T5550 to boot.

A SSD is an awesome upgrade imo (if you can afford it), as the increase in overall system responsiveness is very noticeable. Of course, you gotta be careful about the capabilities of whichever SSD brand/model you're looking at. Older ones with jmicron controllers suck yada yada yada...

As for blu-ray, I agree with Moto above... the 1440x900 resolution with a screen that doesn't have very good viewing angles, contrast ratio, etc isn't too conducive to blu-ray viewing. Unless you're gonna be using the hdmi output to a tv or monitor with better specs...

 

The t8300 is a good upgrade, but i will typically recommend the t9300 for the extra speed and cache, which will help overall CPU performance and make your system that much snappier.

SSD's are great and i will almost always recommend them for a boot/app drive. Just spend the money to get a good one (dont cheap out here or you will regret it in the end)

As to blue ray. Meh, thats up to you. I still cant really get into them. I got one and watched it in 1080i glory on my TV and i really cant say it makes 10 dollars a movie difference.

 

well i was gonna order the t8300, which is 90 quid, which is 170 dollars
if i can afford it ill get the t9300, i guess ill skip the blu ray, i have the 1440 x 900 screen, so ill leave buy ray

as for the blu ray money ill pump it into the ssd money, get a good one, i plan on one of the corsair ones, ive hears bad things about the ocz vortex ones. Also i thought the partiot ones seemed good, but i dont know what controller they use

any recomendations on the ssd

 

My ssd recommendations (based on my own purchases): Intel X-25M or OCZ Vertex, can't go wrong with either as a primary system drive, just make sure they have the latest firmwares.

About the new Corsairs, I believe they use a Samsung controller, and according to reviews they suffer from an overall performance drop once the drive goes into a "used" or filled-up state.

Edit: I don't know what you've heard about OCZ's Vertex SSDs, but based on my personal experience (as well as many reviews out there), it is one of the best MLC SSDs out there. The latest firmware is 1.30 which implements something called "garbage collection", which just about eliminates the performance degradation that plagues most MLC SSDs once they get filled with data. And there is supposed to be another fw update coming in the next week or so, which will further improve the garbage collection functionality. OCZ's support for the Vertex series has been superb. Intel implemented this similar "garbage collection" in their 8820 firmware released in April for the 1st generation X-25M's, and the gen 2's offer further improved performance at a lower price.

 

I've got a G.Skill Falcon which uses the same Indillinx controller as the OCZ vertex. Works very well. Reviews state that it blows the 1st gen Intel X-25M out the water.

Both the G.SKill Falcon and OCZ vertex use the same components (and same firmware) but are obviously branded different. The G.Skill Falcon is also cheaper than the OCZ variant plus you get 8GB more; 128GB vs 120GB for a cheaper price too!

highly recommened! Either that or the 2nd gen Intel SSDs.

 

FYI Moto, once you format the drives, you end up with approximately the same usable space. OCZ tried going with a more "truthful" approach with the Vertex series when referring to drive sizes.

But yes, there are several other brand SSD's out there that use the same Idillinx controller that OCZ Vertex uses, though I don't know how good those other brands are at continuously improving the drive with firmware updates. AFAIK, even though they utilize the same controller, you cannot use a OCZ-issused fw on another brand's SSD.

 

there's a review that states you can circumvent G.Skill's difficult firmware update method (flash drive as disk0 but requires another HDD to OS boot from) by utilizing OCZ firmware in a novel way. Essentially, the G.Skill SSD is recognized as a OCZ vertex - voids warranty naturally - but enables you to flash firmware update via windows.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/storage/2009/06/24/g-skill-falcon-128gb-review/11

 

As to a SSD.

Intel / Indilinix / Samsung

Pretty much any SSD with those controllers are a good buy. I use a Supertalent UltraDrive (which has the fastest speeds of Indilinix MLC drives), but Intel still has better Random Writes/Reads and Samsung controllers tend to have better storage per dollar. So its really according to what you want/need in a drive

 

thanks for the advice, well i was having a look and i think i shall get the ocz vertex, it seems like a brilliant drive, and one of the ore cheaper ones in the uk, but it looks like the new intel ones are about to come out this month, so i might wait see what the prices are