Replacing my CPU

[amethystgirl]

I am taking the CPU from my old motherboard and putting into a new motherboard. I would appreciate any tips on removing and installing the CPU. I have been told to put "Quick Silver" or "Arctic Silver" on the CPU when I install it on the new motherboard.
thanks

[Midtowner]

The "quick silver" stuff only makes a difference if you plan on overclocking, etc. Board temperature usually stays pretty safe if you're just running normal applications. It is important to keep that temp down though as running hot will really kill your processor's life (they eventually fail like most other things).

However, if you're going to be doing serious gaming, and want to have a processor that's going to work well with the next generation of windows software (64 bit apps), I'd recommend taking a hard look at Athlon processors -- particularly those that fit the socket 939 motherboards.

Where I think price meets performance is the Athlon 3800+ 64 x2 (it's a dual-core). Dual core gives the same benefit as having a dual processor PC without all the cost. Before buying I also did a little research, and found that Athlon despite its lower cost ran better than Intel on almost every test. The article is somewhere on cnet.com.

On the other side of the coin, Windows was built around the Intel platform and *supposedly* is more stable.

Also, be careful about your motherboard -- you really get what you pay for. I bought mine intending to have a mediapc/gaming computer for when I'm not in school/computer that will be a solid machine for the next 4 years or so... I chose the Asus K8V SLI Premium model, althought he Deluxe would have probably been just as good for me. Asus is a pretty good brand -- and as for motherboards, I highly recommend that you stick with good brands!

If you're switching processors and everything, you'll also want to make sure your power supply is up to snuff... and if you're doing gaming, you'll want to save *at least* $200 for a graphics card, and probably another $200 or so for 2 GB of RAM which is being sold as the "next standard" (currently, 1GB is enough for just about anything, and performance increases above that except for when doing video editing on something like AVID are pretty much nominal).

A good Graphics card (at least what I settled on) was the BFG GeForce 6600 GT OC (the PCI-Express model).

If you have any questions, I'm kind of studied-up on the subject since I just put together a new PC.

[okcpulse]

When you put thermal paste on the CPU, only squeeze a single drop... just enough to cover the core of the CPU. Using too much thermal paste will cause the paste to smear across the surface of the CPU, and could cause it to short out.

Remember, some cooling fans come with thermal patch already applied to the bottom of the cooling fan's block, so you won't have to mess with applying the paste.

Be careful when installing the cooling fan over the CPU. Follow the instructions step my step. The power supply to the fan should always be in the vicinity of the CPU socket. And, be sure your BIOS is configured for the CPU. On occasion, you will have to update your BIOS in order for the CPU to be detected. Sometimes, you don't have to worry. If the CPU is being detected, you've saved a step.

To see if your CPU is being detected properly, open your BIOS and the system information should be displayed in your CMOS settings or hardware information. If the information displayed about your CPU matches the specs on your CPU, it has been properly detected.

[okcpulse]

BTW, here is my PC wish list for 2006:

Silver tower w/ 500 Watt power supply

Socket 939 motherboard w/ 3 PCI slots, 2 PCI-Express x16 slots, SATA RAID, Nvidia chipset

Nvidia BFG GeForce 6800 GT OC video card w/ 256MB of GDDR3 RAM

AMD FX-55 CPU ~ 2.6 GHz; 1MB of L1 Cache

Already have the sound card, monitor, hard drives and optical drives

And finally, a copy of Windows Vista upon its release dual-booted with SUSE Linux 10.1

But I also like Midtowner's list

[Luke]

http://store.apple.com

[Yodachaos]

i would like one of the ati 1800 PCI E16. some type of that card. pretty sweet. i personally like ATI. its really a matter of preference. they both have some very nice cards.

i have a asus k8v-x motherboard right now. when i get this paid off i might upgrade to something a bit better. 9800 pro video card. will get something that can handle sli. maybe a dual core processer and maybe 2 sli video cards.