Upgrade time again - i5 on a budget

[Griff]

My trust old E8400 has served me well but I thought it was time for an upgrade. However I wanted to upgrade for as little cash as possible yet still see a worthwhile improvement.

As the PC is only really used for gaming and I don't do any encoding or use any intensive applications I decided to go for the new Lynnfield core and P55 chipset using the following components -

Intel Core i5 750 2.66Ghz (Lynnfield) (Socket LGA1156) - OEM - £139.99

MSI P55-GD80 Intel P55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 Motherboard ** PROMO STOCK ** - £85.50 (Now £178.99)

Geil Ultra Series 4GB (2x2GB) PC3-17000 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit - £72.98

Thanks to being lucky on the MSI promo day (55% off) that makes a total of £298.47. For now I'm using the stock Intel cooler until the H50 LGA1156 brackets are released so the cost of the H50 will have to be added on top but I'm pretty pleased with the results given the low cost.

I should point out that overclock was done by pressing a single button on the motherboard*. Once the H50 arrives I'll jump into BIOS and see what it can reach manually and report back.

* - http://www.msi.com/index.php?news_no=831&func=newsdesc

 

[Darren S]

Good results for the money there, Griff!

D.

 

[conneh]

Seems like a very good overclock without even touching the BIOS manually.

I'm still happy with my E6300 (1.86Ghz) at 3.2!

 

[Adam]

Great stuff

 

[Nigel]

I still can't decide between i5 and i7 920.