Gaming Best CPU for my motherboard

[MelodieOctavia]

I have a G31M-S2L motherboard (Socket 775) and I really can't make heads or tails of the damn compatibility chart on the Gigabyte website.

Could someone provide me a few links to mid-high range CPUs that I could utilize for gaming/emulation?

Overclocking is an option.

 

[Originality]

For gaming, you'll probably want something around the Core 2 Duo E8400, which is 3Ghz stock and can get over 4Ghz on air cooling. There are hardly any games that use more than 2 cores, so this route is highly favoured if you're stuck with socket 775. If you're also planning to use multi-threaded tasks though, you'll want to get a Core 2 Quad Q9650, although I vaguely recall hearing PS2 emulation isn't so great on quad cores (probably because of the slower clock speeds).

If money isn't a problem, you can look into Core 2 Extreme, which can achieve even higher clocks on all 4 cores and can overclock much higher.

 

[FAST6191]

http://ee.giga-byte.com/products/mb/cpulist/ga-g31m-s2l.html I assume you mean.

What is not to understand http://ee.giga-byte.com/products/mb/bios/ga-g31m-s2l.html has bios updates, use the latest one and it will support whatever one you have there aside from the ones with n/a (and I guess "-") in the right hand column. If you do not fancy the F10f beta than whatever ones have F10f in the column will not work (before you ask stepping pretty much equals hardware revision). The only trouble comes if you do not have a processor available to upgrade the BIOS in the first place and that does not appear to trouble you.

Best CPU is a tough one- after a point you very quickly reach diminishing returns for your investment and it can even vary with what you want to do on the CPU. Unless you encode video (and your encoder supports it) or you have some other application you know supports that many cores in a useful manner then quad core I think is still a bit overrated so you might consider a drop to dual core that will probably clock higher for the same price.

Equally some of the core 2 extreme lines will be slower clocked than some of the more conventional but will overclock far more. The ones badged extreme also cost a fortune- the Core 2 Extreme QX9770 will run you about $1600 USD for instance or more realistically the Core 2 Extreme QX9650 will run you about $600 while dropping down to the Core 2 Quad Q9650 (same initial clock and cache) will cost you about half that.

On top of this consider that all this stuff is now old hardware- we have newer CPU slots, newer types of ram and USB 3.0 is now available so perhaps spending a serious amount on a processor is not the best idea. By all means buy one but consider that you will probably see a higher speed from sticking the OS on a super fast drive and a getting a fast dual core processor if you want a new CPU.

 

[MelodieOctavia]

I'm basically trying to make an old dog do new tricks.

My PC has been patched and pieced together so much, that nothing except the case and the CPU is original hardware.

I have a Nvidia 8600GTS video card that's about to take a dump and a 2.6 Pentium 4 processor that has seen more motherboards than Hugh Heffner has seen vaginas.

I also have 4GB of RAM, but I went the cheap route and sacrificed speed for capacity.

Would I be better off just buying a new PC?

 

[Kane91z]

you could overclock an e5200 to like 3.4ish ghz I have 2 one runs at 3.7 the other at 3.33 - I'm sure it would be a huge boost over your pent 4 and cost like 60$

 

[Originality]

The more money you have to put into your computer, the better your options are. If you've only got a budget of $100-200, then getting a new CPU may be the best choice (since the GPU isn't bad, if a lil bit old). If you've got $1000 to spend, then you'll probably benefit with an entirely new system.