20 Best Intel Quad Core Processor (2023 Updated)

Be warned that you may get an open box product with no indication anywhere on the listing. The Intel factory seal sticker was cut upon arrival. Box was also clearly handled, I didn’t notice until I went to open the box.

Product does work just fine as of writing this but who knows what will happen. The CPU cooler was without the pre-applied thermal paste which unless you have some can push your completed build a few days back.

Although seller problems aside, it’s a great value processer for less than $90. You can’t beat the gaming or even desktop performance with anything in the same price bracket. Would highly recommend if you’re on a tight budget.

This processor is a monster in this price range you cannot get any better at 80 euros the performance is spectacular and there is nothing in comparison with AMD. The processor came in a very well small box package.

It runs at appropriate speeds with an ASRock motherboard. The performance is same or better or as a 7700 non K. For esports titles with a budget build its simply the best you can get at this moment in this price segment.

If you are in a tight budget there is absolutely no reason to consider the 10400 for example. The CPU works along a GTX 1060 -3 gigabytes and its smooth as butter in games like battlefield 5 Overwatch CS go and rainbow 6.

Pair this with a 510 motherboard and you are good to go for at least two three years with a discrete graphics card.

Its fast, very stable on Z590 and can still drive modern GPUs adequately. There is no need to spend $100’s on a cpu when Microcenter has been selling this for $89-99. I presently use mine for cryptomining in an open air setup on Windows 10 but I’ve also gamed with these.

I do use an aftermarket cooler because I like them to run quietly but the included cooler is adequate. This is the equivalent cpu of intel’s former flagship i7 of just a few years ago with new AVX2 and AES extensions, faster speeds and lower watt requirements.

This is one of my favorite cpus.

Lenovo T60 – durable battle tanks are quite a value nowadays down from their original MSRP – shipped with Core2Duo T2400 32 bit CPU with 2MB cache, still speedy enough for office use, but are limited to 3GB memory.

The Zero-Insertion-Force Socket 478/N, Socket 479 or ‘Socket N’ – a simple half twist of the lock ‘screw’ releases the chip to lift away like a breeze and swap in this recommended replacement. The next chip up is the top t7600 which adds only the ability to overclock and are $40 or more.

I found lot of 10 Core 2 Duo T7400 2. 16GHz with 4meg cache running on 667MHz DMA bus at $10 each $11. 50 with tax and shipping from China SpeedPak. While worth the wait I was surprised at half of the estimated month delivery.

YouTube shows how simple it is to DIY swap. I vacuumed the fan/heat-sink while I had it out for the CPU replace – remember to scrub off the thermal paste residue & don’t forget to reconnect the fan plug or get ‘fan error’ on boot.

One can utilize existing memory but speeds will be limited unless rated above 666MHz – while you have it open swap ’em if you got ’em. For me the simple upgrade allows more powerful Win7Ultimate which dual boots with 64bit Ubuntu (easier to upgrade and far less intrusive as Win11 to my personal life) increases my software options.

The CPU chip has a greater surface area and runs several Watts hotter so I’m glad my seller included a squeeze packet of thermal paste. Graphene is a superior heat conductor and I have a gallon of Slip/Plate #1 to drip onto the fresh cleaned CPU surface -more than I can use up in a lifetime but hard to remove completely when dry.

Performance is not a straight comparison of 64bit v. 32 CPU as the memory is effectively halved because each memory location is now twice as wide yet the former. The old 3GB limit now recognizes 4GB so drop in 4GB (2x2GB) while I was in there.

Choose 666MHz DDR 2 with 8 small RAM chips each side as opposed to 4 large per side as they are twice as efficient seek time. The real comparison comes by application – Teaching my grandchildren computing/programming/penetration-testing/networking.

The revived e-trash has a modem, can burn a DVD, can go to class and take notes, docks with a huge variety of legacy devices and takes a bookbag/knapsack beating and keeps on running on. The original concept was to supply them each with a raspberry pi.

For about the same price as fully outfitting a Pi with a keyboard and monitor et cetera for each kid. the price was a bit less to enhance existing laptops. I can USB LiveBoot any number of OS as with a Pi and any lessons learned from a Pi3+ can be learned by using the laptop to SHH into a headless Pi Zero.

The backwards compatibility and wide utility of laptop upgrade cost less, is more versatile and durable enough to follow them through college. It might be taxed calculating astrophysics but a quiet durable keyboard and Notepad are all one really needs for a doctoral dissertation and for that the upgrade from T2400 to T7200 should outlast the application.

======== BOTTOM LINE =====eBay build out===== $11 CPU +$20 laptop + $12 0. 5TB SSHD + $10 4GB mem +$14 battery +$7 charger + free Linux (w/ optional MSwin license = MegaTank for less than 3/4 C-note pro vs.

con RPi dangle-wire outfit kit for slightly more.

This CPU is worth the money, given that it extends the useful life of your laptop PC for a bit longer – so you don’t end up dumping it. Generally, you’d want to run legacy sofware (e. g. Win-XP) on such a PC, or better still to use a lightweight Linux distro such as “Lubuntu”.

Additionally, you’d only be using your PC for simple stuff like web-browsing, online shopping and a bit of word-processing. You wouldn’t be using it for video-editing or math-modelling. Don’t lose sight of the fact that even after the upgrade all you have is a 32-bit Core Duo CPU – so it’s never going to be ultra-fast.

So, you have to be realistic about what this CPU upgrade will actually give you. The good news is that the increase in CPU performance is about 25% – which should give a extra couple of years of useful life from your laptop, and so long as you haven’t paid more than about $6 US dollars for the upgrade then you won’t have much to complain about.

Ultimately, it all boils down to “bangs per buck”. Certainly, I have no complaints given what the CPU upgrade cost me.

The 10 9600 chip fit perfectly into my laptop. I only had to remove four screws to get the cover off and then another four screws to get the heat sink off. After cleaning the cat hair out of the heat sink radiator I said it aside pulled out the old chip and install the new one I had to scrape the old thermal paste off of the bottom of the heat sink so the new paste would make good contact.

I didnt have any paste it first so I installed the heat sink and put the cover back on to test how the chip worked. Everything booted up just fine and was very quick using windows 10 pro. The fan did still come on quite a bit even with all that cat hair out of the heat sink but not as much as before.

When the thermal paste arrived I remove the cover and heat sink and applied the paste and put it all back together. Now the fan barely comes on at all. Very happy customer.

The cpu arrived way faster than I expected and enables a 12 year old pc to run win10 effortlessly. A few years ago i upgraded an HPdc7800 with a core2duo e8500, the 2nd fastest core2duo. The pc ran winXP then win7 then with 8GB ram win10.

At the time none of the core2quads could meet the 8500’s combination of clock speed, bus speed, L2 cache/core (3MB!), tdp, advanced instruction set and price. Then I found the q9550 and q9650. The 9650 is much pricier so that left the 9550.

The clock speed is 320MHz slower than the e8500, and the tdp 30w more (but that’s to be expected considering the extra cores on the same 45nm lithography) but everything else is the same, with double the cores.

A no-brainer for maxing out an old pc and keeping it capable for a few more years.

Used this to restore an old Dell Vostro 220s, works perfectly. The CPU does not support Intel turbo boost, which is okay with me. But that’s not the seller’s fault. It arrived two days earlier than said and came in very protected bubblewrap, followed by anti static packaging on the CPU itself.

Every other used CPU I’ve ordered always had thermal paste all over it but this did not have any paste on it whatsoever. It was very clean! The old CPU the Vostro was working with was a single core CPU clocked ag 2.

6 GHZ. Which was clocked out completely on Windows 10 idle. Was very funny to see! I paired it with a gtx 650ti and was able to play most modern games at medium/low settings at 50fps+. (This is with the GPU, not with the iG.

Slight issues I’ve encountered: The integrated graphics were alright, only game I could run was Minecraft Windows 10 edition. Take note that THE INTEGRATED GRAPHICS DO NOT SUPPORT OPEN GL SOFTWARE AND APPLICATIONS!!!!!!! With this, I was not able to run most Java programs like Minecraft java, or server software.

Its highly recommend you use a gpu for this. I’m not sure if its driver issues or that it’s simply too old for Open GL. It confused me for a bit, but that’s okay. Overall, a very very good CPU, I such an upgrade, really.

Thank you for selling this to me.

First, keep in mind that Core 2 Quad processors require compatible systems and boards, and enough power supply to run them comfortably. You’ll need a 3 or 4 series desktop motherboard (or the equivalent workstation/server motherboard) with 95 watt CPU support for this to work (though some 965 and 975 boards may also work with it).

Second, you may need an upgraded cooler if you’re currently using the stock cooler from a Core 2 Duo, Pentium Dual-Core, or Celeron/Celeron Dual-Core processor. Finally, some computers require that you flash the BIOS so your processor can be read correctly.

As far as performance goes, the additional cores give you a performance advantage when it comes to multi-threaded apps and games over dual-core processors. With the right video card, games like GTA V and Mortal Kombat X are playable.

Just don’t expect this chip to keep up with Core i7 and i5 quad core systems. In single-threaded applications, your performance with a quad is similar to the performance with a dual-core, clock-for-clock.

Installation ease depending on your system. ATX systems with the Intel stock cooler or BTX systems with the flip-up style cooler are simple – it’s just a matter of replacing the heat sink goop when you install the new processor.

On ATX systems with large aftermarket coolers, you may have to go through a few hoops to do the installation properly, but at least swapping the CPU out is simple. Just make sure your system supports this processor before you go to install it.

Ultra-small form factor machines with external power supplies from companies like Dell and Lenovo may not have the juice to run this chip; some machines may also need a power supply upgrade to support this processor (I like PSUs with single-rail 12 volt designs).

All in all, a good upgrade.

My first build in a long time. Read a lot of reviews on here and other sites which helped a lot. What I ended up going with is as follows, and is all worked well IMHO, with all the parts fitting like they should and working like expected.

I7-4770K Asus VI Hero MOBO N82E16813131989 RipJaws memory F3-2133C9D-16GXH N82E16820231571 Cooler is a NH-U14S N82E16835608041 Fractal R4 case N82E16811352021 PSU is a SeaSonic G Series SSR-550RM N82E16817151119 SSD 840 Pro 256G N82E16820147193 HDD 3T, 7200 N82E16822148844 Video Card MSI GTX760 N82E16814127745 Notes, The ram fit just nicely in front of the of the rather large Noctua cooler.

The RAM heatsinks do miss the shroud of the CPU cooler. The cooler fit easily into the R4 case and the PSU has tons of power for everything. I wanted a Gold PSU and one that was not so big that I was always running a 5% of rated power.

FYI, With a Kill A Watt meter (these measurements are without video card, using I7 for video) on the power bar, the PSU draws (input to PSU) about; 35 Watts with computer doing minimal tasks (idle) like websurfing and typing reviews.

90 Watts max when running the WEI benchmarks. This was a decent improvement over my old Opty 185, plus this system goes in and out of sleep very well. With router DIR655 (5W) and SURFboard cable modem (5.

1W), 24″ monitor (43W), the computer and peripherals seem to surf the web (idling) at about 103 Watts. During a load, like the benchmark, it jumps up to about 155 Watts. When it putts itself and the monitor to sleep I read about 21.

8 watts to the PSU. This idle power on this computer is about 75W less than the one I replaced, and it will go to sleep properly, so some nice power saving if you care about that. Now with the video card I see a max draw of about 280 Watts (total with monitor and everything else) when playing the free game that came with it (AC4).

So, I was worried about the 550 W being too small, but after taking measurements, I am no where near drawing even half what this power supply is rated at putting out. A quick estimate is this PUS is drawing about 207W (280-43(monitor) – 30 (modem, router, speakers)), if eff=85%, then the output is only about 175W, still lots of PSU left,,, cool, & quiet.

Happy with it. May overclock a bit, as everything is 7. 9 except CPU is 7. 8, so for fun will want to see all 7. 9. Game plays much better with video card, it was not that good with just on board. Plus the MOBO had one video out, and wify wants two monitors for her work,, I missed that when I switched from the Sabertooth to the Hero MOBO last minute.

The Sabertooth has 3 outputs, this one only has HDMI out,, thus the video card. but the game is kinda cool, LOL.

The chip arrived promptly in oversealed packaging. The CPU lid is scuffed in the upper right quadrant, probably from an overtightened heatsink. Aside from the slight damage, the lid was rather clean of defects and remaining thermal compound.

Installation was easy on a Z97 board. I was not able to achieve a stable overclock past 4. 0 gHz on this chip, (which is dissapointing) however this could very well be do to my own limited experience.

Otherwise the chip runs fine at stock and OCd to 4. 0 gHz.

Firstly, if you are considering this CPU at the time of writing, and have a Z97 or H87 chipset, I may suggest waiting about a week and getting the 4690K for around the same price. Should also note the 4690K has advertised support for VT-d too, and is rumored to be using a better thermal compound in-between the CPU die and IHS (for better temperatures).

I upgraded from a Phenom II X3 720 (unlocked to X4 @ 3. 2GHz) and an ASRock 970 Extreme3 R1. 0 board, so in that regard, the 4670K is a really nice and noticeable upgrade. I overclocked my 4670K to 4.

0GHz across all cores, with a cache ratio of 40. Vcore voltage is 1. 2V. YMMV. My environment consists of an ASRock Fatal1ty H97 Killer, a CM Hyper 212 Plus (using Arctic Silver 5 thermal compound with the dot in the center method), and a hec 585W PSU (about 3 years old).

That PSU in-particular only has a 4-pin CPU connector, which I can confirm is enough to reach the above clock speeds (anything higher isn’t ideal temperature and stability-wise in my setup). My GPU is a MSI R7850 PE 2GD5/OC @ 1GHz core clock, at 1600×[email protected]

So about the lack-of VT-d, it seems relatively common that Intel strips certain virtualization features from their unlocked CPUs. I was interested in trying out some GPU-passthrough and virtualization.

Considering my old setup met the requirements to do the passthrough (IOMMU), I thought it wouldn’t be a problem with way-newer Intel hardware. Needless to say, I was rather surprised by the lack-of that feature.

As for why Intel does this, it seems to be mostly speculation, but an idea is to just keep their non-unlocked CPUs relevant. And as for a temperature note, it seems Intel chose to use a cheap thermal compound in-between the CPU die and IHS (the top cap you sit the heatsink on; note the die is significantly smaller than that area).

Previous CPUs by Intel used solder, which transfers heat from the die to the IHS far more efficiently. There’s no official-word for the reasoning as far as I know, but there are two ideas: – Due to the die manufacturing process, using solder and having temperature changes would cause the die itself to crack under stress from typical usage scenarios (would be bad for PR and the RMA department).

– It’s cheaper to use thermal compound over specialized solder (this wouldn’t surprise me coming from Intel). And on-top of the cheap thermal compound, the IHS is secured to the PCB via thick glue. Because of this, the IHS and die don’t come in-contact with each other as close as they can, which then leads to poor heat transfer.

You can attempt to fix the temperature situation yourself via “delidding”, but be very aware of the risks of doing so (one wrong scratch on the CPU die and it’s likely done), along with accepting loss of any warranty.

It cannot be stressed enough; do your research before even thinking about trying delidding! The risk is well worth the reward in some cases though (significantly lower temperatures, thus more O.

First off, I don’t pretend to be an expert on the subject of CPUs the way some people are – I mainly take the word of other people here and Tom’s Hardware who know more about these things than I do. The biggest reason I bought this chip over the 3570k is that someone suggested the 1150 socket type might see use in the future, where the 1155 is pretty much dead.

I’m really not sure this is true – you’d probably want to research more on your own. That having been said, this chip is most definitely a huge upgrade over the oooold dual-core CPU I was running and in that respect, it’s a winner.

My hesitation in not giving this 4 or 5 eggs is that I think I might have done a little more research before jumping on the 4670 bandwagon. I originally was thinking of getting an i5 3570 and from what I’ve seen, you might want to consider this too, but please, don’t take my word for it.

This chip has 2 significant drawbacks I’m aware of: 1) It runs pretty hot when OC’ed 2) It doesn’t seem to OC particularly well to begin with. I don’t really know how well an OC’d 4670 benchmarks against an OC’d 3570 at a higher clock rate, though, so the inability of most of these chips to go above the 4.

3-4. 4ghz range could wind up being a wash. I got an EVO 212 cooler and cranked it the processor up to 4. 5ghz and something stupid like 1. 4v, before gaming for a couple hours. The chip stayed under 90C for a couple hours of punishment, but the next morning it started blue-screening, and I was able to replicate those results with some Prime95 stress tests.

Ultimately, I had to dial it back to 4. 3ghz and 1. 2ish volts. Good enough, I suppose, but nowhere near the 4. 6 or 4. 8ghz some people are getting from their chips. Not all 4670s are created equally, I suppose.

Overall, I’d say I’m fairly satisfied with the choice I made, but I might have done a little more research before buying this one first – I might well have chosen differently if I had.

The one I got turned out to be a decent mid-range overclocker as I was able to get 4. 4GHz stable with Gskill Sniper memory at 1866. Never had temperature issues, just flat out instability above 4. 4 GHZ, but hey: That’s still almost a 30% OC! Had to push cpu voltage up to 1.

295 -just under the 1. 3v ceiling where Haswell starts to really heat up. Memory rated for 1866 @ 1. 5v needed a boost to 1. 52 volts to stay stable but it has been running 24/7 like this for almost a week now.

I do have an H110 mounted in the top of my Corsair C70, pulling air through the radiator and exhausting out the top of my case. Glad I got that because temps have been very good. Also have four intake fans (2 front, 2 bottom) and one rear exhaust which give the C70 great positive air pressure (side panel vents taped up with clear packing tape.

) At stock clocks idle temps are in the mid 20s, and overclocked to 4. 4 running benchmarks temps never go over 80c. That’s a win as far as I’m concerned. System: Corsair C70 ASUS Z87-Pro (V Edition) i5 4670K 8GB G-Skill Sniper 1866 Sandisk Extreme 240GB SSD MSI R9 270X OC Gaming I replaced a Core2 Duo e6870 (Couldn’t even get a 10% OC with that) and am very pleased with the Haswell i5, especially since the ASUS MB can access all of its overclocking potential and tweak every little thing the processor has to offer (which is a lot.

) All games so far are on max or ultra graphics settings. This processor compliments a good graphics card very nicely.

My Dell Precision T7400 came with one Xeon X5472 chip for a CPU. While this is good, the system allows for two CPUs, as long as they match. So I removed the blank which protected the CPU socket, opened the socket and slid the new X5472 into the socket, ensuring the arrow and notches matched up.

When I was satisfied, I locked the Xeon in place. Then I cleaned the top of the CPU with alcohol on a cotton swab and the bottom of the heatsink, too (removes oily finger prints). I applied goose grease (actually thermal paste) to the top of the Xeon in an X shape with four dots (one in the center of each wedge) of grease to complete the task.

I then gently set the new heatsink atop the Xeon and bolted the heatsink to the Motherboard. For testing, for short times you may get away without a heatsink, but you risk frying your Xeon if you do that.

Once in place, the system came up without a problem; The BIOS and Windows both recognized the second CPU chip and all eight cores. Just what a server needs!.

My mother board is LGA775. I’m using Intel Core2Quad Q9400 2. 66Ghz/6Mb/FSB1333. Combine with high-end VGA card GTX1060. There is not a single problem running GTAV, the division, Deus X mankind, etc with Very-High-Maximum graphic setting.

But somehow I got problem with FSX. It is unfortunate knowing FSX only running on “processor” only and “SINGLE” core. So,, it is definitely useless my multi-core. I need to get higher clock processor.

It is no way to buy Q9650 because it was around $65 (used item) (too expensive for me). Then I find this proc which is 3Ghz/12Mb/FSB1600 with cheap price. With small lock-pin adjustment and pin modifier.

It can run with BEST performance (not maximum/high-end setting) FSX simulator. I’m really satisfied with it. Thanks for the thermal paste bonus. 😀 It is used item,, but it looks bloody NEW !! 😀 😀 :D.

Ordered four (4) of these to replace two pairs of E5405s in separate Precision T7400 systems. Shipping was fast, tracking was accurate. No problems installing. Benchmarks all show about a 33% increase in performance over the older E5405s; extending the life of these older (but sturdy) T7400s.

Only catch is that the processors aren’t perfectly matched; i. e. from the same manufacturing batch. As such, there’s minor differences in the core VID when Speedstep is enabled / disabled, or when running under full-load.

BIOS didn’t report any problems, but something to keep in mind if you’re of the type that’s concerned about such details.

Bought the i5 3470 for a HTPC build intended for video streaming and light gaming. works pretty well for cpu intensive games like GTA V, able to maintain 60+ FPS paired with a 1050 ti at 1080p/high settings.

temperatures are very good in the small node 202 case with a tiny cryorig c7 heatsink. I have never seen it above 65C. So i’d say if you are looking to build a gaming pc or HTPC on the cheap look at one of these and a used h77/z77/b75 mobo to start.

I guess the bad side is it’s not as powerful as a K skew processor (3570K, 3770k. etc) due to the lower stock clock speeds and the inability to overclock. But you also will have to pay quite a premium on the used market for the overclockable chips.

In most cases iv’e seen on ebay you might as well look at a new 6600/7600k if your looking for something overclockable, I wouldn’t advise going back to the 2500/or2600ks as the ram support and the boards themselves are stating to feel a bit dated and they just don’t seem to preform as well in my experience.

i bought this to replace my G2120. The overall gain has been ridiculously fast. Since i don’t prefer to OC the i53570k seemed a little overkill. If that’s your case this cpu is cheap and full of power that most games will just love.

Since the cpu fan is so loud i’ll be replacing it with a after market cooler. Just be warned if you’re not planning on overclocking, you still want an aftermarket cooler as the fan is annoyingly loud.

At first i thought i didn’t get the fan completely installed correctly; Nope the fan is just loud. It actually sounds like it’s vibrating my case. Eventually my system did throttle it back but for the first hour it was noisy.

Having purchased this for around $200, I knew I was getting something that would take my games to new limits. Now that I have an i5, I realize that it wasn’t as important as I was making it out to be.

I don’t have lag on any of my games while everything is maxed out. (Skyrim, Saints Row the Third, Battlefield 3, Star Wars: The Old Republic, etc) Everything is great. But you never realize how much you don’t really need something until you have it.

I had an Intel core 2 duo running at 3. 0. I had some lag, but it was tolerable. There isn’t really much of a difference between the two, except that my system runs about 30C degrees cooler now. Side note: I did use Arctic Silver 5 for the thermal compound.

So that might add to the reason why I only have a 12 degree difference between full load and idling. My system as of right now: EVGA z75 SLI LGA 1155 Motherboard i5 3. 2(3. 6) quad core processor 16 GB 1333 Corsair DDR3 RAM 4890 320-bit 1GDDR5 Sapphire Vapor (over 5 years old and beats most cards in ambient occlusion stand offs all day.

) 1TB Seagate Barracuda (7200 32MB Cache).

The 6700k is still relevant, and still gives me 100fps in Days Gone (Steam) on all high settings at 1440p with shadows and lighting on medium (barely even noticeable difference). Gets about 50-56fps in Cyber Punk 2077 with DLSS on, and minimal/no RT features on.

With an RTX 2070. Intel is still using the 14nm process, but its been highly revised and altered/updated since 6000 series CPUs. Theyve been able to squeeze way more cores and way higher clock speed in the latest models.

So 6700k is pretty behind in its raw power and multithreaded performance compared the latest CPUs.

While the 6700k and and the 4790k perform pretty closely in games, the 6700k adds new features that the 4790k lacks, and for me, the added expense is fully justified. DDR4 RAM, while more expensive, is faster.

The 6700k itself is power power efficient, electricity is not free. The 4790k is not as future-proof as the 6700k, as Z170 motherboards (And of course the accompanying Skylake processors) have support now for USB 3.

1 Gen 2, which is a very nice new feature, PCIe 3. 0 x4 M. 2 support for hilariously faster storage speeds, and if you buy a motherboard with support for it, ThunderBolt 3 support, which is just another feature with ludicrous data transfer speed.

In conclusion, the 6700k is more expensive than the 4790k. Whether or not the price difference is worth it is entirely up to your use case, but in my opinion, if any one of the newer features I mentioned sounds like something you would use, it’s worth the premium.

Doubly so if you plan on acquiring a new smartphone in the next few years, as USB Type-C is quickly becoming a standard on smartphones, as well. If you’re considering whether to purchase the 6700k or go for the 6800k, I would suggest viewing HardwareCanucks’ video comparison between the two.

It should address any information needed for most people to make the decision.

I realize this is partially the chipset failure (Z170), but it needs USB 3. 1 support. The 6700k with the Z170 chipset has massive issues trying to actually deliver everything it promises. The chipset allows for multiple M.

2 SSDs (2 and even 3 on some motherboards), but if you put 2 current NVMe SSDs capable of 2500MB/s reads in a RAID-0 you will quickly hit the 4GB/s bandwidth limitation of the chipset to CPU link. In theory it should be around 5000MB/s, but it only hits around 3500MB/s.

That and with both M. 2 slots filled, there isn’t enough PCIe lanes left over for the rest of the system — on my motherboard, it disables all 3 of it’s SATA Express ports (or forces one SSD to run at half speed which isn’t much of an option).

Without an operational SATA Express port, the USB 3. 1 front port connection doesn’t work. Odd that a USB 3. 1 port connects via SATA Express, but it does. With the limited PCIe lanes available off the processor itself, motherboard manufacturers then have to play games with switches to try and support SLI/Crossfire which increases the cost of the motherboard significantly.

Seriously Intel, get your stuff together. It’s 2016. Your best desktop gaming processor needs more PCIe lanes, and quad channel memory support. Your chipset needs USB 3. 1 support, and more SATA 3/Sata Express ports and don’t share them with the M.

2 PCIe lanes.

New Life in 13year old (2007) LGA775 Optiplex 745 that I use only for Automotive diagnostic software. The computer originally had Windows XP 32bit but I had installed Windows 10 64bit Sept. 2020 build.

The computer was really sluggish with the original dual core 2core/2thread E6300 @ 1. 83Ghz. I searched online and found that the Q6600 4core/4thread is the best processor for speed and cost. The processor was used but arrived quickly and was carefully packed.

It was easy to install with new thermal paste on the stock intel cooler. When the computer booted I noticed it was much faster @ 2. 4Ghz Quad core. The only other upgrades to this otherwise bone stock pc was upgrading the DDR2 800mhz from from 2GB to 7GB and the hard drive from 250GB to 1TB.

I can run the software I need to do with word processing in the background as well as internet browsing in multiple windows at the same time with no slow down. It feels as fast as my 2010 1st gen i5 – 760 4core/4thread 2.

8Ghz DDR3 1333mhz 8GB but nowhere near my 2018 2nd gen Zen Ryzen 5 2600 6core/12thread 3. 6Ghz DDR4 16GB. I highly recommend this processor if you need to get more speed from a old computer that is for the workshop.

It’s difficult to review technology that’s obsolete however, I’ll give it a go. The computer that this processor went into was purchased as a low spec, refurbished machine on ebay which was to be used for a small business for Word, Excel, email and the occasional websurfing.

The processor was replacing an Intel E2180 Dual Core processor which is also obsolete. At the same time as the processor upgrade the RAM was upgraded from 3GB to 8GB. The processor was easy to upgrade just by using CPUID which identifies your mainboard, RAM, Graphics card and processor.

You can then look this up and find the specifications for it. These tell you the maximum RAM that can be installed and the fastest processor that can be installed. The processor was easy to come out and the new one was extremely easy to install.

The comparison figures can be seen in the image below although you’ll need to note that the reference processor is slightly faster than the one that it was replacing but that is the nearest that CPU-Z has in it’s reference library to the one that was replaced.

It looks as though I have near enough doubled the processing power of my PC for a matter of a few pounds. In fact, it was so good for the price, I have now done the same to all the machines in the office.

With the upgraded RAM and processor, this machine is now running AutoCAD without any issues as well as Microsoft office 365. To sum up then, you’re not going to be the best gamer there is with this processor, but if you want to squeeze another couple of years out of your machine, and you’re not too afraid of ‘having a go’ then this is the way to do it.

It will surf the net, write and send emails and work out your finances on Excel with consummate ease. If you’ve bought one of these computers from eBay it’s well worth going through the above process.

If you find yourself rebuilding an older machine you came across and are upgrading the CPU to its highest potential class of chip what’s important for me to tell you about this one is that it has a nice big cache on it, and that does help it a lot to perform as pretty good CPU for those older rigs.

It’s stable, reliable, and does those 90% repetitious tasks with a breeze. One thing to keep in mind though is you may also want to update your heat sink, depending on the machine you drop this into to, and how demanding the programs you expect to run on it.

It is an efficient chip, but being a hard worker, it can heat up under some of the workloads of newer more modern apps (especially games, some of which it simply can’t run at all) expecting a more recent chip technology and also equipped with even more cores.

Don’t have unreasonable expectations and you’ll be just fine. Considering how dirt-cheap this is you can rebuild an old rig gotten for peanuts at a thrift store or neighborhood church rescue mission donated salvage store and restore it for a lot of standalone workhorse usage.

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Have multiple rigs and distribute the workload. This CPU is an ingredient for that mindset, at a budget price the savvy amateur or entrepreneur startup can live with.

These ES & QS cpus are so much value for money, that I am on my third one now! I had a X9000 Core 2 Extreme ES, that was flawless. I have a 920XM i7 Quad Core Extreme ES that is running @ 3. 5GHz to this day.

And now I have this ‘E5-2690 v4’ this is also an ES chip. My GTX1070 on 3DMark11 hit a mere 15,000 on my server’s 6-core CPU, but it hits 18,000 attached to the ‘2690’. I put the 2690 in inverted quotes, because the ES Xeons, unlike the consumer ‘ES’ chips, are not quite exactly the same as their retail brethren, as they have a slightly lower base clock than the retail chips do, but usually the same max turbo / multiplier speed, same L3 Cache too.

Since they chips do not report their model number to CPU-Z (like the consumer ES chips), I assume they determine it to be a 2690 based on max clock, and L3 cache level. But seriously, after my system POSTs, the Win Server 2016 (Win 10 without spyware & tracking, no forced updates, etc) boots in about 5 seconds.

Wow, what a chip. Anything you do with a 14 Core / 28 Thread chip feels near instantaneous. The cost of a 6950X? 1300 GBP? My 2690? 340GBP (shipped). This is the point in buying a chips such as this.

Oh, and I get to use ECC RAM too for stability. I don’t think you can use ECC with any of Intel’s consumer chips, but AMD you can. Peace.

This is an under-appreciated SKU. This configuration was a custom spec for Amazon. a nice balance of performance and cores; a little heavy on the power consumption. I think the fact that not a lot of public information is available on this chip has kept the prices low, I think it is a grat value in the E5-V4 Xeon range.

I’ve been running two of these for a sold couple of weeks now with no signs of issues. Done tons of stress testing to ensure reliability and verify performance. Be aware that these have a base clock lower than that of an official 2690v4 and as a result will benchmark slightly lower without overclocking.

However that hardly negates the quality of these CPU’s. Regardless make sure to do your research, these are not gaming processors and require very specific hardware to run.

This is a solid processor. I loaded it into a ASUS P6T6 Work Station Revolution mobo w/12 gigs (6X2G) of corsair DDR3, a 1000W Cooler master PSU, and 6 320G WD Blacks in RAID5. I have an outdated 200 series GPU, but not for long.

It booted up and runs great. The ASUS board hasn’t missed a beat. You gotta pay attention to the RAID controller, on the way in. Ctrl-M for Marvel & Ctrl-I for Intel. Anyways the core is running in a Coolermaster CM690 Advanced case with 6 X 140mm and 2 X 120mm fans.

I have never had a set up this nice. I was worried about the “mid tower”, but it’s more like a full tower case. I was also worried about fan noise, but you’d be amazed at how silent 6 140s run. In stock mode (3.

06G to 3. 33G) the CPU isn’t even hitting 100F with the stock cooler, from Intel! It’s sitting at 32C-36C in all 4 cores after a day of running. I am letting it all burn in for anouther 24 hours before I really run it hard.

I’m impressed. I like seeing the 8 threads of 3+GHz and you toss the 6 drives in raid at it and I have the speed of an SSD with out the limited writes/reads for the same cost. I am mouting the CPU under the stairs, between my living room and my office.

HDMI will run further than the 20′ I need to have my TV set up as a primary or secondary monitor. Then, I’ll run two or three 23″ in the office for WORK and a couple games. 🙂 a Powered USB hub w/extension and a USB DVD drive for those little occations, will keep me from having to go into the closet.

Windows Media Center, on this thing, ROCKS. It’s a whole new lease on life for Media Center. I’ll be able to feed BlueRay and 3D movies to my TV and run the glasses, with my existing TV! All in all, the combo of a i7 950, the ASUS P6T6, Coolermaster, Corsair, and WD RAID5 is going to satisfy my needs for years to come!!! I’ll GROW my raid with 2TB drives and use the 320’s as backup drives for my kids towers.

I have had a DUAL Core 2. 6G in almost the same config. This setup makes that look like childs play. Good luck to you! BUY the parts! Built it! For the money, I would have spent $5,000-$7,000 for a prebuilt system.

This thing practically built it self. Plug and play. Windows7. Instructions written on everything for idiots. My kid could have put this together and I have less than 1600. 00 into it and less than a day putting it together!.

I thought my processor had failed so I bid on this one. When I received it, I put it in and no difference. Turned out my Corsair 650W had failed after 6 years. I got my system to boot with the original processor after I replaced my power supply with a working one.

I then temporary replaced my processor with this purchased one and ran the Intel Processor Diagnostic Tool 64bit on the CPU. It passed all test so then I put my original processor back in, Since I do not need this replacement processor, I will relist it on ebay.

Testing this processor myself made me confident in my purchase and future resale of this i7 950 3. 06G.

I read a lot of people complaining about how bad the Heatsink fan is, it’s not great, but it’s adequate. One needs to seat the fan right with a good thermal paste(go out to your local electronic shop and buy some artic silver or something) is one thing.

The other issue is that motherboards tend to overvolt the vcore in auto mode. If you are buying an i7 you are probably going to overclock it sometime, so I’m sure you know how to set the vcore and test stability.

Make sure with the stock heat sink and fan that you manually set the vcore to as low as it go while still being stable(range is. 8->1. 375). Mine in particular was stable around 1. 05V with stock clock.

I would not overclock with the stock cooler. My core temps went from ~85 C to 65 C at full load(we’re talking burn test at 22 C ambient) just by changing the VCore down to it’s lowest stable setting.

I still feel it’s kind of high, but it’s well within a threshold intel feels is fine.

The Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 is most likely one of the most versatile CPUs ever made. Upon it’s release in 2009, it was the top performer in its class. By today’s standards, it’s very easy to find one of these processors for dirt cheap on sites like this one.

Surprisingly, these chips are more than capable of running Windows 10 as well as light editing and somewhat demanding gaming. I purchased one to use for a cryptomining/server tower and the thing came in pristine condition.

If you take one of these core 2 quads, pair it with an inexpensive LGA-775 motherboard, give it 8GB of 1666MHz RAM, and boot it up with an SSD and a solid GPU, you’ve got yourself an all-around super budget PC capable of most tasks.

I highly recommend the Core 2 Quad to anyone looking to build a budget PC that doesn’t sacrifice much performance. Sure there are many CPUs that outperform this one, but not at this price range. This gets a 5 stars from me.

Pros: Cheap Very Efficient A nice cheap upgrade for older computers Easy to obtain Still fast even today Cons: Outperformed by some Core i3 and every Core i5 processors and beyond Old but what do you expect.

it’s cheap for a reason Other Thoughts: It makes me wonder which was a better processor; Core 2 Quad Q8400 or Phenom II X4 925? The thermals on this chip are much better than on the Phenom II chip lineup.

but the Phenom II has Level 3 cache. A bit of a trade off indeed although today it still has it where it count. What I don’t understand is that most Core i series chips, getting an actual working motherboard for these chips; one encounters “scalper” prices which is rather unfair in my professional opinion.

LGA775 motherboards and processors are inexpensive and getting performance oriented DDR2 800 memory is really easy to obtain. So why is it that much older Core i series chips, you can’t find motherboards for while the chips themselves are super cheap.

It really defeats the purpose of cheap processors if you can’t run them.

I just needed to get rid (burn and destroy) an old Celeron from the PC I was upgrading. After careful research on which CPU the motherboard could take I opted for this one. I didnt go mad and pick the most powerful, quad-core processor.

I needed to stay in-budget, without the need to change the PSU. All things being considered, and with a slight upgrade in the CPU fan, I got the PC a fantastic upgrade. I installed Win10 and the PC is much more usable than before.

Highly recommend this CPU.

Great, relatively inexpensive way to upgrade an older, but still capable system. Had to update the BIOS to f20e, so that all the new parts would play nice together. The BOOT time with f9 and a graphics card newer than a GTX-2XX , was horrible; but that was the fault of the board, not the CPU.

Now it BOOT’s in 15 -20 seconds, from completely off to the Desktop. This is the second CPU I have gotten from CORN. The first one was a used FM2+ Athlon x4 860K, and now this new i7-3770k. Both are working great.

I will keep ordering parts from them. System Specs: Gigabyte GA Z77X-UD3H i7 -3770k w/ Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 16 GB GSkill RipJaws DDR3 1600 9-9-9-24 860 EVO 500GB SSD Boot Drive Crucial MX500 1 TB Game Drive EVGA GTX – 970 SC Thermal take 700 Watt Smart Series PSU Cooler Master N400 Mid Tower case.

I received this product in a timely manner, although it took a few days to ship out. The seller communicated with me in a timely and professional manner. The truth is I was a little worried to order from this third party seller based on some of the reviews I’ve seen from other people against the seller and because the product would be shipping from China.

I decided to give this seller a try and am very satisfied with the speed of the delivery and the product itself because the product worked on first install as it should. Would use this seller again in the future if the need arises.

I feel the need to mention the fact this product actually shipped from the USA instead of China, even though during the initial checkout it said it would be arriving from China. This part confused be a little bit, but I have no complaints as I received the product very fast and it works like it should straight out of the box.

Very satisfied at this present time.

Purchased this to replace the i5-3570K in my girlfriend’s PC. I’ve had it clocked at 4. 8GHz for the last 5+ years, and it’s been rock-solid, under 60C load with a Noctua NH-U14S. Perfect 4x Core CPU.

But I wanted to upgrade her PC without upgrading everything else, so I went with the best Z77 CPU – the i7-3770K. Works great! I’m a bit disappointed that it doesn’t reach 4. 8GHz like my 3570K, but it seems to be stable at 4.

6GHz while being under 70C load. Not bad. 4x extra threads for 200MHz less clock frequency? I’ll take it.

I’m sure that if you get an i7-4790 processor, any customer, gamer and worker alike would love the product. However, i had a wonderfully odd experience with this product. The core came in the proper packaging, undamaged, installed perfectly fine.

The actually writing on the core was indeed i7-4790, so everything stated this was the right product. Make sure you check what you have after getting your pc running. I made that mistake. Despite everything saying that this was an i7, and feeling comfortable making that purchase, the actually core, despite all the writing and packaging is actually a pentium g3258.

I don’t know what went wrong, but when i started downloading more taxing games like the recent gears of war, and titan fall 2, the games wouldn’t run, even though an i7 should be perfect. Turns out i’ve had a pentium in disguise this whole time.

Good times. Outletpc has been helpful, saying that they’ll provide a partial refund for the product, and i understand that, but just a word of warning if you purchase this. I think i might be the only one this has happened to so no worries.

I ran amd before all this and never had this type of problem, so maybe it was just a freak accident on intel’s manufacturing end. Cool. I’m suffering for my errors now, just don’t make the same mistake as me and believe all of the wordings on your packaging and processor.

It might just be wrong.

I received what I ordered in a reasonable amount of time. Tracking information was sub-par as it never actually updated after going to “Shipment Information Received” two days after ordering. I received it within a week of submitting my order.

Tracking info still doesn’t say it has been delivered and it’s been here for a few days already. As for the CPU, I had the old one out and the new one in with the system up and running within a half hour.

Took longer to blow out the dust at the beginning than it did to actually pop off the cooler, swap CPUs, add new paste, and reinstall the cooler. Seems to be working fine a couple hours after install.

Ran some higher loading programs and it handled them fine.

An easy and low cost upgrade option during the global hardware shortage. This was the fastest CPU I could fit in my current PC without replacing the motherboard. The i7 gives me a 20% performance boost over my old i5, which is pretty good for the money.

I’d rather be buying a new PC, but this will keep me going until the supply picks up and I don’t have the feed the scalpers.

The i5-4460 is a powerful CPU. It’s not as powerful as Intel’s i7, but I usually choose the i5 because the price/performance ratio is excellent. Most workstations that I build will not be focusing on heavy processing, but they’re for average offices or homes which sometimes need power.

I’ve built hundreds of computers, and even chose the i5 line for my last personal gaming machine because games are more dependent on GPU (graphics processing unit). Over nearly two years of using it nightly, I’ve never felt the need for more CPU power.

If money isn’t an issue and you just want the best, go for an i7, or an i9 in the latest generation. If you want a really powerful processor for a general home or office computer, or a budget gaming computer, I recommend the i5.

Even the i3 is great for most work situations, especially when paired with a solid state drive and plenty of RAM. The CPU cooler that comes with this unit is OK. It’s long-lasting, with average or standard performance.

I prefer inexpensive aftermarket air coolers for myself, but stock (included) coolers have always been perfectly adequate for all of my business customers and standard general-use home computer customers.

For most single player gpu bound games, general work (web browsing, hd movies, Netflix, youtube music playing), this old core2quad’s still get the job done fairly well. If you have a great motherboard that does ddr3 and can overclock, id say keep the platform.

I upgraded because of instability, lock ups and stutters while playing games was ruining my experience. If you especially want to play MMORPG RTS and play competitive multiplayer games this i5 will definitely do fine.

While from my benchmarking I didn’t see too much of a difference, I think if the graphic settings were tweaked, the i5 would see more gains. Also having a higher minimum frame rate really improved my overall gaming experience.

Plus my system is very cool and superquiet (now with my new Corsair Carbide Spec 01 case!) compared to my old Lenovo q6600 rig that was like a jet engine space heater! If you can spend the money and play online games and just do general work don’t render, i5 otherwise if you render go fx 8 or a i7.

Highly recommend this CPU if upgrading. Update all board drivers and bios if you have any issues. I was having a problem transferring files at first before updating. Now I can transfer a 7G file in about 45 seconds.

The product was new but not in the box as shown but that’s not an issue.

DISCLAIMER: This review covers 3 main items (CPU, MOBO, RAM). Links to the other parts are included (all available at Home Essentials Direct for good prices). You’ll read this review on each of the other parts as well.

WHY DID I BUY IT? I recently built and absolute beast of a computer and kept my older one as a backup. Unfortunately, it decided to take a dive this past week with the motherboard failing catastropically.

Given that it was 10 years old, I decided to replace the “brains” with something a little more modern, but not overkill. Because I had spent a LOT of money on a computer recently, I was trying to keep the repair under about $400 and here’s what I did.

The BRAINS. Intel i3-10100 Processor ($100): www. Home Essentials Direct. com/gp/product/B086MMRW87 MSI Mag B460 Motherboard ($110): www. Home Essentials Direct. com/gp/product/B08GXVP1DM TeamGroup 16GB DDR4 ($60): www.

Home Essentials Direct. com/gp/product/B07WNQVBZ6 *** These are the main parts that MUST be compatible. and they are *** I was worried about my hard drive, so I went ahead and splurged on a TeamGroup 1TB SSD ($75 — www.

Home Essentials Direct. com/gp/product/B07PX2KKHM) bringing my total to just under $400. I could have kept my old Seagate 500gb 5400 RPM drive but I had a little extra to spend and that greatly sped up boot and wait times.

For what it’s worth, I also kept my existing Antec Power Supply (550W) that was replaced about a year ago, my case, and my now very old graphics card (R9 380 – 4gb). I already had a good monitor, mouse, and keyboard so those carried over as well.

So how did it go together? Pretty seamlessly with just 2 little hiccups. HICCUP #1 RAM: I did not realize the motherboard I purchased has a standard RAM speed of 2666. It can get up to a max of 2933.

So the RAM I purchased (3200 speed, CL 16) is overkill and I could have saved another $20 or so. But, I didn’t. and it’s my first build with TeamGroup RAM and I’m happy with it. HICCUP #2 LAN/AUDIO: Once I got everything installed, the LAN would not connect to my network (wired, ethernet connection).

A little troubleshooting found out YOU MUST TO UPGRADE THE LAN DRIVER for it to work. This means having another computer with internet and a flash drive. Likewise, I went ahead and updated the Audio driver and the sound was much crisper.

So. take a moment and download all of the drivers in advance from the MSI website. FIRST POWER ON: The computer started up, then turned off immediately. It then restarted on it’s own and said the motherboard had detected changes so I needed to configure the BIOS.

Entering BIOS found that everything was recognized. So I changed the first boot device to USB flash drive and plugged in my Windows 10 install flash drive and restarted. Bottom Line: The Intel i3-10100 is a great little chip (not overclockable).

The MSI 460 Torpedo is a decent motherboard (just update the LAN and Audio drivers) that boots quickly. In fact, it boots so quickly, I don’t even see the POST screen. From cold to Windows is easily under 30 seconds.

The RAM is stable at 2666 and fast enough that I probably won’t even push the 2933 setting. The SSD is very fast (functionally almost as fast as the M2 drive I have in my beast at a savings of $20-25).

Even with the aging R9 graphics card, I’m easily hitting 60 FPS on modern titles at 1080 in medium to high settings. Sometime next year when graphics card prices drop to a reasonable level, I’ll update that and have a second gaming rig ready.

Overall, I’m very happy with this setup.

I was building two nearly identical computers. With a limit 1 on the i3-10105 cpu’s , I had to get an i3-10100. The i3-10105 worked fine. The i3-10100 won’t boot, the video gets all kinds of messed up, and then it locks up in the BIOS.

Tried replacing the motherboard, CPU, RAM, power supply, disconnected everything not needed including the ssd, and updated the BIOS. I get the same results with two completely different sets of identical parts.

I’ve spent about 3 weeks chasing this issue while a customer waits for a new computer. Not good.

I have built many systems over the years normally high end intel i5 and i7 with full ATX motherboards like Z390, but i was tasked to build a budget machine for school work/college and general office machine.

This intel i3 10100 was just right for the job. it was more powerful for What it was intended to do, the performance was excellent, multitasking, web browsing, Photoshop and even budget gaming it did well.

I have to say for the money there’s not much else out there that can provide this kind of performance at such low price. This should be the starting point for any pc, forget the Intel Pentium gold or Celerons and budget AMD Chips, the i3 10th generation surpasses them all and only costs another £30 more.

It’s so easy to install and comes with its own CPU Cooler Fan.

Hard to believe I am writing this in 2021 about a CPU that is right at a decade old but I am. This CPU was a game changer when it was released and still to this day is the CPU all others are judged by.

The only drawback is the lack of native USB 3. 0. You can still have USB 3. 0 with software. This thing is fast enough to play most any game you throw at it. It was light years ahead of the core2 quad when new and was intel’s finest moment.

It is a shame that the 2020 Presidential election was blatantly stolen in broad daylight. This Country is finished.

No problems whatsoever on this used i7-2600. The physical condition was excellent for a “take-out”. Everything fired right up with zero drama on the first power-up and ever since. I especially appreciated the tube of thermal goop which flows nicely and delivers that nice microscopically thin layer that you want.

The installation went flawlessly. This chip runs PhotoShop tasks about 10% faster than the i5-2500K I took out. That is in line with the published benchmarks. However the currently available chips are now about 100% faster! With that in mind, I’m glad that this old i7 cost just a little over $100.

Of course a completely current system would really zoom compared to my now slightly refreshed 6 year old PC, but then I would have to be spending a total of $1. 0K instead of only $0. 1K.

Going from an I3 dual core to i7 quad core and from 8 to 16gb of RAM made my old asus desktop feel like a new computer. I was able to use the original CPU cooler but I turned off the mobo turboboost because the cpu ran just a little too hot at 100% load.

A computer is such a bad investment with speeds getting faster every 6 months to a year, so upgrading an older PC is a real bargain. I do audio and basic video editing plus all of the normal interweb stuff and this CPU will now add a few more years of life to it.

The Intel I7-2600 isn’t the fastest older CPU that I could get, but seemed to best value of speed vs price of a used cpu. I chose it because it is difficult to overclock, so chances are the used CPU wasn’t abused.

I do a lot of computers upgrades on both AMD & Intel based computers. I have ordered over 200 used CPUs in just the last year. For this price range, there is nothing even close, performance wise. I would highly recommend finding a good used motherboard and purchasing this processor.

I happen to have built a new I7-4790K system back in 2014, that still runs everything I throw at it. I was shocked that there is very little difference in the performance of the used I7-3770 based systems I am building and my system at home.

I just spent 7k upgrading an entire schools computers, if I had only known that I could have replaced MB for $15. 00, factory PS for $25. 00, reused the factory memory and bought these processors instead, the computers I upgraded would have been 2-3x more powerful.

Only affordable 8 threaded cpu, next step is more than double the price for less than 20% performance increase.

This seems to be a good upgrade for the i3-3220T processor that I originally used for this particular build. With the i7-3770 I’m getting better than 2X the single-thread performance for python3 code, and the OEM cooler is still holding the core temps well within spec without making much noise.

I rated “easy-to-install” question as a “no”, NOT because of any issue with the processor itself, but due to the Intel OEM heatsink/fan assembly; the trashy plastic tool-less binding posts for the assembly are a real pain, and for the 2X higher heat dissipation of the i7, it’s essential to be sure the heatsink is pulled down properly.

This CPU upgrade with a new faster SSD buys me a few more years without having to build an entire new system. ASUS EZbios was a no-brainer to upgrade and only took a few minutes to execute. After that I popped this CPU in place of the original i5.

Had to reboot twice for everything to settle down but pretty much flawless. “Windows Experience” in WIN7PRO is almost at max level so this is about as good as my old computer will ever be. I’ll build a new system from scratch in a few years.

This processor is an upgrade over the slower Intel Pentium dual core e4600 that this cpu replaces is a huge difference. Everything is much faster now and everything works very well. The temps are just a little bit higher than normal but I can deal with that.

I did expect that too. Installing it is quite easy and the motherboard was easily compattable with it with no problem even with it being an old 2007 HP home desktop pc for basic tasks. The use I have the computer doing is running a minecraft server with about 30 plugins an an average of 7 to 10 or more players per day.

The pentium could not keep up when intensive things on the server began to occur. This processor can handle them easily and prevent the server from lagging too often. But now the only thing lagging the server is the amount of RAM the PC has.

But a few small changes and it will be perfect. And because this processor was so cheap in price, I was able to easily buy it and swap it in for an extra noticeable performance boost. Quite a good CPU for now.

Hopefully it will last! I think it will last a long time so far.

This recently purchased Quad CPU works great in my 10 yr old home built computer! I repaired and upgraded my computer, I installed it on a recently purchased Asus P5Q Green Motherboard using 2 sticks of DDR2 RAM, 1 GB each, on an XP Pro Windows operating system.

I used the 2 yellow slots on the motherboard for the RAM. I also used a new Original Intel Core 2 Extreme Heatsink Cooling Fan for LGA775 Quad Core CPU. This Quad CPU emits less heat than many other Quad CPUs, which makes it easier to cool.

I was happy when I got my CPU in the mail. I’ve wanted to upgrade my secondary machine for quite a while. It currently has a dual core CPU and since I’m using it as a server I wanted to upgrade to a quad core.

So I rolled the dice and bought one on ebay. The Intel Core 2 Quad Q9500 I got can’t boot the operating system half the time. I’ve tried everything. I have two motherboards of the same type. Tried them both.

I made sure that the bios is fully up to date. I replaced the battery on the motherboards. I tested the memory and tried several different operating systems on different SSD’s. Simply put the problem is the CPU.

It’s not reliable. As soon as I plopped my old CPU in the system was stable and fine. Alas, I was sold a dud.

Sure, you can look at price and performance of Ryzen 3 3300X or 3100 and think “why on earth would you buy this?” But it’s not all about the performance. Pros: 1. Availability Ryzen 3 3300X has not been and is not available to purchase for months after the launch.

Not to mention the motherboard market. With i3-10100, I had no problem purchasing recently at all. I think this shouldn’t be a merit of a product itself, but at the end of the day, you can’t buy 3300X now while you can buy i3-10100.

2. Value Compared to 3300X, i3-10100 is worse, but compared to 3100, it is better. Considering 3100 costs $110~120 and 3300X $130 due to demand, this certainly isn’t losing in value. Also, B460 is generally cheaper than B550.

Cons: 1. Memory speed Intel’s B and H series are stuck with slower memory speeds. Cost of 3200Mhz memory isn’t noticeably higher than 2666Mhz, and anyone trying to get more FPS on budget will be disappointed.

2. Lower boost clock than advertised boost clock Forget about tech reviewers only getting 4. 2Ghz turbo boost on single core, mine boosts to 4. 1Ghz on single core. This is just absurd. Overall, if you are building brand new PC and care about upgrading later on, then going with i3-10100 and B460 will give you performance between 3100 and 3300X while costing closer to 3100 and B550.