• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

3 options. (E8600, Q9650, i7 920)

neithcat

neithcat

neithcat

Associate
Joined
28 Nov 2008
Posts
55
My computer is in my sig. I bought it in oct/nov 2008.

should I...

a) Keep current system longer (E8600 @ 4.44ghz) (£0)

b) Buy Q9650 and oc to 4+ ghz (£215)

c) Buy core i7 920 d0, mobo, ram, cpu cooler (£600)

I may be able to afford b now, c would take some time to save for.
 
Unless you do something that needs 4+ cores stick with what you have - for gaming at the moment you will if anything see a decrease in performance (quite likely to top out on a Q9x50 or i7 before 4.44gig - or equivalent performance clockspeed) - deffinatly not worth £600 for maybe 10% more fps.

Theres a few games that will be smoother or faster with a quad core CPU but they are a fairly small number at the moment... I do notice windows is a bit smoother when multitasking on my Q9550 compared to either my E6600 or dual core laptop even at the same clock speeds - my laptop has the equivalent of a E8300 in there (basically half a Q9550).
 
Last edited:
Don't bother with i7 unless you render/encode/design professionally.

And you'll have to be insane to buy a Q9650 for 215quid as well, if you really want to, grab a second hand q9550 for around 100quid.
 
Depending what you use your PC for really. But I think your PC is still very fast and good for at least another one to two years. Core i7 is overkill for general uses and gaming...like PhoenixUK pointed out...no point getting it unless you do lots of rendering and encoding.

Only very few games are actually taking adavantage of the extra cores at the moment, but indeed games seem to be moving toward that direction. I would say wait at least another year and see how the new games are, before decide upgrading to Quad or not...if you are a gamer that is.
 
Stick with the E8600.
If you are after more juice for gaming look into investing a 5850/5870 or hold on a month or so and see how nVidia's offering goes.
 
I went from an E8600 at 4.5GHz to a QX9650 many months ago and it was a rather pointless move tbh. No discernible difference, but it gave me something to do.

£215 for a Q9650 seems very expensive.
 
I'd stick with your E8600 atm. If i was going to upgrade your system, assuming its just for gaming, buy a 5850 or a 5870. Personally, i would spend money on old tech, if i was going to upgrade my cpu it would be an i5/i7.
 
If you sold your E8600 on the bay you could get almost the price of a new Q9550 so it would be a cheap upgrade. You have one of the best, if not the best P45 board for clocking 45nm quads and most Q9550's will hit at least 4Ghz on that board. 45nm quads will hold their value well and will probably increase in value as 775 gets faded out.
 
Are you actually having issues running anything atm or just fancy a change?

What sort of tasks do you regularly run?
 
TBH i wouldnt buy anything till the end of march. When the new 6 core stuff hits the shops it might just push the price down a little on the old 4cores.
 
BIGBC said:
Are you actually having issues running anything atm or just fancy a change?

What sort of tasks do you regularly run?
Click to expand...

it just running MS office and some on-line games, when it running 3+ small program it get a little slow and jumpy, so put a 2nd 1gb ram stick in and was going to put a little better CPU in.

But after my kicking from you lot :p i have had a look at a motherboard and CPU upgrade and i like the look of

AMD Athlon II X4 630 2.8ghz with a Gigabyte MA74GM-S2H...
again nothing super but better than what i have OR if you know any better combos let me know dont realy want to pass £200 and only want an upgrade as i have after market cast and psu anyway
 
Wouldn't bother at all tbh. If you are feeling the itch I would:
1. Buy an SSD
2. Buy a new telescope.

Im even keeping my E6600 (@ 3.4) with my 9800GTX as I don't game as much as I used to! And even when I do I am quite haoppy with how it performs.
 
pastymuncher said:
If you sold your E8600 on the bay you could get almost the price of a new Q9550 so it would be a cheap upgrade. You have one of the best, if not the best P45 board for clocking 45nm quads and most Q9550's will hit at least 4Ghz on that board. 45nm quads will hold their value well and will probably increase in value as 775 gets faded out.
Click to expand...

^This, good advice.
 
Danny_75 said:
TBH i wouldnt buy anything till the end of march. When the new 6 core stuff hits the shops it might just push the price down a little on the old 4cores.
Click to expand...
not likely to happen because they arent suposed to compete with quads and intels will be very expensive.

they are replacing the 920 with a 930 which is suposed to cost the same as the model its replacing which means it will probably be 220-250 quid.

i doubt 920s will drop in price much brand new no one seems to have reduced prices since december even though they know its end of the line very soon
 
P4Clock said:
AMD Athlon II X4 630 2.8ghz with a Gigabyte MA74GM-S2H...
again nothing super but better than what i have OR if you know any better combos let me know dont realy want to pass £200 and only want an upgrade as i have after market cast and psu anyway
Click to expand...

Are you OP?
I wouldnt consider that much of an upgrade for OP.
 
I appreciate the responses thanks.

I've recently run into a couple games that would benefit from the quad. Dragon Age Origins and Dawn of War 2. My machine is for gaming, I told myself when the games I wanted to play needed a quad I would get one. It is a lot of money to spend for 1-2 games though.

Although I have purchased items on ebay I have never sold anything, I may have trouble selling the E8600 with a lack of reputation. Perhaps selling or trading on a forum may be a good idea? I remember checking the batch number and found that my chip belongs to a sought after batch (Q822A566).

I think my 4870X2 will last through another generation I've had nothing but good experiences with it.

Overall I am very happy with the machine in its current state. If my primary game of choice in the future is severly gimped by lack of quad I would definitely not be satisfied though.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom