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Q6600

dannywilco

dannywilco

dannywilco

Associate
Joined
13 Dec 2008
Posts
270
How much longer will this chipset be good?

Reason why i'm asking is because i'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. My motherboard is dying so i can spend £80 on a new LGA775 board to fit my Q6600 and OC it when i need more from it.

Or do i jump in feet first and get a new mobo, RAM and CPU? Say 1135 slot?

I need these upgrades to last around 2/3 years as well.
 
Q6600 is a processor not a chipset... Clock for clock its already considerably slower than the i7 series processors, You pretty much need to get 4Ghz (overclock) out of a Kentsfield (Q6600) to keep up with a 3.0ghz i7.

But that said, many apps still struggle to make full use of a mildly clocked Q6600, and it will cost you a lot more than £80 to get motherboard, ram and a new cpu.

As long as your sure its your motherboard that is failing, (what makes you think it is failing anyway). Then just fix the machine, it will last a fair bit longer, and LGA 1156 is being replaced by LGA1155 fairly soon, and LGA1366 will get a refresh next year too, so I wouldnt count on anything you buy right now being a sure bet for 2-3 years anyway.
 
Sorry, misquote on the chipset/proc.

To upgrade it will cost me around £350 with a new mobo, proc and RAM whereas i can replace and stick with my Q6600 for a couple more years. My machine is basically used for games like the new CoD and Football Manager but whilst i have a little cash now, im trying to see the benefits of both replacing and staying with the Q6600 and upgrading to an i5 Quad.
 
dannywilco said:
Sorry, misquote on the chipset/proc.

To upgrade it will cost me around £350 with a new mobo, proc and RAM whereas i can replace and stick with my Q6600 for a couple more years. My machine is basically used for games like the new CoD and Football Manager but whilst i have a little cash now, im trying to see the benefits of both replacing and staying with the Q6600 and upgrading to an i5 Quad.
Click to expand...

You can buy an s775 mobo for about 30 quid. I got a brand new msi model, which even had oc options in BIOS. Probably won't oc that well, but its a cheap replacement
 
I just upgraded to the same i5 760 processor from a Q6600. I wouldn't say that there seems to be a massive difference in all games, as they tend to be GPU limited at the higher detail levels (even on an overclocked GTX460), but those that do use the CPU a lot (like Bad Company 2) run much smoother than before.

What does seem to be the case is that minimum FPS levels have increased, and overall the framerate seems to be more consistent.

Windows seems to run faster and smoother though.
 
Ravenger said:
I just upgraded to the same i5 760 processor from a Q6600. I wouldn't say that there seems to be a massive difference in all games, as they tend to be GPU limited at the higher detail levels (even on an overclocked GTX460), but those that do use the CPU a lot (like Bad Company 2) run much smoother than before.

What does seem to be the case is that minimum FPS levels have increased, and overall the framerate seems to be more consistent.

Windows seems to run faster and smoother though.
Click to expand...

Some very useful info for me who was considering ditching the Q6600 but its running sweet, I think i'm going to push for the 4Ghz over the winter with the temps coming down and re-evaluate, I just don't think you would get value for money going from a Q6600 to an i5 setup?
 
In the long run, i think i am better off upgrading now as opposed to keeping hold. If i keep hold, i will be spending £100 on a new mobo whereas an upgrade means i can sell the Q6600 on eBay and still get £70-£80 for it. Also my RAM sells for £50-£60 whereas this time next year, who knows? I've also been granted £150 toward upgrading my pc plus a further £150 from Uni to PC related costs. Both of which must be supplied with receipts so i'd rather upgrade to i5 now with grants in place which would cost me no more than £100 out of my own pocket, than replace and keep with Q6600. Next year i may not be in such a position i am now if you understand what im saying.
 
dannywilco said:
In the long run, i think i am better off upgrading now as opposed to keeping hold. If i keep hold, i will be spending £100 on a new mobo whereas an upgrade means i can sell the Q6600 on eBay and still get £70-£80 for it. Also my RAM sells for £50-£60 whereas this time next year, who knows? I've also been granted £150 toward upgrading my pc plus a further £150 from Uni to PC related costs. Both of which must be supplied with receipts so i'd rather upgrade to i5 now with grants in place which would cost me no more than £100 out of my own pocket, than replace and keep with Q6600. Next year i may not be in such a position i am now if you understand what im saying.
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Hell yeah - if someone is paying for a free upgrade go ahead and do it :D
 
I'm glad I upgraded, mainly because my previous PC wasn't really upgradable much more. Now I've got the option of going to an i7 later when they drop in price, and adding another graphics card for SLI or Physx. Also the new case is larger, with better cooling and is much easier to work in, so upgrading will be easier.

It just shows how good the Q6600 CPU was when I bought it over three years ago, that it's still an excellent gaming CPU today. Of course part of that is due to games not really requiring top-end PCs due to console ports...
 
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dannywilco said:
How much longer will this chipset be good?

Reason why i'm asking is because i'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. My motherboard is dying so i can spend £80 on a new LGA775 board to fit my Q6600 and OC it when i need more from it.

Or do i jump in feet first and get a new mobo, RAM and CPU? Say 1135 slot?

I need these upgrades to last around 2/3 years as well.
Click to expand...

What do you use your pc for? If it is for gaming, stick to the q6600 and spend the money on a p45 chipset based (great overclocker for quads) motherboard for your q6600 and decent graphics card instead rather than going for an i5/i7. I recommend the asus p5q deluxe whch is around the price you're willing to spend.
 
I just replaced my p35 board with an Asus P5Q. Now I can use my 8GB of pc2-8500 ram at full speed (could never get 1066MHz stable on my p35 even though it was supposed to work). My Q6600 is back at 3GHz at 1.275Vcore (my p35 needed 1.35v) and now fitted with a Coolit Eco so full load temps level out at about 58c. Can't see much point in upgrading for games at the moment - may wait and see what Sandybridge / Bulldozer bring.
 
I registered to ask a similar question, hope its ok to add on to this discussion?

I'm currently running a Core2 6420 running 3.20 Ghz, can't remember the motherboard right now but its nothing special. GFX wise its a GTX260.

I game a lot its only really what I use my system for, decided its high time to upgrade, Starcraft 2 runs iffy at best :/

So... obvious option is to go Q6600, read lots of great things about it.

But for an extra £160 I could go http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BU-035-OB&groupid=43&catid=339&subcat=

Or indeed any of the OC'd bundles look fantastic value. My question is, for my application (games), am I better off going for the i3 setup (with the room to upgrade in the future) or would a Q6600 do the job fine?

On a reasonably tight budget as well.

Thanks for any input.
 
Well Starcraft 2 is a bad example, as its a VERY CPU intensive game. If you swapped to an i3 you're gains would be immense. A Q6600 also runs starcraft 2 fine, as I have one myself.

Go with whatever you can get the best value on, your graphics is getting a little outdated aswell, however if its the maxcore version it's not too bad.

However, both i3 platform and Q6600 platform do not have the "room for upgrade in the future" as both are going to be dead sockets.
 
MooMoo444 said:
However, both i3 platform and Q6600 platform do not have the "room for upgrade in the future" as both are going to be dead sockets.
Click to expand...

I've not upgraded my processor on its own for years, because by the time I need to upgrade the socket and memory is no longer current and I end up having to buy a new processor, motherboard and memory to match anyway.

Last time I upgraded a processor was going from an AMD K6-2 200 to a K6-2 350!
 
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