Time to ditch my good'ol Q6600 build or worthwhile pursuing a cheap upgrade?

Devrij said:
A good point that I can't believe neither myself or anyone else has mentioned is that you could overclock your cpu to gain a very nice performance boost in cpu-bound games and make more from a gfx upgrade as well. And it's free!
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Hi Devrij,

I'm already running my q6600 at 3.3ghz so don't think I can squeeze much more!

Quick question - does my mobo allow for another 2x2gb ram sticks to take me up to 8gb total (I'll great another identical pair of geil black dragon). Is there any merit in sticking in one single 4gb stick or does that not work as its dual channel?
 
Doh, I forgot Q6600 is 2.6GHz at stock :o You might get an extra 100-200MHz out of it, but yeah you are about at the high end of what it can do.

I've noticed some games do feel smoother with 8GB RAM, so that might be a nice boost. I have to say that it would make more sense to buy a semi-decent GPU and then get saving for a full cpu/mobo/ram upgrade rather than investing more into hardware that you can't take with you to your next build.
 
I would say 5870 second hand , and a 8gb memory set and a boot drive ssd. That would give you the best you could get from your current platform. I would only buy second hand as not to spend too much on current upgrade and the save tight for an i5 haswell build in the future.
 
McstylisT said:
I would say 5870 second hand , and a 8gb memory set and a boot drive ssd. That would give you the best you could get from your current platform. I would only buy second hand as not to spend too much on current upgrade and the save tight for an i5 haswell build in the future.
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Thanks Mcstylist,

I think I'm going to grab these second hand (looking at just over £100 for the two):

- GeForce gtx 560 ti; and
- Crucial M4 64gb.

Idea being that the two above will give me a good boost on my current rig but will also be usable on a future rebuild.

Seem ok for £100ish?
 
Hopefully I'm not hijacking the thread as I'm in a very similar situation. I'm currently running:

AMD Phenom 2 X3 720 @ 2.8GHz
4Gb Corsair DDR3 1066MHz
AMD Radeon HD 4830
7200rpm HDDs

I'm not interested in running the latest and greatest games at amazing settings. My most demanding current game is Civ 5 and I would be looking to play games like Sleeping Dogs, Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon (basically last gen games).

I was thinking about hanging on to the Kaveri release to get a new build, but if a new GPU (specifically an 7850) would be a worthwhile upgrade that I could use when I upgrade CPU in the next year or 2 then I would be a happy bunny!

I'm not a big gamer and a 7850 is the limit of my budget for a GPU. I also have an aftermarket cooler on the CPU so overclocking is a possibility although I have no experience with this.

Thanks for any help!
 
SDMFer said:
Hopefully I'm not hijacking the thread as I'm in a very similar situation. I'm currently running:

AMD Phenom 2 X3 720 @ 2.8GHz
4Gb Corsair DDR3 1066MHz
AMD Radeon HD 4830
7200rpm HDDs

I'm not interested in running the latest and greatest games at amazing settings. My most demanding current game is Civ 5 and I would be looking to play games like Sleeping Dogs, Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon (basically last gen games).

I was thinking about hanging on to the Kaveri release to get a new build, but if a new GPU (specifically an 7850) would be a worthwhile upgrade that I could use when I upgrade CPU in the next year or 2 then I would be a happy bunny!

I'm not a big gamer and a 7850 is the limit of my budget for a GPU. I also have an aftermarket cooler on the CPU so overclocking is a possibility although I have no experience with this.

Thanks for any help!
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Hi matey,

I've purchased a 2nd hand Geforce GTX 560 Ti for £60 delivered. Should receive it tomorrow so will tell you if this makes much of a difference!
 
I would definitely overclock that X3, as it's not the fastest chip out there so you want everything you can get out of it. That should give you some noticeable gains in Civ5. A new GPU is really going to improve things for games like Far Cry BD (really fun game btw, and looks great maxed out).
 
I thought as much, I'll get looking into overclocking. From a quick search my Gigabyte mobo isn't the best for OC'ing but considering I put an Asaka AK-967 Nero cooler on there 4 years ago with this in mind I should be able to squeeze something out of it! (and its 1333MHz RAM, typo in the original post)

I think I'll take a leap on the 7850 as it'll still be relevant when I upgrade the CPU and hopefully more relevant in a few years than my 4830 is now! And I can get a couple of games with it, always a tasty treat! :)
 
Yeah it isn't a bad card, but you will most likely need to tweak a fair few settings in the more demanding games (eg AA) to get the best performance
 
I have the same spec except a 6870, going from my experience if you get a 560 ti (which I believe has the equivalent grunt of a 6870) you will get good fps until you encounter a huge battle where it will get choppy.

Should be perfectly playable though, this is at 1920x1080 resolution.

I also made the leap from a 4870 512mb :) I made the upgrade so I could play BF3 (which I don't really play) and it made that game fly.
 
Do you have MM access? Cards such as HD7850's and GTX660's can be had for £90 - £100 at times. An HD5870/HD6870/GTX 560TI etc should only set you back about £65.
 
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acme15 said:
:confused:

I know newer members need 1000 posts for access, but I think when he joined it was still 100 posts for access, but i'm not sure. Hence asking.
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Very true, he may be eligible for the 100 post limit (wasn't it 200? I can't remember), in which case a bit of time in GD would get him into MM reasonably quickly. Very good place to get 2nd hand cards on the cheap from trustworthy community rather than running the fleabay gauntlet.
 
Yes the OP may be eligible but I'm definitely not with my mighty total of 3 posts!

I'm biting the bullet with a new 7850 - I think it's about time I bought a decent GPU, considering the total cost for my last 2 GPUs comes to less than a 7850. Not that much of a gamer but I may as well enjoy a good-looking game when I do! And I've been thinking about upgrading CPU recently anyway (was thinking of waiting for Kaveri) so the 7850 should fit in nicely. Now off to try and OC my X3 720....

Still looking forward to the outcome of JonnyBase's 560, and thanks for the help guys!
 
The faster quads have gone very expensive. However the E8500 is very cheap and may overclock to 3.8/4ghz. Don't know if fits your board. It will be slower in some heavily multi-threaded games/apps, but faster in apps/games which aren't that well multi-threaded. Maybe its a lot of work and might not be that much quicker. But it is cheap. I have a E8500 and i3-3100 and find the E8500 compares very nicely. I only notice a big difference in video encoding.
 
OspreyO said:
The faster quads have gone very expensive. However the E8500 is very cheap and may overclock to 3.8/4ghz. Don't know if fits your board. It will be slower in some heavily multi-threaded games/apps, but faster in apps/games which aren't that well multi-threaded. Maybe its a lot of work and might not be that much quicker. But it is cheap. I have a E8500 and i3-3100 and find the E8500 compares very nicely. I only notice a big difference in video encoding.
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No. A Q6600 would beat an E8500. I loved my Wolfdale when I had one, but the OP will be better off sticking with his Q6600. You're right about the Q9xxx chips going crazy steep though! It's a shame as they would be a nice little upgrade to eek some life out of an old S775 build.
 
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