Been away 10 years - replacement or upgrade Q6600 rig

Franksie

Franksie

Franksie

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Joined
5 Jun 2008
Posts
35
Hi All,

My days of gaming are long gone but i am becoming more interesting in photo editing and i'm wondering whether i can upgrade my current system to meet my needs or whether i need to start over. If i need to start over, i'd like to reuse as much of my current rig as possible:

Asus P5N-D
4 GB DDR2 Corsir Dominator
2 x Samsung Spinpoint F1 500GB (OS and old storage drives)
2 x WD Blue 2TB (photo storage)
GTX260
HAF932
Corsair 850W Modular PSU

I can definitely reuse the 2 x WD HDD, case and the PSU in any case but i was considering doubling up to 8GB of DDR2 RAM and adding an 500GB 850EVO SSD to help speed up the current system.

So would appreciate some feedback if i'd see any benefit from the upgrades or if i'd be better off with something new. If so, please spec me something in the £500-700 region
 
Personally, I'd ditch the Q6600 and start fresh, but you could first stick in an SSD and see what happens. An SSD boot drive will make a massive difference. As you say, the 2 HDDs are fine to reuse and the PSU should be fine as well.

If you do want to start from new, then something like this would be good. 16GB RAM may be overkill, so you could get an 8GB kit. The K-series Skylake CPUs don't come with a stock cooler. The Themis is great value and will be fine as long as you're not massively overclocking.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £538.05
(includes shipping: £11.10)
​
 
I'm still running a Q6600 system which started life quite similar to yours, although with 8GB. I am planning to replace it soon with a new build, but it still hangs in there respectably for a lot of games and is still totally viable for productivity work like Photoshop, Illustrator, photo editing etc.

However, there's two things I needed to upgrade to keep it viable. I added a SSD (as it happens a 500 GB Samsung 850 EVO) and a GTX 660 (I orignally had a GTX 260 but it died).

The SSD has made a huge difference and transformed the PC. The GTX 660 has also helped me play a lot more games too than my previous GTX 260.

I would try something similar with your Q6600 rig. Definitely go with the SSD upgrade, I can guarantee you won't regret it. Perhaps also a new GPU, something like a GTX 960 would be a nice upgrade without being too much overkill.

Both a SSD and a GPU upgrade can be carried forward to a new build if you aren't happy with results on your current rig.

If you can find another 4GB DDR2 at a good price I'd shove that in too.
 
wow old memory looks expensive
id just put that money towards a new system

the ssd should speed it up a lot, if not maybe a little dual-core system would be enough for u
 
Mei said:
wow old memory looks expensive
Click to expand...

Lol!

Was reading up on the forum last night - seems X99 would be the way to go with a new system for the extra cores in photo editing?

Looks like I can get something decent for 600-700 mark? Problem being I would need a new GPU as no onboard graphics - is that correct?
 
Franksie said:
Lol!

Was reading up on the forum last night - seems X99 would be the way to go with a new system for the extra cores in photo editing?

Looks like I can get something decent for 600-700 mark? Problem being I would need a new GPU as no onboard graphics - is that correct?
Click to expand...

yeh x99 has no inbuilt
you rly need all that power for photo editing? lol or you think you might get into video editing too? i guess its nice to have

i do light photo and video editing on whatever desktop here nothing that fancy and my laptop too
i duno what screen you have but maybe get something cheaper and spend on a screen?
just a thought
 
Mei said:
yeh x99 has no inbuilt
you rly need all that power for photo editing? lol or you think you might get into video editing too? i guess its nice to have

i do light photo and video editing on whatever desktop here nothing that fancy and my laptop too
i duno what screen you have but maybe get something cheaper and spend on a screen?
just a thought
Click to expand...

I'm in my thirties with 3 kids now so i need something that will last as long as possible (built my Q6600 build in 2007 just before 2nd child!). My mobo on the Q6600 built has kind of painted me into a corner as it has an NVidia chipset which is pants for HDD recognition and i only have 4 SATA slots. So when i go up, i'd like to go up as far as i can within a decent budget so i don't need to look at this again until the kids are at Uni!

I may do video editing - my main interests are family photography, martial arts (fight pics/video) and MotoGP. Would just like to future-proof as much as i can without OC'ing or breaking the bank. I don't need something all singing, all dancing
 
Unless the quad is really struggling in what your doing then leave it/overclock it and just get an ssd and a better graphics card.
 
 
Last edited:
you dont need the gfx card
well not unless the old one is failing or you want to play some blades & soul
 
you could get something like this but it rly depends how confident you are to upgrade it yourself

My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £345.46
(includes shipping: £10.50)
​

there's probably better motherboard to get but i cant see

just ssd and memory is a pretty easy to do upgrade tho i guess
 
oh and if you just upgrading your memory you will only need 2 sticks?
or is the stuff already in there 1gb sticks? *shrug*
 
Franksie said:
I'm in my thirties with 3 kids now so i need something that will last as long as possible (built my Q6600 build in 2007 just before 2nd child!). My mobo on the Q6600 built has kind of painted me into a corner as it has an NVidia chipset which is pants for HDD recognition and i only have 4 SATA slots. So when i go up, i'd like to go up as far as i can within a decent budget so i don't need to look at this again until the kids are at Uni!

I may do video editing - my main interests are family photography, martial arts (fight pics/video) and MotoGP. Would just like to future-proof as much as i can without OC'ing or breaking the bank. I don't need something all singing, all dancing
Click to expand...

An X99 system using a i7-5820k (or the upcoming i7-6800k if you can wait a few months) would give you access to 6 core computing and be very future proof. But at a premium price of course and will go beyond your £700 budget once you've factored in a cooler, RAM, SSD and possibly GPU because the 5820k doesn't have an on-board GPU (but the 6800k will do).

You might find a Skylake Z170 system is better value for money. You'll be limited to quad core, but CPUs like the i5-6600k and i7-6700k have plenty of grunt to be future proof for your needs (or the non-k versions if you don't plan to overclock). Not as future proof as an X99 system but in the case of 6600k a lot more affordable (the 6700k isn't as clear cut when it comes to value). Skylake CPUs also have built in GPU so can save yourself some money there if you don't plan to do much gaming. Or use the money saved over X99 to get a mid range GPU like the GTX 950.
 
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