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Advice replacing a 4 year old CPU

andy_mk3 said:
Just seen a used Q6600 go on ebay for £82 :o I stopped bidding at £60 and got one off the MM instead. Silly money they're going for still.
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Look at completed listings for the last few days and you will see SLACRs going for @ £50. I stopped bidding on one at £45 and it went for £47.50. ;)
Of course there are a few idiots who will pay £82 for a Q6600, but I wouldn't advise paying more than £55 due to the amount going for that sort of price.
Still wouldnt swap my Wolfdale for a Kentsfield though.
Maybe I'll go Q9550 or Q9650 at some point though as a stopgap.
 
It should be written on the board somewhere. Try looking on the bottom left hand corner and it should be printed on the edge of the board behind the bottom pci slot.
 
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I guess my next question is how do I find out which BIOS version I have? I take it I would need to upgrade the BIOS before installing the new chip?
 
If you go into the bios there should be a entry something like system information. It should state the bios version in there. Failing that download CPU-z and have a look under the mainboard tab.
 
Sorry to intrude, Pastymuncher, could you look at my thread? Really could do with your advice. Read your old thread on the E5200 and thought you may be the man to help. Sorry again, if this is the wrong way to do this. Stuck at 3.4Ghz.
 
If your really worried about getting a Q6600 second hand then you can always find them in CEX's, not sure if you have one, you will have to pay more but you do get a warranty on it.

On the Q6600, mine would only go to 3.3ghz, any higher and it refused to boot. Not a problem most people have to be fair, think mine might have been due to ram or the mobo, but just be aware not every chip will get you to 3.6ghz!

But that said I would choose it over a dual core, more and more games are supporting multi cores now, but if we are honest if you saved up a bit more and just went for even a low end i3 i5 you would see a huge jump in performance, even if you get a Q6600 for £60 thats still £60 invested in an already outdated socket. For about £220-£280 you could have a vastly superior pc, I know its a lot more, but it might be worht just waiting for a bit? Bulldozer is out soon and so begins a price war....
 
I'm running mine at 2.7GHz and I'm very happy with the speed, my laptop is an i5 and it's on par with that. It's good enough for my budget spec PC. S775 is far from dead yet :)
 
I'll be getting a Q6600 SLACR, after I update the BIOS, it seems like the obvious choice given the advice.
I know if I wait longer I'll be able to get better components, but I can't really aford the expense of a new motherboard and more recent CPU. I'm also buying windows 7 and other non PC stuff I have to get. I'm sure when I am ready to do a large upgrade I'll be able to get something a lot better.
 
Good choice :) I did the same really. I now have a cheap PC that's still reasonably quick. One day (when I'm a rich man :D) hopefully I'll buy everything new and shiny and fast. Until then, this will do. I can play COD4 on max at 60fps at full HD resolution :)
 
Just wanted to chip in to say that I have a Q6600 and I was just about to change it for a i5 2500k or i7 2600k for about £1,000 (almost completely new system build).

However, I just sat myself down, looked at the way I used my PC and really thought: do I really need it?

I browse the web, do a bit of work, convert the odd video to my HTC phone and enjoy gaming - but largely seem to play slightly older games as I cannot stand paying through the nose for new games so my current setup is fine.

Last month I upgraded from a 512mb HD4870 to 2 x 5850 Extremes in Crossfire (only £200 for the pair new, got £45 for my old card on Ebay, so only really cost me £155) and I am now maxing out any game with comfort (not saying I could do this with all games, but just the ones I currently play). Sure, my Q6600 is too slow to drive the graphics cards to the max, but games still hold above 50 fps at maximum settings, so why should I care that a i5 2500K would more than double that rate?

After deciding to not buy a whole new system I have just ordered an Corsair AX850 PSU to tidy up my existing build - which is a massive bundle of wires - to the extent that I cannot add a new HD without unplugging everything and I have also ordered an Corsair Force 3 120gb SSD - as people seem to suggest that these have a massive impact on everyday performance.

So I should now have a great PC with some components (graphics cards, PSU and SSD drive) that will not only move to a new PC, but will be even better in a new PC when the time comes.

So, I'll wait for Ivybridge I imagine because that could be a significant gain in not just performance, but also energy efficiency as well.

Until then, my Q6600 (admittedly overclocked on liquid cooling to 3.5ghz) will be fine for everything that I do.

I can also watch Q9550 / Q9650 / QX9650 on Ebay to see if one ever goes cheap, or if my Q6600 ever decides to fail on me.

I guess what I'm saying is: tinkering with PCs is fun, but very expensive, so if you can stick with a socket 775 to do what you want it to do, then go for it because you can always add top quality components gradually until the time comes when no socket 775 processor can provide you with the performance you can accept anymore.
 
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