anypoint in upgrading my Q6600?

<Dubz>

<Dubz>

<Dubz>

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I've had this chip for 3 years now, really feeling the upgrade vibe but im trying to convince myself that it's even worth the effort... (or the £650).

What i'm running..

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
Nvidia GTX275 (more recent upgrade!)
Zalman CNPS9700-NT nVidia Tritium CPU Cooler
G.Skill 4GB DDR2 PQ PC2-8000C5 (2x2GB) CAS5 Dual Channel Kit
plus GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency Dual Channel

The ram will seem a little odd, i originally intended to replace the original 2Gb set for the 4GB set but i stuck them all in and everything still works perfectly. The system is currently overclock from 2.4 to a lowly 3.2Ghz. I've never had any real luck getting any kind of decent overclock but that's probably because i suck! (pre extra ram).

This is what i'm thinking of getting...
upgrade.jpg


My current case is an 8 year old Cooler master 201 which i love but has seen better days.
(the case, and note the PSU is now inside after some Dremel action!)

Give your opinions please!

p.s case will be needed as no room for a 120mm fan (for H50) in the old girl as it was all 80mm then.
 
What do you do with your PC?

Does your CPU ever bottleneck your machine?

Personally I don't think it would be worth it at all when you already have a very capable system.

I would wait for the next CPU refresh and even then maybe not upgrade.

By the way, running PSU outside the case for the win :)
 
Buy yourself a new case (and maybe the H50) if you feel like something new, wait 'til next year and see what Sandy Bridge is like. The Q6600 at 3.2GHz will still be fine for most games.
 
i have been thinking the same after just buying a 460 GTX. Running the same mobo too but 4gb of black dragon ram. I'm just having a hunt to see if i can get another 4gb of ram cheap on ebay. I'm also contemplating trying to get a used motherboard that'll do SLI and still take my Q6600 so that i can extend its life even more.
 
haha i like the Gas symptom.

I spend most my time on my PC but mostly gaming, i would just but a beefy gfx card but i don't like the idea of spending that much wedge on 1 item.
 
What's the advantage of a 460 over a 275? I suspect it wouldn't be that much, as far as gaming performance is concerned.

I'd save for later, and run the current system to the ground. Adding a fresh new GPU to a full system upgrade will be a good move.

If you want to spend, you can look at SSDs as system drive and do a clean Win 7 install. If your case is becoming too unbearably painful to look at, put it under your desk :)
 
Unless you do some serious multi-threaded number crunching or run a high end multi GPU setup I think you might be dissapointed going from a well clocked Q6600 to an i7 setup. The Q6600 still holds its own for 90+% of games and general windows useage.
 
olivier renault said:
What's the advantage of a 460 over a 275? I suspect it wouldn't be that much, as far as gaming performance is concerned.

If you want to spend, you can look at SSDs as system drive and do a clean Win 7 install. If your case is becoming too unbearably painful to look at, put it under your desk :)
Click to expand...

Yeah a 460 wasn't what i was thinking anyway as there no better than the 275 but Dx11 support.

I didn't realise the SSD drives make that much of a difference so i'll look into it but it still feels hard to pay 120 for 64gb when you can pay half that for a 1TB drive.

how well would it work with my current mobo though, not sure what speed it would run at.
 
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SSD will still bring improvements on SATA. For an OS drive, the main benefits are access times, but unlikely to be bottlenecked by SATA. It will improve load time, program start up, general responsiveness for desktop tasks. Even game load time if you plan on putting some games on it.

It's nice to have, but not a must have. Maybe better to wait for the upgrade and decide then. Anyway, a bloated, unresponsive OS can be cured by a fresh re-install.

A case would be more like an investment. A good aluminium case will outlive any other component. And it looks like no matter what the next upgrade will be, a new case is on the menu.
 
I take it that like a lot of gamers you play online FPS's?

If so, don't worry to much at the mo about a serious upgrade. Your current rig will be more than capable for a little while longer yet.

Yes , my main setup is i7 based and I spent oddles of bucks on it and I love it and hug it and polish it and all the rest. BUT my fellow UK based clanmates are running socket 775 Quad cores and even a C2D setup and we can all play at the same level on a US based server. My other setup was self built after the i7 and that's Q6700 based (which may indicate that I for one don't think that it has gone past it's sell by date) and I use it as a workhorse AND backup gaming system when I have a urge to polish and dust and generally change stuff about etc.

If you feel the urge to spend or GAS (nice one :))then put it into something that you can carry over to the next system eg SSD ,as mentioned, or a better monitor or case etc
 
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I have a Q6700 at 3.2 ghz.
imho, a cpu upgrade for games is a waste of time and money atm, I can't say my pc is being bottlenecked by the cpu, unless you do a lot of encoding or similar I wouldn't waste my time...


The biggest real world gain would be something like an SSD for windows...
 
snowdog said:
I have a Q6700 at 3.2 ghz.
imho, a cpu upgrade for games is a waste of time and money atm, I can't say my pc is being bottlenecked by the cpu, unless you do a lot of encoding or similar I wouldn't waste my time...


The biggest real world gain would be something like an SSD for windows...
Click to expand...

Yeh, if you really have to upgrade something, then replace your system drive with an SSD, otherwise... pancake, lol
 
I also have a 3.2 Q6600 right now, while I do have a killer urge to splash out, I'm not having any issues running games/apps.

Hold out for the new Intel/AMD offerings at the end of the year!

On the SSD front - I got one of those (Vertex 2 in my case) and it's the best upgrade you can buy, going from a mechanical. Really makes games run so much more better, if you play things that are heavy on loading.
 
Wow what a perfectly timed thread. I also currently have this spec:

Gigabyte P35-DS3R
4 x 1GB of ram
q6600 @ 3.2ghz
ATI HD 3850

I basically decided that it will last another year easily since the q6600 is such a good chip. I bought a Crucial 64GB SSD (which will be the biggest upgrade feeling I'll probably ever see from one single item) and I'm going to get a GTX 460. I'm going to skip i5 / i7 and I'm going to make do with the 4 x 1gb of ram I have. OK so it isn't 2 x 2gb or 8gb, but it will hold it's own for a year or so for my uses, and what with DDR2 on the rise and DDR3 on the drop, investing in DDR2 now is false economy.
So I say, stick it out with the q6600, and do what I'm doing, overclock it to prevent it being anywhere near a bottleneck for you if you upgrade your GPU. Preferably upgrade your case and/or cooling instead, and think about an SSD.

:)
 
Op, is that Q6600 at stock or overclocked? If at stock overclocking it will give you a big boost. Most G0 Q6600's will hit at least 3.2Ghz and many will do 3.6Ghz.


***Edit*** Forget it. Missed the bit about it being overclocked.
 
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