Currently got a Q6600 sys @ 3.4Ghz - i7 how much faster?

Rikki

Rikki

Rikki

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Hey folks,

The PC rig is now 2 years old and running fine BUT Im wondering just how much faster a brand new system will be.

I tend to upgrade every 3 years and the last move was in Nov 2007 from my now ancient AMD 64 3.5GHz rig to a quadcore Q6600 OC'd to 3.4GHz

I do a lot of HD video editing in Sony Vegas using AVCHD and CineForm files plus do large scale Photoshop work and using Nikon's Capture NX2 software too for stills. Plus Audition for audio and FL Studio with a range of VSTis like z3ta+ and Vanguard.

How much of a jump would a new system be. Double the speed for what Im doing, 4 times the speed etc? How OC'able as the current range of chips, if OC'd how much quicker than my current rig am I looking?

Many thanks :)

Rik
 
Can't really answer your question but I have a similar setup at present, Q9450 @ 3.4Ghz and very soon (next week) I will be changing over to an i5 which does 3.7Ghz. So next week I should be able to tell you.

I will also be changing over from DDR2 to DDR3.

Is it really an upgrade? I doubt I will notice any real differences tbh however, I think it really depends on how much the upgrade will cost you in total. I think mine will set me back about £80 which for me at this stage is do-able.

I did the same thing last year though, I sold off my AMD X2 gear which was going for silly money and upgraded to an Intel quad core system for next to nothing. It was WELL worth it then.

Most ppl have suggested if you really want to notice an improvement, go for an SSD hdd so it's also definately worth considering that. :)
 
Thanks for the reply. Yeah id get quicker boot up with an SSD but for actual crunching of HD video (where the filesizes are fairly small as its compressed) the drive speed doesnt matter too much as its the CPU intesive part that runs for hours and hours :)

Cheers fella,

Rik
 
The figures thrown around for q6600 to q9550 were 10% faster at the same clock, and again q9550 to i7 around 10% faster at the same clock. Since an i7 920 will sit peacefully at 4ghz in terms of raw computation you're probably looking at 20 to 25% faster, in multi-threaded applications this may well approach 50%.

However is what you're currently doing cpu limited? As in, does the processor sit at 95 to 100% load according to task manager when in use. If not, and the current quad is just ticking along, then the speed increase will be minor, as cpu isn't the bottleneck.

I don't know enough about the tasks you're doing to be sure. However you definitely want to try to find out if the machine is running out of ram or not and what sort of load the processor is under before upgrading.

An ssd is awesome for desktop things, but it just doesn't register for computationally intense work where the data tends to be held in ram anyway. I think some people use one as a scratch disk for photoshop, no idea if this is worthwhile or not.
 
Sorry to thread hi-jack but I'm actually in the same kind of situation & didn't wamnt to start another front page thread on the same topic. I'm currently running an Q9450 @ 3.6GHZ + 4GB RAM + an 5870.
I get a Xmas bonus from work a week today that will be around £500 after tax & I'm seriously considering putting a bit of money to it & getting an i7 920 + MOBO + 6GB RAM. I'm going to use the PC for a lot of gaming, movie watching & some video encoding. Am I mad in doing this? I know I'll get some benefit from the i7 but is it enough to warrant the price of the upgrade? The other thing I was thinking about was getting another 5870 & an SSD but finding another 5870 is obviously proving troublesome..

What to do?
 
Superewza said:
It's just not worth the 'upgrade' - you sure you can't clock it higher?
Click to expand...

I've tried for days to get more out of it & I just can't do it. This is my first OC & I'm not really that capable at it yet. Even going up to 3.7 gives me stability issues in OCCT & Prime95. Everything is perfect at 3608MHZ. Temps never rise above 68 on core 0 & 64 on all other cores & I'm stuck to find out whats causing the bottle neck. Maybe my RAM, its only DDR2 6400 & its running at over 900 ATM...
 
Currently got a Q6600 sys @ 3.4Ghz - i7 how much faster?
Click to expand...

If you can get a q6600 to 3.4, then you have the skillz to get an i7 to 3.8. Therefore the upgrade will give you exactly* 30% more boost.
 
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