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E6850 Upgrade to Quad Core

Thermaltake

Thermaltake

Thermaltake

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Joined
13 Dec 2011
Posts
53
Location
Halifax
I currently have the Intel E6850 core 2 running on an MSI P6N Diamond MB with other system info as per my signature. I am not convinced that upgrading the MB, CPU & Memory will give me a huge increase in performance for the outlay at this time but was rather thinking of over clocking the chip to about 3.5 GHz and then looking at an upgrade in a year or two’s time. Another option I have is to upgrade to a Q6700 or QX6700 for about £80 and over clock but would like to know would it be worth it if I over clock my E6850 to 3.5GHz?

I am also looking at the QX6850 if I can get one for decent money £100 to £200 which I assume would be the best way to go and over clock to 4.0 GHz. All 3 of these quad core chips are the highest my MB can support. I mainly do gaming BF3 & MW3 etc and I am looking for the cheapest pound for performance upgrade from the above options at this time using my existing setup. I don’t have any problems with performance at the moment but every bit helps and if I can get a bit extra for a little outlay I will be happy. Thanks for reading and hopefully someone can silence the little demons in my head on the above issue and offer advice on the best approach.
 
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Before getting a q6600 / q6700 check reviews / user attempts at overclocking quads on that motherboard. I had some problems with a different board with that chipset. If it looks likely you can get a good OC on q6600 (3.2+) you can probably do the upgrade for about £40 if you sell your E6850.

Personally, based on what you've said you want, I would just OC the E6850 to it's max, not worrying too much about using quite high volts and temps (it's not as though you are going to want to keep it for years) and then upgrade the whole lot when you can. I'm not sure if you are saying that you have got it to 3.5ghz already (?) but if you can get it to this or higher, considering you say that you don't have any performance issues right now, then it seems the best outcome at £0 expenditure!

I definitely would not spend more than £50 (i.e. q6600 / q6700 only) upgrading your current CPU if I were you.
 
I was in your exact position a few weeks ago, but i had already OC'ed my e6850 to 3.8Ghz which was surprisingly easy.

Took the plunge and got a i7 2600k, 8GB Ram etc etc. also wanted the sata 3 abilty for my sdd, which is an by far one of the best upgrades you can do. Performance different is pretty outstanding i7 is so much more powerful, but then again depends what you use your rig for...
 
Well Ive just upgraded from a [email protected] to a i5 [email protected], and I wasnt really expecting a lot for general use, but had a nice surprise.

Boot times has about halfed as the windows 7 flash screen doesn't even get to finish.. (using same ssd/hdds as on my old system)

Windows feels more instant at running apps, it was instant befor but now its gone into overdrive, hehe

Games feel much smoother, not so much more fps tho, but they run nicer, if that makes sense

SuperPI 1M, was 12sec and now 8secs.
 
Davefran said:
There's no way [email protected] will do SuperPi 1m in 12 sec.

[email protected] takes 12.4 sec


Also i5 [email protected] won't do it in 8 sec
@ 4.6 takes 8.3 sec
Click to expand...

Well mine did it in 12secs, I think the extra cache on my E8400 makes the diff as mine had 6mb? Shame I dont have a screeny of the superpi result of my E8400. Also at 3.6 it did it in 13secs.

Heres my i5 2500k screeny at 4.3

image2ch.jpg
 
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Thanks for the replies, I havent over clocked the E6850 yet but think i will try it to 3.5GHz and see how that goes for now. I didnt want to waste my money on a quad CPU for little or no increase when at some point in the near future i am going to have to have a major upgrade to get any real improvement.
 
In one of those strange kind of PC fanatic moments i have decided to upgrade to an i5 2500K with an Asus P8Z68 - V Pro Gen 3 and 8Gb Corsair Vengeance ram. Dont ask me to explain myself, i cant and dont tell the wife either :D
 
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