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E8600 Upgrade to a quad?

ToejaM

ToejaM

ToejaM

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At the moment my little brother has a E8600, if he was to stay with the same board.. which is an Asus Rampage Formula what would be the minimum quad core that would be worth upgrading to?

Strictly in the sense of gaming, primarily BF3 I'm thinking
 
Arctic Freezer pro rev2, he's got my old chip/board/ram but due to the graphics card being unstable (we're replacing it soon) he's not set it to the overclock I had, which was 4.3Ghz.

His PSU is more than sufficient for it to, its definitely 100% the graphics card :)

Whats the best sort of overclock you can get on air with a Q6600? Is it significantly better than an overclocked 8600?

I'm thinking basically with twice the computing power it would be. Even if I got the 6600 to the same speed as a stock e8600 but wondering how it fairs against an overclocked 8600?

Did that all make sense?

I've been looking in the MM, tis what set me off.. will be after a 5770 or similar if I can, maybe a 460 if the price is right :)
 
I'm not sure thats a good idea.
E8600 is 3.33ghz stock speed.
Q6600 is 2.4 ghz
The q6600 needs to make up nearly a gig of overclocking before it's even at the same speed.
Peope like to talk about big overclocks on q6600s but the later ones didnt do that.
I'm not sure the benefit woud be worth it. Better off to save for a new architecture perhaps ?
 
Not sure about this one. If it's a gaming rig then that Q6600 will need a hell of a overclock to keep up with a stock E8600. As pointed out above, not all of them can do 3.6Ghz+. A lot of the later ones could only manage 3.2-3.4Ghz. I had one that did 3.8Ghz but took 1.52v and was a hot running chip. In fact i got rid of it for a E8500. Don't forget the 45nm Wolfdale cores are faster clock for clock than the older 65nm Q6600 as well. Yes the Q6600 has two extra cores but that will only make a difference in stuff that actually uses them. That E8600 in that board should hit somewhere in the region of 4.5Ghz. I would just clock that E8600 to death and see how he gets on until he can afford to upgrade mobo/cpu/ram.
 
Quixote said:
I'm not sure thats a good idea.
E8600 is 3.33ghz stock speed.
Q6600 is 2.4 ghz
The q6600 needs to make up nearly a gig of overclocking before it's even at the same speed.
Peope like to talk about big overclocks on q6600s but the later ones didnt do that.
I'm not sure the benefit woud be worth it. Better off to save for a new architecture perhaps ?
Click to expand...

ahaha, fool, the q6600 is quad...get it? Q.A.U.D??? wich means it four of them, it will land up being more ghz than the e6600 by a lot -.-
 
Yeah thats what I thought, I just wasnt sure if having a quad would be of a better benefit even if its at a slower speed. I was thinking maybe of getting a higher up Q model if possible, do any of them hit 4ghz at decent speeds.. I think the best of the best gets to no more than 3.8 at every day use right?

I'm itching to get him a graphics card but I dont get paid till friday then I'm gunna set up the overclock on his rig again and he'll feel like he's got a new PC!

At the moment he has an aging 8800GTX 768mb but I'm pretty sure its the card at fault. Its a good 4 years old now.. jesus.. really? Ah good times! :D

I think a nice 5770 for around 40 would be good or maybe a 460 if I'm lucky for a little more :)
 
Ok so, I used to have an E8400 clocked at 3.8GHz. I now have a Q6600 clocked at 3.4GHz, gaming is much better, it's not down to clock speed, it's simply 2x as many cores. Older games that don't take advantage of multi-core CPU's will suffer slightly. But in all games I saw quite a good increase in FPS. Some games still max out my CPU before they max out the graphics though.

Just to add; a G0 stepping Q6600 should see 3.2-3.4GHz without a problem. Mine's only cooled by a crappy Freezer 7 and temps are fine. Going beyond 3.4Ghz is where the volts quickly need to be ramped up and the extra heat because of that.
 
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Yeap, overclock that q6600 past 3.2ghz and it will perform much better then the E8600 in todays games. It will suffer a bit on older games that don't make use of more the 2 cores though.
 
bamster97 said:
ahaha, fool, the q6600 is quad...get it? Q.A.U.D??? wich means it four of them, it will land up being more ghz than the e6600 by a lot -.-
Click to expand...

Before you insult people and call them "fool" you should remember that you didn't know that Intel and AMD cpus couldn't go in the same board until yesterday. Basic stuff.
Also, a lower clocked "Q.A.U.D" (sic) will be slower in games that only use two cores.
Chill dude. ;)
 
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I'm very tempted as the E8600's are holding some good value at the moment so it'd be a wise investment, sell the 8600 and replace with a Q6600 unless theres a better choice for money in this situation. Moneys a bit of an issue so its a case of selling what we got to upgrade and a quick search on the bay says his chip will fetch around 70-80 maybe more and you can get a Q6600 for about 50 maybe less on here! We'd only make about 50-60% max to the innards of a 2500k build :(

At the moment he plays:
L4D2 (does that support quad cores yet or is that just 2 cores?)
SC2

Thats about it, used to be EQ2 but quit that as its got so bad.

In the future it'll be BF3/SWTOR/Diablo3 so I think a jump to quad core with what we got is the best option and maybe putting another 4gig of ram in his machine
 
I was running e7500 Wolfdale @ 4Ghz and playing L4D2 and all was good.
I upgraded to q9650 @ 3.9Ghz and L4D2 IS better, but it has options for using a spare core for rendering help so it always would be.
Mostly the difference is in a few games, not a real difference that calls for panic in most uses.
Unless you need more cores for specific tasks, I'd hang on until your CPU shows signs of struggling.
 
I wouldnt go for the Q6600.

E0 stepping Q9550 is the minimum i would go for. E8xxx had some architecture improvements over the older E6xxx series (around 5%). This coupld with the 1GHz difference at stock is a lot.

Personally, i would just save up for Sandy bridge and sell your stuff while it has some value or use it elsewhere.
 
Trunks9486 said:
I wouldnt go for the Q6600.

E0 stepping Q9550 is the minimum i would go for. E8xxx had some architecture improvements over the older E6xxx series (around 5%). This coupld with the 1GHz difference at stock is a lot.

Personally, i would just save up for Sandy bridge and sell your stuff while it has some value or use it elsewhere.
Click to expand...

The Q9550 is a great chip, no doubt about that, but they still fetch a fair bit of money, you'd be better off saving for a SB setup like you say. But I think the Q6600 is still a very good chip for what they are worth.
 
I'd avoid a Q6600 these days, if you must go quad go for a 45nm, not a 65nm as the 45nms are actually faster clock for clock. So this leaves you with the Q9xxx series, starting with a Q9450, running at 2.66Ghz stock it will be much faster than a Q6600 at stock and will probably reach a higher overclock. Still I'd just stick with the E8600 as it should cope fine with BF3.
 
LinktoInsanity said:
I'd avoid a Q6600 these days, if you must go quad go for a 45nm, not a 65nm as the 45nms are actually faster clock for clock. So this leaves you with the Q9xxx series, starting with a Q9450, running at 2.66Ghz stock it will be much faster than a Q6600 at stock and will probably reach a higher overclock. Still I'd just stick with the E8600 as it should cope fine with BF3.
Click to expand...
Yea well, he ain't gonna be getting a Q9xxx CPU for £50 2nd hand.
 
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