how much do CPUs really matter..?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Ah yeah If your wondering what I use to figure out how much power I use, its a "Plug-in power monitor"

Your power meter is basically the same as a Kill A Watt P4400 which is a rebadged Prodigit Model 2000MU:

http://l.b5z.net/i/u/6052765/i/L61AQ.pdf

 

[SlugForAButt]

3.8 @ 1.8. No need for SB atm. Thank you.

 

[:(Rhodri:)]

I went from an q6600 to an i7 950 and while it is slightly quicker it's not a giant leap in most things (3d rendering is however).

Really comes down to what you use it for.

 

[olivier renault]

Your power meter is basically the same as a Kill A Watt P4400 which is a rebadged Prodigit Model 2000MU:

http://l.b5z.net/i/u/6052765/i/L61AQ.pdf

Which works a treat. I have one too. OcUK should sell something like this.

 

[opethdisciple]

3.8 @ 1.8. No need for SB atm. Thank you.

How on earth did you get that high with such a small voltage bump? (1.18v from the screen shoot.)

I have a Qx9650 and to stay stable at 3.7Ghz Im running 1.3625v

 

[Phil2008]

I went from an q6600 to an i7 950 and while it is slightly quicker it's not a giant leap in most things (3d rendering is however).

Really comes down to what you use it for.

Of course general windows stuff you wont notice any diff at all,, as your not really making the cpu work at all.

like about a yr ago I build a i7 2.6ghz for someone, and cos it was a fresh install it was much more sluggish at loading progs then my [email protected], and I never had the ssd at the time either. The i7 thrashed my pc at gaming tho, as it had a gtx460 and mine had a 3870 in at the time.

But now I would say my pc was overall faster then the i7 I built for this guy, with the SSD and the 6950 upgrade. The only thing the i7 will thrash my pc at is encoding or processing large amounts of data.

 

[robgmun]

I went from an q6600 to an i7 950 and while it is slightly quicker it's not a giant leap in most things (3d rendering is however).

Really comes down to what you use it for.

I went from a QX6850 @ 3.33Ghz to a i7 960 @ 3.2Ghz and i have to admit i was quite surprised that stuff like Winrar decompression and ripping MP3's weren't any faster at all!

 

[SlugForAButt]

How on earth did you get that high with such a small voltage bump? (1.18v from the screen shoot.)

I have a Qx9650 and to stay stable at 3.7Ghz Im running 1.3625v

That's a voltage drop. Comes on my board (P5Q Pro Turbo) runningt 1.32V auto.
Think I've just got a golden chip. It runs game stable at 4.2Ghz @ 1.32V too but the temps start to get a little uncomfortable for me under stress testing and I'm not going to splash more cash on cooling for a couple of hundred Mhz. What's the point?