Intel Q6600 @ 3.6 ghz, time for upgrade?

HotRabbit

HotRabbit

HotRabbit

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Hi, may I ask for some upgrade advice?

I have an Intel Q6600 @3.6 ghz, Abit IP-35 PRO, 4 gb DDR2, SSDD, Radeon HD 5870.

I use this to play games like Skyrim, Far Cry3, The Witcher 2, Dragon Age: Origins on maximum settings with a bit of AA and for image manipulation. A heavily modded Skyrim is beginning to show signs of lag. Photoshop slows down after a while. Dragging large PDF’s around the screen is sluggish.

I have my eye on an AMD FX6300 (overclocked) @4.6 ghz, MSI 990FXA-GD65, 8 gb DD3 and to keep my SSDD and video card. I’m thinking that by upgrading the platform I can provide further opportunities in the future with regards to either another second hand Radeon HD 5870 for crossfire, or a new video card altogether, and some additional memory.

As I can see image manipulation only increasing, and I’m looking at The Witcher 3, Dragon Age: Inquisition, etc, the question is, would I benefit from the above upgrade to help smooth things out? Or would the performance gain be not worth it and so save the money and look at getting an entire new system in another year or so?

Any thoughts are much appreciated. Thanks for helping.
 
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Hi and welcome to the forums :D

Photoshop is one of the few image editing programs to take advantage of multi-cores, so you're on the right track here. The motherboard is also a good choice and will happily take the quickest AMD has to offer currently without issue. You don't mention your PSU at all, what do you have currently?

In Photoshop at least, you're looking at a healthy upgrade I'd say and you'll have a better platform to upgrade into in the future.

In games you're unlikely to notice a massive difference, perhaps a few FPS here and there. However, stick a decent modern GPU in there too and the difference will be night and day.

I say go for it.
 
My PSU is rated around the 650w mark? More than enough to power my Radeon anyway as it was purchased specifically for it. I can't afford a new GPU on top of the CPU, ram and mobo. It's either one or the other and I can't justify buying a new GPU and putting it into an older platform...
 
Surely getting a more powerful GFX card would be the wisest first move?

You can get something for under £200 which will blow your existing graphics performance out of the water, plus mean if you later upgrade your motherboard/CPU, you've got a graphics card that won't bottleneck it?

It also means an easy life for the moment - ie: An easy upgrade?


Here's a video comparison between a 5870 and a 7870XT - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFTimd0hxh4
Note: @6:20 where Bioshocks minimum framerate is 8 vs 30 FPS! 350% better!

But you'd get a far better card than a 7870 now for under £200!


Note: I have the same CPU as you (@3.4) with a 7870XT. And I can run my games happily at high(ish) settings. I'll probably upgrade my motherboard/CPU when I actually run into poor frame rates? Later this year/early next?
 
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Not convinced about buying a new GPU when the one I have can still render Direct X 11 albeit perhaps not at blistering speeds. Would it smooth things out considerably? I get a stutter in games every now and then as though the video memory is running out and the card off loading onto system ram and CPU.

I should add my resolution is 1920 x 1080, nothing fancy like monster wrap-around-o-vision.
 
NeilFawcett said:
Surely getting a more powerful GFX card would be the wisest first move?

You can get something for under £200 which will blow your existing graphics performance out of the water, plus mean if you later upgrade your motherboard/CPU, you've got a graphics card that won't bottleneck it?

It also means an easy life for the moment - ie: An easy upgrade?


Here's a video comparison between a 5870 and a 7870XT - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFTimd0hxh4
Note: @6:20 where Bioshocks minimum framerate is 8 vs 30 FPS! 350% better!

But you'd get a far better card than a 7870 now for under £200!


Note: I have the same CPU as you (@3.4) with a 7870XT. And I can run my games happily at high(ish) settings. I'll probably upgrade my motherboard/CPU when I actually run into poor frame rates? Later this year/early next?
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It really depends on what his priorities are. A better video card will raise his frame rates without a doubt, but any new card will undoubtedly be bottlenecked (to a degree at least) by the older platform.

Having said that, for the cost of the upgrade he's proposing it gets him a good upgrade..something along the lines of a 280X.
 
HotRabbit said:
Not convinced about buying a new GPU when the one I have can still render Direct X 11 albeit perhaps not at blistering speeds. Would it smooth things out considerably? I get a stutter in games every now and then as though the video memory is running out and the card off loading onto system ram and CPU.

I should add my resolution is 1920 x 1080, nothing fancy like monster wrap-around-o-vision.
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Same here... Well I've got 1920x1200, but run FPS games in 1920x1080, but windows and other games (eg: Wargame: Air Land Battle) in 1920x1200.

Given I have the same CPU as you (@3.4) and what I'd suggest is a more powerful video card, is there something I can run/test to help? You can then use that to help you decide if you want to go new CPU now, or get a graphics card even more powerful than mine to keep you going for a while longer.

I upgraded from a 4870 to my 7870XT (tahiti) back in March 2013, with the idea it would see my machine through at least into this year, when I'll then finally go through all the hassle and agro of a new motherboard/CPU and OS. I'm currently hoping I won't have to upgrade for another 6-12 months as everything is running well enough for me.
 
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ExRayTed said:
It really depends on what his priorities are. A better video card will raise his frame rates without a doubt, but any new card will undoubtedly be bottlenecked (to a degree at least) by the older platform.

Having said that, for the cost of the upgrade he's proposing it gets him a good upgrade..something along the lines of a 280X.
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Yeh, I can't quite get my head around where bottlenecks are these days. If we take a modern shooter for example on my system (Q6600 @ 3.4ghz and a 7870XT tahiti at 1080p) what's the bottleneck? My gut feeling is the Q6600 isn't slowing such games down as much as people might suggest.

My gut feeling is, if I were to go out and buy a pretty high spec I5, I'd at best double my lowest FPS readings... But it could well be less of a performance increase than that.

But I really don't know... :confused:
 
I'm factoring in the resale value of any of my previous components. Budget is tight. If it's all too borderline, I may not upgrade anything just yet.

Thanks for all the suggestions so far, really helps.
 
NeilFawcett said:
...is there something I can run/test to help? You can then use that to help you decide if you want to go new CPU now, or get a graphics card even more powerful than mine to keep you going for a while longer.
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Thanks but I'm looking ahead to The Witcher 3 and Dragon Age: Inquisition and a few of the better games released this year. All speculative at the moment.
 
HotRabbit said:
I'm factoring in the resale value of any of my previous components. Budget is tight. If it's all too borderline, I may not upgrade anything just yet.

Thanks for all the suggestions so far, really helps.
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Well, if you do upgrade, do a couple of FPS tests before/after if you don't mind, if only to possibly help me :)

And if want me to test anything let me know - At least that will give you a clue how a more modern card can effect things!

HotRabbit said:
Thanks but I'm looking ahead to The Witcher 3 and Dragon Age: Inquisition and a few of the better games released this year. All speculative at the moment.
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Most modern shooter I have is probably Bioshock?
 
HotRabbit said:
Thanks but I'm looking ahead to The Witcher 3 and Dragon Age: Inquisition and a few of the better games released this year. All speculative at the moment.
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I played Far Cry 3 with a Q6600 and a MSI GTX 670 Power Edition, it managed but ran quiet badly. I'd definitely recommend to get a new CPU first.

Is there any reason why your after AMD instead of Intel, or is Intel just not in the budget?

EDIT: I'd also recommend avoiding Crossfire/SLI, I've done it in past thinking it would be cheaper getting an extra 560TI instead of a whole new card and ended up buying a 680 a few weeks after getting my second 560TI. It's noisy, hot and very unreliable with new games.
 
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Antony101 said:
I play Far Cry 3 with a Q6600 and a MSI GTX 670 Power Edition, it managed but ran quiet badly. I'd definitely recommend to get a new CPU first.
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Oh! Well that's quite telling then isn't it!

I'm surprised you couldn't play it at least with medium settings well?

So you think this is completely down to the Q6600? What speed are you running it at?
 
NeilFawcett said:
Oh! Well that's quite telling then isn't it!

I'm surprised you couldn't play it at least with medium settings well?

So you think this is completely down to the Q6600? What speed are you running it at?
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I had it at about 3.4Ghz. It ran fine on medium but it wasn't really great. I was using the Q6600 again as I had an issue with the 670 and it wouldn't work properly on my 1155 motherboard and so couldn't use my 2600k.

EDIT: If you give "Q6600 vs 2500k Gaming" a quick Google there are loads of people that asked exactly the same question as you. I'd recommend trying to save for a good k series i5 over the other AMD options though. I went from a Q6600 to a 2600k and the difference was amazing. I'd have gotten a 2500k if I'd known hyper threading was useless for gaming at the time.
 
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Antony101 said:
I had it at about 3.4Ghz. It ran fine on medium but it wasn't really great. I was using the Q6600 again as I had an issue with the 670 and it wouldn't work properly on my 1155 motherboard and so couldn't use my 2600k.

EDIT: If you give "Q6600 vs 2500k Gaming" a quick Google there are loads of people that asked exactly the same question as you. I'd recommend trying to save for a good k series i5 over the other AMD options though. I went from a Q6600 to a 2600k and the difference was amazing. I'd have gotten a 2500k if I'd known hyper threading was useless for gaming at the time.
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I'm playing catchup here...

So you're saying an I5 is just as good as an I7 as regards gaming?
 
ExRayTed said:
At the moment

More games are starting to take advantage of hyper-threading though..BF4 is just the first mainstream title to.
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Ahh! So if/when I upgrade later this year, maybe an I7 would be the way to go (instead of an I5) - price permitting!
 
NeilFawcett said:
Oh! Well that's quite telling then isn't it!

I'm surprised you couldn't play it at least with medium settings well?

So you think this is completely down to the Q6600? What speed are you running it at?
Click to expand...

At the moment, I can play Far Cry 3, Tomb Raider, Rage, Skyrim, The Witcher 2, etc at maximum settings with 2xAA at adequate frame rates.
 
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