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My Q6600 lifespan (questions)

Calranthe

Calranthe

Calranthe

Associate
Joined
5 Oct 2007
Posts
620
Hello,
My current system is custom liquidcooled the core parts are still the same as when I bought them 2 years ago
DFI lanparty DK X38 TRS
Q6600 running at 3,8ghz never goes above 38c in the summer
4gb ocz DDR2

The graphics card went from an ati x3870 to an Nvidia 8800 GTS to a Nvidia 470 GTX
The Soundcard went from a audigy to a Asux Xonar DX2
The Hard drive from a Samsung F1 500gb to a Samsung 1.5TB
OS went from XP - Vista - Windows 7 64.

Now i've never took my Q6600 to 4ghz just because nothing seems to need it, I have a Logitech gamepad which shows performance and my q6600 rarely ever goes above 70% usage even newer games don't.

I am coming up to my 6monthly budget of money I could spend on additions to my system.
At the moment the only thing i'm definetly adding is a waterblock for my nvidia 470 (the WC loop was always setup to be able to handle cpu+ vga)

So my questions are thus

1)Would any of the newer cpu's actually give me any sort of real world performance gain over my q6600

2)I am thinking of getting a 30-60gb ssd or a hybrid Seagate drive what do people think?
 
If you are mainly playing games - then very few will be limited by your 3.8GHz Core 2 Quad. Some games like Battlefield Bad Company 2 will certainly put a lot of strain on the q6600 - but your performance should still be excellent and very playable. With this in mind - I wouldn't suggest upgrading the CPU/mobo/RAM until it starts to limit your gaming performance, which I imagine won't be for some time.

+1 for the SSD idea - I recently added an OCZ Vertex 2E to my system and it feels much quicker in windows. However, I went for a 120GB model as I wasn't confident that 60GB was enough for my OS, key apps and my favourite games.
 
Honestly that seems fine to me, If it aint broke dont fix it, save the money for when the newer technology comes out.
 
Agreed with everyone else, you're system is in pretty good shape. You can get away with leaving it another year probably, before you review it again.
 
Like the others have said for the gains you'll see it's not worth upgrading your CPU at the mo. Revisit in 6/12 months when we'll have a much better idea about what Intel/AMD can deliver with their next processor families (Sandy Bridge/Bulldozer).

SSD wise I recently bought a Vertex 2E 120GB and have to say it was one of the best upgrades I've made in years. Can't say I noticed much difference in games but general responsiveness when using the OS/apps is night and day. **SNAP** things just appear almost instantaneously whereas they used to be that bit laggy.

Firefox I notice the most. I have a huge history and masses of bookmarks I search regularly. It used to slow to a crawl at times, now it is as speedy as a clean install.

If you look in the HDD forum you'll see people underwhelmed by their SSD along with others singing their praises. It probably depends what you use your PC for mostly.
 
Thank you for all the information, the nice thing is my wife is very much into pc's too and we agreed long ago that each six months we save £1000 and have £500 each which hasto be spent on pc and related stuff.

This time she is having a really nice colour laser printer with extra ink cartridges etc for her crafting.

So the money hasto be spent even with the redo of the liquidcooling setup plus addition of a block for the 470 i'm still looking at spending £400.

CPU and MB are fine as people say for 12 months graphics card, OS and sound card are fine.

So its down to the only part on this system I can improve in performance SSD :)
 
As for the SSD hard drive try go for a 100gb to 120 gb at least, I have a windows 7 with corsair SSD with only 35 GB free :-) only installing the mostly used Programs, Games onto it rest onto a second Sata Hard Drive.
 
Pretty much just an SSD for that. Would go for a 120Gb one as a minimum, if you game. I have half a dozen games installed, with a dozen apps and it handles it nicely.
 
Calranthe said:
thing is my wife is very much into pc's too and we agreed long ago that each six months we save £1000 and have £500 each which hasto be spent on pc and related stuff.
Click to expand...

Lucky sod, my Mrs hates me playing on my PC!

SSD sounds like the best choice and you could then carry it over to your next system. :)
 
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