Q9550 V 2500k or 2600k for xfire 6970 ?

[JasonKnights]

I've just changed from a q9550 @3.6ghz to a 2600k, there is a noticeable change. Even though my Q9950 was rapid! My new setup wipes floor with it. The games load so fast, a don't know what you use your system for but for example , I encode divx to DVD. On my Q9550 I could encode a film at 200fps so took around 5 mins. I'm now encoding at 600fps and takes about a minute! Because in windows the hyperthreading acts like its an 8 core CPU! I'm very pleased with upgrade

 

[sybaris]

I have a Q9550 and though I had clocked it to 3.8 I am currently running it at stock.
It handles everything I do without a problem. i was thinking of buying an i7 last year, but to be honest, if i upgrade, it means a new mobo and ram too. So I am waiting until the day comes where I need to, and by then I will have the ££££ to build a super hot rig, compared to what i would have if I had upgraded earlier.

There will always be new tech coming out and people will always want the latest, but as they say, if it ain't broken, don't fixit.

 

[Cr416]

I went from a Q6600 to a 2600k. when I changed I kept the GTX280 for a while and there was a significant difference. On bfbc2 I saw gains of around 20 - 30fps, on the q6600 the gpu was about half load and the cpu was full load, after the swap the GPU would be between 80 - 90 and the cpu would be around 25 - 40 and the jump in fps.

Now with a GTX570 there is an even bigger improvement lol, IMO it was a good upgrade.

 

[sybaris]

Im gonna hold out until the day my CPU can not perform any reasonable task anymore and then spend the £££ Im saving on a kick ass ring . Though I suspect we will have 24 core cpu's as the norm by then

 

[1kiwi]

Depends if your overclocking or not, I guess from your sig you do... so... pulling figures from several different reviews/benchmarks - if you ignore the very few games where threading is used effectively enough that the 2600K is substantially faster the Q9550 is actually 2% faster clock for clock in general for gaming.

How long that will last given that newer games will increasingly become more multi-threaded remains to be seen but at the moment I certainly wouldn't be hurrying to upgrade, especially with the various niggles with the sandybridge platform - I definitely don't feel that my GTX470 SLI setup is being held back at all by mine.

I would have said that 2 weeks ago, however after upgrading my QX9650 @ 4Ghz and HD5970 to the spec in sig the difference in Crysis 2 & Blackops is like night and day. This may have something to do with ATI drivers but that doesn't explain why a faster card did not perform at least as good as my current setup assuming that the CPU is not a factor. Last night I was peaking at 200FPS (min frame was 132) in blackops at 1920X1200 at default settings (AA etc on). I never got anything close to this performance in the past. Crysis 2 is also allot smoother.

Your right about the niggles but I managed to sort these with a bit of research on the weekend. Rroff, I know we have both had our issues with blackops but it's like another game with my new setup. I assume that given that it is very difficult to not buy a new computer which is not dual or quad core these days, games will only get more 'threaded' in the future.

 

[Jono8]

I am also considering doing this aswell. Due to the high price Q9650 and DDR2 ram are going for, it would only really be the cost of the motherboard.

hm, very tempting. I can only get my Q9650 to 3.6ghz so i would have thought a 2500K at 4.6-4.8ghz would be a lot faster.

What are these "niggles" people are talking about with regards to sandybridge?

 

[Rroff]

Major hardware changes is known to completely effect Black Ops performance in that regard - even sometimes going to slower hardware = smoother performance just because of the way it behaves on different hardware setups.

Not sure about Crysis 2 without seeing benchmarks but it plays really smooth on my setup - quite a suprise actually given that it is atleast on par if not better than most games visually, but at max settings (granted was only 1680x1050) with my setup don't think it dropped below 80fps.

 

[Jono8]

Is 4.6 basically a given on a 2500k if coupled with a good aftermarket cooler?

 

[setter]

For me Rroff, codbo is still a disaster, ive tried more drivers than i can count, disabled shadows, the only thing made it run a wee bit better for me was disabling sli, fps never went below the 90 fps cap, max settings, cpu usage is about 30% ono, gpu, 49% i play a lot of bfbc2, 98% gpu usage on my 470's and it never go's below 70 fps, max of 170 fps @1920x1200. 8xaa, 16xaf.