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Quad core upgrade?

Ripper-X-

Ripper-X-

Ripper-X-

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Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
517
Location
UK
Hi, I have a E4500 oc'd to 2.95Ghz on a Asus P5QL-E MOBO with 4gb of Geil Black Dragon DDR2 8500 1066Mhz ram & want to upgrade to a quad core, my options are,
1. Cheapest option is to buy a Q9650 3.0ghz for around £180ish.
2. Second cheapest option is a new mobo, ddr3 & a Phenom II X4 Quad Core 965 Black Edition 3.40GHz
3. Most expensive option is a new mobo, ddr3 & a i7 920 2.66Ghz.

Buying a Q9650 & slotting it straight in to my currant system is obviously the cheapest & easiest thing to do, (& i can "oc" it) but is there gonna be much difference between all 3 options, & would it be worth the extra expense?
Can anyone advise on this as regards general desktop work, encoding, gaming etc, thx.

Also, is there any different versions of the Q9650 to avoid or try to get if i go this route.
 
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Interested in this possibility too. I am currently running a similar system ( see info in my sig ) with an E6300 o/c'd to 3.2Ghz.

Been pondering going for a quad, probably a 6600 Go but I'm not sure at this point whether it would be worth it. I mainly use my current system for web dev and design as well as a little gaming now and again.

Apologies for jumping into your thread, I'll watch any replies with interest. :)
 
I'm also interested in this. I have an E8400 oc'd to 3.6ghz and wondering if upgrading to a quad is worth it as a cheap-ish option!
 
Ripper-X- said:
Hi, no i did mean a Q9650.
Click to expand...

Oh!

Where the hell are you getting that from?! (Don't actually say ;) )

I'm thinking of upgrading to the Q9550 from an E6850. All the benchmarks that I've seen show it as a pretty big jump. Not as good as i5/i7 but close. (And it's a lot cheaper than buying a new CPU/mobo and RAM).
 
If you're (primarily) wanting the extra cores for gaming, a Phenom II is very good value for money. When it's all about the GPU (settings maxed at a decent resolution) the P2 940 (£130) offers similar performance to the top-end i7s (up to £800)

Encoding is a very, very different story. The i7 will run circles around the P2.

As far as I know, DDR3 offers no real performance boost over DDR2 either, although I suppose it would be more future proof.
 
Ripper-X- said:
Hi, I have a E4500 oc'd to 2.95Ghz on a Asus P5QL-E MOBO with 4gb of Geil Black Dragon DDR2 8500 1066Mhz ram & want to upgrade to a quad core, my options are,
1. Cheapest option is to buy a Q9650 3.0ghz for around £180ish.
2. Second cheapest option is a new mobo, ddr3 & a Phenom II X4 Quad Core 965 Black Edition 3.40GHz
3. Most expensive option is a new mobo, ddr3 & a i7 920 2.66Ghz.

Buying a Q9650 & slotting it straight in to my currant system is obviously the cheapest & easiest thing to do, (& i can "oc" it) but is there gonna be much difference between all 3 options, & would it be worth the extra expense?
Can anyone advise on this as regards general desktop work, encoding, gaming etc, thx.

Also, is there any different versions of the Q9650 to avoid or try to get if i go this route.
Click to expand...

I'd not spend ~£200 on a dead socket. I'd get a Q6600 (I just bought one for £75 second hand) and save the rest for a future upgrade or an SSD.
 
niggyg said:
I'd not spend ~£200 on a dead socket. I'd get a Q6600 (I just bought one for £75 second hand) and save the rest for a future upgrade or an SSD.
Click to expand...

If i am going to stay with my currant mobo/ram, i was thinking of getting the most i could out of it thats why i said a Q9650, are you saying the performance from a Q6600 is the same or close to a Q9650? :confused:
 
Ripper-X- said:
If i am going to stay with my currant mobo/ram, i was thinking of getting the most i could out of it thats why i said a Q9650, are you saying the performance from a Q6600 is the same or close to a Q9650? :confused:
Click to expand...

The q6600 is defiantly a capable machine for gaming, especially once overclocked. I just feel the price gap isn't proportional to the gain, but it depends on what you use the machine for?

The Q9450's were being sold for £130 on OcUK a little while ago, sadly they are now EOL and out of stock. IMO that would have been ideal.
 
I just had a E8400 @ 4.0Ghz and was wondering about upgrading to a quad (Q9550 @ 2.83 to be precise) and now I have upgraded there is one hell of a difference it was well worth it in my case, great performace increase even doing trivial things :) it is a dead socket as people have said above, but it beats spending a lot more to upgrade especialy if you want a performace increase without the price-tag.

Ninja
 
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Darkninja462 said:
I just had a E8400 @ 4.0Ghz and was wondering about upgrading to a quad (Q6550 to be precise) and now I have upgraded there is one hell of a difference it was well worth it in my case, great performace increase even doing trivial things :) it is a dead socket as people have said above, but it beats spending a lot more to upgrade especialy if you want a performace increase without the price-tag.

Ninja
Click to expand...

Do you mean Q9550?
 
The dead socket thing for me would be irrelevant as i would keep the system for a year or two then the pc would be used as a second pc to replace my now second pc that is a AMD 3200+ with 1.5gb ddr ram & geforce 3 :)
 
Ripper-X- said:
The dead socket thing for me would be irrelevant as i would keep the system for a year or two then the pc would be used as a second pc to replace my now second pc that is a AMD 3200+ with 1.5gb ddr ram & geforce 3 :)
Click to expand...

Then thats a good option for you then, I would recomend it fully :) and my AMD 3500+ is my second pc as I only upgrade socket every 1-2 years, but I think for Performace/Price the Q9550 is best as the Q9650 seems alittle overpriced for not much more.
 
I upgraded from an [email protected] to a [email protected] and there are noticeable performance gains.

Very nice upgrade, that should see me good for another year or two after which I'll probably start from scratch.

As the Q9550 and Q9650 are at the top end of a dying socket, they're likely to hold their value rather well.
 
I went from a E8400 @ 4Ghz to a Q9550 @ 3.82Ghz. I sold my E8400 for £90 and got a Q9550 for £150 (new and a good price) off the bay a few months ago.

Now I did this upgrade as it was the cheapest option and even if it only lasts a Year (more like 2 years min). It was a good upgrade path for me being cash strapped. Now you could say im future proof. (maybe not as fast as an i7/5 but not that far behind in gaming.)

All I need to do when my 4890 cant cope is upgrade it.

So if you cant afford a new i5/7. Then look for a 2nd hand or cheap Q9**.
 
Just curious - You folks that have upgraded from a dual core CPU running at reasonably high overclocked Ghz that are saying you noticed an increase in performance - In what way did performance increase?. Is it just the case that overall the system feels "snappier"?. Or can you actually notice a difference in other ways?.

Apologies if that sounds a bit of a vague question. :p
 
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