Quad core upgrade?

[Big.Wayne]

In what way did performance increase?. Is it just the case that overall the system feels "snappier"?

I believe a "snappier" system comes from running a fast FSB with tweaked Nortbridge and Memory settings which help lower the latency, it's nothing to do with adding more cores unless you are a heavy duty multi-tasker who burns DVD's, records TV, unzips large archives, runs anti-virus scans, encodes DVD's and plays FPS games all at the same time!

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.

Personally I feel you are just throwing your money away spending £180 on a year old quad-core . . . yes its a great chip but its just not worth more than £90, INTEL are being greedy!

If you want a quad then the only logical choice is an Intel® Core™ i5 or Intel® Core™ i7, AMD are doing really great things in the budget sector at the moment with the dual and tri core chips but their Deneb quads are not a patch on what Intel® offer atm . . .

 

[Bonjour]

It's certainly snappier, quicker to wake from sleep etc.

Encoding is also quicker, as is VMWare.

 

[Darkninja462]

As has been said before, he isn't looking to upgrade his socket ? so the quad seems the best option for him, and you can just clock the Q9550 up to the Q9650 speeds, I'm planning to go higher though

 

[Bonjour]

I believe a "snappier" system comes from running a fast FSB with tweaked Nortbridge and Memory settings which help lower the latency, it's nothing to do with adding more cores unless you are a heavy duty multi-tasker who burns DVD's, records TV, unzips large archives, runs anti-virus scans, encodes DVD's and plays FPS games all at the same time!

...

It also comes from extra cache, such as the 12MB that comes with the Q9550 and Q9650.

It's been a decent upgrade for me. Will last me a year or two and has saved me a couple of hundred quid for the timebeing.

 

[asoxedri]

i replaced my dual core to a quad core(Q6700) not too long ago. and i'm quite pleased.

 

[Big.Wayne]

Yup I guess extra cache helps also Bonjour although it's not such a big deal as some reviews would make out . . .

If I'm honest I find threads like these quite frustrating, I always try to help but some people just won't listen!

A 3GHz Dual Core is a good place to be right now and aside from the benchmarks and synthetic tests I don't believe anyone could tell the difference between a 3GHz + dual core and a 3GHz + quad core

Ripper-X has stated he "wants" a quad core but hasn't really said anything to justify he "needs" a quad core, in essence there is something he *admires* about four cores but a lot of people are not gonna get their moneys worth from an upgrade like this unless they are true multi-taskers (Encoding while playing games etc) or just do lots of predictive tasks such as encoding back to back DivX films, for these true multitaskers the Intel® Core™ i5/i7 is gonna make a real big difference . .

Intel® Core™2 Quad is a half measure
AMD Phenom ii Quad is a half measure
Intel® Core™ i5/i7 is doing it properly

For everyone else there is used Intel® Core™2 systems and new AMD Athlon II Dual/Tri cores . .

Actually Ripper-X I think a good route for you may be keeping your DDR2 and buying an AMD Motherboard and a Tri Core, sell your old LGA775 board and chip and you may well get a free upgrade, alternatively you can just throw £180 smackers away on an outdated and vastly overpriced Yorkfield . . . .with xmas around the corner I know what option makes sense!

 

[Bonjour]

I'm not talking about reviews, I'm talking from personal experience..

 

[Engram]

I don't believe anyone could tell the difference between a 3GHz + dual core and a 3GHz + quad core

The benchmarks certainly say differently!

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2009-desktop-cpu-charts/GTA-IV-1.0.3,Marque_fbrandx14,1402.html

I chose that game because it's CPU limited and I'm playing it at the moment.

If I were to go from my E6850 (3GHz) (not benchmarked in article but would be slower than all chips on chart) to a Q9650 (3GHz) I would see a huge leap in performance!

 

[Clairvoyant]

Another route would be a cheap e8400 @4Ghz.

I went for a Q9550 as it was the cheapest option even if it is EOL. Its still a good chip.

Ok so maybe it is a is a half measure as BW says. But when moneys tight. £60 upgrade is cheaper than say £200.

But thats my personal view.

 

[cjph]

Has anyone moved from a fast dual (I have an E5200 clocked to 3.7GHz) to a one of the moderately fast tri or duad Athlons ? (such as the 620). Since a board and CPU can be bought new for the same or less than a 775 quad I wonder if jumpoing ship is a good option.

There are other considerations, like my board only has one GPU slot, so I could jump to a crossfire or SLi mobo. Or, more speculatively, to a P55 board with Lucid technology which would appear to promise a lot.

cjph

 

[Big.Wayne]

Has anyone moved from a fast dual (I have an E5200 clocked to 3.7GHz) to a one of the moderately fast tri or duad Athlons ?

I went from Wolfdale dual-core E8400/P5Q-E to Rana tri-core 425/M4A785D-M Pro . . .

Sold the Intel chip/board for £179.95 and purchased the AMD chip/board for £95.41 and pocketed the £84.54 balance!

Since a board and CPU can be bought new for the same or less than a 775 quad I wonder if jumpoing ship is a good option.

It's definitely a good option if you want a fast modern computer that's easy on the wallet. I personally didn't benefit much from gaining an extra core but I'm grateful for having the cash back and also am finding life in AMD land quite interesting as I've been on Core 2 since late 2006.

Personally I enjoy swapping out hardware and I don't mind re-installing an O/S and my apps so the process was fairly smooth, I've ended up with a system that suits my needs better and I've saved a chunk of cash!

AMD Dual/Tri Core really offer great bang for buck atm and although it's not as powerful as a sweet Intel® Core™ i7 system the AMD kit is *more* than fast enough for anything I do in the Real World and the price difference is really Night & Day

 

[Engram]

I went from Wolfdale dual-core E8400/P5Q-E to Rana tri-core 425/M4A785D-M Pro . . .

Hmmm, interesting. According to the benchmark that I posted earlier you didn't really gain much processing power, but at the same time you got money for nothing! (And cheques for free?) So that's all good.

Judging by those benchmarks, the AMD equivalent (in fact, slightly better) to the Q9550 (in terms of game peformance) is the AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 965.

But then you have to get a new motherboard and possibly a new cooler. That's way more hassle than just swapping the CPU.

 

[redballoon]

You got someone (outside of ebay) to give you £100 for a used Core 2 Duo + £84 for a mid range P45 board in late 09? Congrats.

That combo looks very good for a cheap new matx build.

 

[megatron]

I payed £135 for a brand new P35-DQ6 and about £45 for a e2160 1Mb L2 cache dual core @ 3Ghz. Since Ram prices have more than doubled, and looking at the benches comparing e8400 to q9550 (+plus the fact I am still using an xp-120 cooler with LGA775 bracket), all things considered; it will be a massive upgrade at the minimal outlay. Bear in mind the q9550 is a new design of quad with cooler running, giving potentially greater O/C headroom.

I only have XMS 6400-c5 corsair ram which after the flaky ballistix debacle I left at default speed (while running a FSB & CPU o/c).

 

[Th3D0n]

I went from a e6600 @ 3.2 AND a p965-DS3 to a Q9400 @ 3.6 and P5Q-E. it cost me £190 and all i can say is it was well worth the money games feel faster windows is much faster plus i do a lot of encoding witch is much faster as well. iv just got two 80Gig HDs for £15 to use in RAID 0


EDIT***
I forgot to say i sold my e6600 for £40 and my P965-DS3 for £38 so it only really cost me £120!

 

[Big.Wayne]

money for nothing! (And cheques for free?)

Dire Straits heh!

But then you have to get a new motherboard and possibly a new cooler. That's way more hassle than just swapping the CPU.

What you consider "hassle" some of us consider "fun", bit geeky I know but there is something interesting about installing a new platform. I pull machines apart and service them on a regular basis so its always nice to be doing something for myself.

I'll agree with you though that lots of people would view swapping out motherboards and CPU as a "hassle" therefore they are happy to pay-thru-the-nose for easy pop in upgrades! . . . personally my nose will always sniff out the hardware bargains and it has to be that way as I don't have a lot of money, maximum bang for buck always!

 

[Big.Wayne]

You got someone (outside of ebay) to give you £100 for a used Core 2 Duo + £84 for a mid range P45 board in late 09? Congrats.

Well it's not that remarkable, it was a boxed/retail/lapped E8400 that could run stock 3.0GHz @ 1.00v, got £99.95 inc for that (still costs £127 new!), the motherboard was the famous ASUS P5Q-E boxed with all bits n bobs and that sold on OcUK mm for £80 inc

Messed up the figures in my post above, it was actually £179.95 for the old kit

That combo looks very good for a cheap new matx build.

I'm more interested in the affordable hardware that the ultra elite (and expensive) kit . . . reason being the elite kit can't be enjoyed by everyone (for obvious reasons).

Now that AMD have released some great dual and tri cores it makes Intel® entry level kit look rather expensive and totally outmoded as for under £100 your gonna get something like a dual core E5200/E6300 and a G31/G41 chipset which is poor competition vs an Athlon II (x2/x3) paired with an AMD 785G chipset . . .

 

[Engram]

Now that AMD have released some great dual and tri cores it makes Intel® entry level kit look rather expensive and totally outmoded as for under £100 your gonna get something like a dual core E5200/E6300 and a G31/G41 chipset which is poor competition vs an Athlon II (x2/x3) paired with an AMD 785G chipset . . .

Yes, I must admit that if I were building a complete new system now I would probably go for a Phenom II X4.

"Hassle", for me, is all the research before you buy the gear. I don't mind taking the PC apart.

 

[Big.Wayne]

I would probably go for a Phenom II X4

For just a little extra outlay you could be getting a Intel® Core™ i5 system

The multitasker/encoder on a budget should be looking at this

AMD Athlon II X4 620


£79.99 inc

£80 for a retail boxed quad core, that's amazing really! . . . There is always scope to buy a cheaper x2/x3 processor and try to unlock the extra cores but its not guaranteed.

The AMD Athlon II X3 425 chips were selling for less than half the cost of that x4 620 above which is why I snapped one up, didn't think the extra £40 was worth it for an extra core I didn't need!

If anyone intends to spend over £120 on a processor though it's all about Intel® Core™ i5/i7 . . . for everyone else there is used LGA775 kit and new AMD x2 and x3 cores, more than enough!

 

[Rroff]

If you can get a Q9650 for ~£180 I'd do it... less hassle and I can tell you its deffinatly worth it - clock for clock they waste the Phenom IIs. I "upgraded" (gave my old CPU to my dad for his new build) from a Q6600 3.6gig to a Q9550 @ 3.825gig - didn't expect much difference but infact windows boots quite a bit faster and in some cases getting almost 40% higher performance.