Should I upgrade my CPU?

[coxroach1]

Hi all,

I am currently running a E8600 @ 4.25 on a EVGA 780i *** board.

I have been offered a swap for a brand new Q9650.

The querstion is should I do it?

any thoughts and opinions would be greatly appreciated.

Would also be nice to know what OCing fugures people have got out of the Q9650

Thanks all.

 

[raralis]

Depends on what you use it.

If it's encoding, rendering, ripping etc then you'll notice a boost.

For gaming, there aren't many games that make use of 4 cores at the moment, but hopefully some more in the future.

As for overclocking, 3.6 -3.8 is attainable easily for a q9650.

All for all, it's a decent upgrade if you intend to overclock.

 

[OzZie]

Depends on what you use it.

If it's encoding, rendering, ripping etc then you'll notice a boost.

For gaming, there aren't many games that make use of 4 cores at the moment, but hopefully some more in the future.

As for overclocking, 3.6 -3.8 is attainable easily for a q9650.

All for all, it's a decent upgrade if you intend to overclock.

A year ago, most didnt utilise Quads. Today, 90%+ of games new support quad core which is a big reason to get one. Nothing wrong with a highly clocked dual, as it'll still perform reasonably as most newer games arent CPU limited.

For Windows + App use, it'll feel a lot snappier doing more things at once.

 

[coxroach1]

Thanks for the info.

It sounds like I am going to getting similar performacne from the non quad optimised software and a good boost from those that are able to address 4 cores.

Any other opinions/oc results are more than welcome.

 

[pastymuncher]

If it's a straight swap then go for it especially if it's the better E0 stepping.

 

[coxroach1]

Thanks for the replies. I am just checking out what stepping the quad is. I know my E8600 is an E0

 

[coxroach1]

have jusdt confirmed the Quad is an E0 stepping

 

[Rroff]

I'd be suprised if you couldn't get atleast 4gig out the Q9650 - tho those nForce boards aren't the best quad clockers ever... got 3.825gig out of my Q9550 on a EVGA 750i with ease and only holding off 4gig due to the voltage required which while not critically high is on the high side.

I find quad makes things a good bit smoother over all even when it doesn't produce a massive performance increase and in a few things there is a nice performance increase.

 

[UltimateBadger]

Meh. It if it's a straight swap then why not. I bought a used Q9550 from MM a few months back, however after installing it and playing with it for a while I sold it again and put my E8400 back in. I just didn't notice any 'real-world' difference at all. Although I only game on this machine - I don't do 'hardcore video encoding' (why is that everyone on this forum thinks they work for Lucasfilm or something )
I think I will just get a 5850 instead - that'll be more of a worthwhile upgrade for me.