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Should I upgrade to a Q6600?

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Joined
15 Jul 2009
Posts
265
Location
Witney, Oxfordshire
I currently have a E6550 Core 2 Duo and want something better to play games at not too much of a high price (I can get a Q6600 from eBay for under £100). It is the best processor I can get easily without having to change my motherboard, but I might get a better heatsink (for around £40) so I can overclock it mabye to 3GHz if possible.

Would it just be a case of taking my current processor out, and putting the Q6600 in?

Would I still be able to use my current Intel stock heatsink for it (before I get a new heatsink)?

Would it be able to play games that come out in the near future easily? (eg: COD Modern Warfare 3, Crysis 2 etc.)
 
A good Q6600 can be had for <£80 on the members market here - get into some discussions, you only need 71 more posts! (250)

They are a great CPU at 3.0 or more GHz ;)
 
Get your post count up you can get a q6600 G0 for £70 in the members market on here.

edit: beaten to it
 
well the cpu is still good and maybe a good upgrade, since i am not too sure about your motherboard is that the only chip your motherboard can support since i have a feeling it is running a 650i chipset.
 
A Q6600 from members market at around £70 wouldn't be a bad investment at all. If I remember rightly my mate had a p5n-e sli mobo with his q6600 and whilst it wasn't the greatest overclocker he still managed 3ghz.
 
Thanks for your replies. :)

Would it fit ok into my motherboard and work with my current Intel stock heatsink?
 
Defo get a better cooler - the AC Freezer 7 Pro is like, what, £18? Everyone I know with one raves about it's value for money!
 
It should fit fine, current Intel stock heatsink should work too although im not sure how good it will be at cooling it, especially if you plan on an overclock
 
Ok here's my plan:

Get 250 posts.

Buy a Q6600 for £70 from the market along with a good heatsink.

Install and hopfully overclock it to 3GHz.

Thanks for all of your help. :)
 
You do realise that it will only give you approximately a 2fps average increase in games?

You're far better off spending that on a new graphics card!

If any of you want sources, read CustomPC's January issue :p
 
You do realise that it will only give you approximately a 2fps average increase in games?

You're far better off spending that on a new graphics card!

If any of you want sources, read CustomPC's January issue :p


+1 0n this

Gaming wise this is your best value for money option. Collect your Xmas pennies together and get a 460 (a AMD/ATI fanboy recommending a NVidia... God help me...lol) (Ignore the GTX280... I don't know how that sneaked into that case...lol)

At least this investment can be carried over to a new or upgraded rig at a later date

:)
 
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You will hardly see anything going from a 2.7ghz dual to a 3.0ghz quad. It will almost not even be worth the money.

Keep the money for now, and save up for a nice i5 system down the line :cool:
 
Ok, thanks for the advice guys. :)

But I'm thinking more in the future really. In 2-3 years time, surely my processor at the moment will not be good enough to play games. I would've thought a Core 2 Quad at 3.2GHz would be much better for games by then. My processor (before I overclocked it from 2.33GHz) didn't even meet the miniumum requirement for COD Black Ops.

I probably won't buy a new graphics card yet though, as I only just upgraded mine a year ago from an 8500GT.
 
In 2 to 3 years you'd be much much better off getting a new system instead of upgrading a PC thats already 2 generations old.
 
In 2 to 3 years you'd be much much better off getting a new system instead of upgrading a PC thats already 2 generations old.

Yeah, I guess so, thanks for the advice. :)

I'll probably get a new heatsink and overclock my current CPU further.
 
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