socket 775, upgrade? or just drop a quad in??

Thekwango · 17 Jan 2011 at 19:05

howdy all,

a friend is running the following spec,

E6850 C2d
Asus P5Q Pro
4GB DDR2
9800gt.

He mainly plays BFBC2 and Black Ops, but he says it's been struggling quite badly lately. A lot of stuttering and poor frame rates, he's certain its not just his internet on the fritz.

So he has a budget of £350 (preferably less) for a bit of an upgrade and some1 he works with suggested this......

but i'd been thinking that he'd be just as well dropping a quad in, q8300 or maybe a 2nd hand q6600 and and adding a better gpu, maybe the 460 or summat?

any thoughts

Thekwango · 17 Jan 2011 at 19:09

thats what i thought, he should also have enough left over to even grab an ssd. i've read, tho i could be wrong but i think BFBC2 and Black Ops quite 'like' a quad?

Thekwango · 17 Jan 2011 at 21:12

any idea what would be a reasonable price to pay for a Q6600 both new and 2nd hand?

Thekwango · 17 Jan 2011 at 23:09

i take it the G0 stepping chip is the better for oc'ing? failing being able to pick up a
Q6600 at a sensible price, any other cpu's he should be looking at?

Thekwango · 18 Jan 2011 at 00:00

setter said:
The q6600 would be a good choice, they pop up on members market here pretty often, GO is the better stepping compared to the older B3's, the only other quads to consider are the q9450/9550, still a little expensive though, particularly the q9550, the p5q pro will be a great board for clocking any intel s775 quad on.

ahhh good to know, the fella only uses the pc for browsing and gaming so he's trying to keep to a pretty tight budget. which is why i thought it'd be cheaper just to drop a decent quad in oc it and add a nice new shiny gpu.

how difficult/easy is oc'ing on that board or s775 cpu's in general, only just getting the hang of ocing my i5 and i'm pretty sure it'll have to be me oc his for him

Thekwango · 18 Jan 2011 at 00:12

cool, cheers for the info setter. top notch as always!

Thekwango · 18 Jan 2011 at 00:12

MikeHunt79 said:
Drop a quad in

yup, think thats what we'll do

Thekwango · 19 Jan 2011 at 18:18

2nd hand Q6600 is what i'm trying to talk him into, but i get the feeling he is harbouring some reservations about buying 2nd hand CPU. i've a feeling he may be getting fed mis-information from another source

@jamesfreddie i think he'd be better off getting a quad as i'm led to believe that his games prefer quad over core 2 duo's. but i think either way he's gona get a 460, so we'll plop that in give his curent cpu an overclock and see how it goes, and i'll keep trying to twist his wrist into getting the Q6600

Thekwango · 19 Jan 2011 at 18:48

Energize said:
For games I don't think it's a necessity to get a quad core, I am upgrading to a Q6600 but gaming is only a secondary reason.

really? i coulda swore i read somewhere, or maybe some1 told me that black ops and bfbc2 prefered a quad.

well i'll get him to try a new gpu and oc his current c2d and take it from there. cheers for thr info btw

Thekwango · 19 Jan 2011 at 18:55

Energize said:
Yeah but the question is, is an x% performance increase in 2 games worth £75?

ahhh very true. tho i think going to a quad may add a few more miles too his rig before he has to look at a full upgrade.

must see if i can find any bench mark comparisons for his c2d vs Q6600 in the games he plays