Upgrading from Q6600 to modern kit, how much faster?

Northwind · 15 Dec 2014 at 23:01

Getting tempted to upgrade from my antique Q6600... It seems to be a little tired, just had to drop the overclock on it to a mere 3.5ghz to keep it stable

well, it has been 7 years I suppose. Tried replacing the thermal paste but it didn't help.

Anyway- at the moment it's Q6600 g) at 3.5ghz, 8gb of DDR2 reaper at somewhere just under 1ghz (but slack timing, 5 5 5 15 I think), an old P35 DS3 a GTX560Ti (only 1980 x 1080, it still seems adequate), aircooled in some cheap case which does the job. Only modern component is a Corsair SSD (the board is just SATA 2 though)

So, in its day it was pretty mighty tbh but how badly will new kit kick its arse? I am thinking nothing too fancy, probably a G3258 or 4690 on something like a Gigabyte H97-D3H, some of that TeamGroup frost edition RAM, and I'll need a new cooler so some standalone watercooler I think.

The PC just feels generally a bit overworked, I'm playing shogun 2 at the moment which is hardly cutting edge and the load times are slow, video editing is fine but timeconsuming... But it's really hard to benchmark such old kit. Any thoughts?

Uther · 15 Dec 2014 at 23:07

I went from a Q6600 @ 3.2 to a 2500k @ stock and it was night and day.

andy_mk3 · 15 Dec 2014 at 23:11

I went from a Q6600 @ 3.4Ghz to a 2500k @ 4.6GHz and the difference is most definitely noticeable.

But if you don't already have an SSD, then that will make more difference than anything else. My Q6600 with an SSD was still very quick. The 2500k is most noticeable in games really, a good bump in fps.

MB101 · 15 Dec 2014 at 23:11

2500k
8gb ddr3
nvidia 680
motherboard of you choosing

Easily double what you have now for 300-400 notes 2nd hand.

Richard-h2 · 15 Dec 2014 at 23:22

Hi
Well glad to see I am not the only one upgrading from the Q6600 its sat in a P35 DS4

I am hoping for a day and night jump .. but I am pushing out the boat and birthday and xmas in one ....

New hobby is forcing me to do some video editing but its just so much of a pain waiting I could not be bothered ...

Richard

StoneDef · 16 Dec 2014 at 07:40

I just done the same in the black Friday sales. I went from a Q6600 to an i5 4690k and the difference is night and day. Though it probably helped that I went for a whole new system, ssd, Radeon 290 etc but the whole thing is just a hell of a lot snappier and playing games are now a joy instead of a chore

BinnsY · 16 Dec 2014 at 09:01

Yep went from a Q6600 @ 3.2 with 4GB of DDR2 @ 900mhz up to a 3570k @ 4.4ghz with 16GB @ 1866mhz about 18 months ago and it was absoultely night and day.

Terminal_Boy · 16 Dec 2014 at 09:12

Uther said:
I went from a Q6600 @ 3.2 to a 2500k @ stock and it was night and day.

This.

And then I put an H60 on my 2500K and set it to a rather genteel 4.3GHz for another nice performance boost.

joeyjojo · 16 Dec 2014 at 11:15

StoneDef said:
Though it probably helped that I went for a whole new system, ssd, Radeon 290 etc

This is a big part of it, fresh install + SSD would feel a lot faster.

That said if you like Shogun OP you would benefit more than average from a new CPU. It's not well threaded and loves CPU speed.

fatdog · 16 Dec 2014 at 12:17

Fx83** will do the trick

Audigex · 16 Dec 2014 at 12:37

joeyjojo said:
This is a big part of it, fresh install + SSD would feel a lot faster.

That said if you like Shogun OP you would benefit more than average from a new CPU. It's not well threaded and loves CPU speed.

This. For pure "My computer feels old" upgrades, an SSD knocks years of anything with a HDD.

I wouldn't say a 2500K over a Q6600 on it's own will be night and day, although it will give an appreciable increase: A 2500K-era (ie modern) SYSTEM over a Q6600-era (ie 5-6 years old) SYSTEM will be night and day.