What have I missed since QX9650 + Stryker 2 Extreme

Chocki · 14 Apr 2010 at 13:04

What have I missed since I dropped off the radar about a couple of years back when I built my Stryker 2 Extreme with a QX9650 EE CPU, Nvidia 9800GTX+ and 2 Gigs of OCZ DDR3 mem
Still running water cooled at 4 Gigs every day.

Has the performance bar gone up substantially to start looking towards next computer or is this setup still reasonably good.
Mainly do 3D modelling and rendering with Blender, some music creation with Reason, don't really play games much anymore, but still like to have a go at UT3.

Mainly looking for processor improvements due to rendering.

Frozennova · 14 Apr 2010 at 13:21

Only really the i7s.

Heres how one at stock compares to your current Q9650 http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/49?vs=47
however the 920 has been replaced with the higher clocked 930 so a bit more of an increase plus a relatively easy 4ghz overclock it would leave your current chip for dead.

However I'd wait for more info on the upcoming release of AMDs 6 core parts to see how they fair, as 6 reasonably clocked cores should be quicker than 4 cores by some margin, my guess being 20% or so quicker than i7 with HT

Chocki · 26 Apr 2010 at 10:23

Think I'll drop off the radar for a bit longer as my system is still good enough two years on.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 26 Apr 2010 at 10:50

AMD Bulldozer and Intel Sandy Bridge are out next year. AMD Bulldozer is meant to be a new architecture.

Sayso · 26 Apr 2010 at 11:25

Not a lot...the only thing i might upgrade is the GFX card!

Sparx · 26 Apr 2010 at 11:29

You want 4 GB of RAM too..

Skillmister · 26 Apr 2010 at 11:44

Sparx said:
You want 4 GB of RAM too..

To be honest for 3d rendering that isnt even needed. Maybe for actually modelling in really high detail but i never use much over 2 the majority of the time. Just really cpu intensive.

Rojin · 26 Apr 2010 at 12:47

frozennova said:
Only really the i7s.

Heres how one at stock compares to your current Q9650 http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/49?vs=47
however the 920 has been replaced with the higher clocked 930 so a bit more of an increase plus a relatively easy 4ghz overclock it would leave your current chip for dead.

However I'd wait for more info on the upcoming release of AMDs 6 core parts to see how they fair, as 6 reasonably clocked cores should be quicker than 4 cores by some margin, my guess being 20% or so quicker than i7 with HT

Interesting comparison link that, I haven't even been on anandtech for aaages! Shame it doesn't have overclocked comparisons. My rig is a couple of years old now but it looks ok I guess, especially as I rarely game now (think I might try and finish BF-BC2 this afternoon!). Q6600 @ 3.6Ghz (actually this must be getting on for 3 years old now?!) and a GTX 295. This is probably the last "high spec" machine I'll ever have to be honest, with the amount of gaming I do now I might as well move to consoles