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What's round the corner?

dokko

dokko

dokko

Soldato
Joined
26 Nov 2005
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Doon the Bay (Newcastle)
Is now the time to upgrade or is the next best thing about to come out?

Also, is the current socket types going for a while longer or are they running on their final legs?

I'm on a Q9550, just wondering about the switch to an i7 950 and whether nowish is the right time or not.

Ta.
 
You could be waiting forever if u wait for the next best thing just around the corner. I would say describe what your needs are and your budget, don't forget when the next best thing comes out the current best thing usually drops in price.

Current socket types as far as I know will be here with us a while longer.

I use an AMD but again if your needs require a fast CPU than the i7 is probably the way to go.
 
Hi there, the next big things on the desktop CPU front are Intel Sandy Bridge and AMD Bulldozer. Both of these will be out early next year and provide performance a fair chunk faster than existing kit and more computing power per watt.

May I ask what you use your computer for and is your Q9550 overclocked?

You could be waiting forever if u wait for the next best thing just around the corner.
Click to expand...

This is true, but at the moment the i7 is the top-end and was released in November 2008. Here in September 2010 the same bloomfield cores are still top-end. However - in 3-6 months the new tech will be here which will put bloomfield in its place. Worth waiting? Very much an individual choice - but if I were sitting on a Q9550, I would wait.
 
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The q9550 is @ 3.5 on stock volts, it's a good chip, however I noticed some slowdown playing civ v the other night around 400 turns and got me thinking about possible upgrades. This really is just first thought, see what's going on and really what my options are.

Funnily enough when the icores came out I asked similar and got the same wait response, which I'm not complaining about, it's nice my chip is holding up for must be 2 years, not bad for £150.
 
Hi there, may I ask what graphics card and RAM you are using? Also, do you find you get any slowdown in any other games.

The Q9550 (especially clocked to 3.5GHz) is still a beast of a gaming chip - if you don't lag in other games then the problem is most likely to be with Civ 5 (it only did just come out). If you get slowdown with other games then the most likely culprit is the graphics card.
 
Got 4gb ddr3, can't remember the speed, also a 260 gtx, don't think it was graphical it seemed very much calculation in turns though the gpu still got a good workout. It could just be that's the way the game is, to be expected, but new tech and 4.4 overvlocks it's very tempting lol
 
Hey there,

As said the q9550 is still a great cpu for gaming. Clocked well and paired with a decent graphics card you should be sorted in terms of gaming for probably another couple of years!

Although you mentioned you felt that there was some other issue causing your problems with civ, for generally increasing fps in game I would definitely recommend a new graphics card. To see a significant jump in fps the current cards you should be looking at are the 5850 (around £200 http://overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-004-HS) or gtx 470 (around £225 http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-135-OK). The new 6xxx series ati cards are expected towards the end of october and I'd quite honestly wait til they arrive and see whether they force prices down a little for either cards.

bm
 
Sounds like an attack of GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome).

I'd keep my money and wait, I don't think a £600-£800 upgrade is warranted (which is what you'll need to spend for a decent performance boost), given your usage and what you have already. Besides, the slow down may not be due to the CPU (memory leak, graphics, poor usage of multi-cores, ...check memory and CPU usage :)).

At least until the next gen is upon us, when the i7 prices start to fall down a bit, and the next gen can be assessed.
 
GAS lol, think that's a fair enough comment like.

I'm wondering if a SSD would help at all, maybe a small fast one to put FM, Civ5 and A nother on, don't think I could be bothered for a full reinstall just for a HDD change over.

Going to get some monitors running later and see 100% what is holding the system back.
 
First off i wouldn't base an upgrade on a newly released game as i would feel pretty sure the game has a problem not your hardware and while i wouldn't normally say wait as you can be over cautious never buying anything i think this time round there is a good reason to wait. It isn't just new cpu's coming out soon but whole new board architecture as well many new features and claimed speed increases not relating to cpu plus the new cpu's themselves that are claimed to be a very good bit better then whats out now. I myself am coming upto my upgrade time and will wait till both sandy and BD are out so i can make a decision based on the best that out at that time. As good as what is out now is i know i would seriously kick myself if i spent £500+ and then in a few months found i could have gotten much better for the same money so it is a waiting game for now :).
 
You may or may not see a difference in Civ 5 - depends what the slowdown is and even if it is due to the CPU running out of puff unless it makes good use of the HT units moving to an i7 950 would only make a few % difference clock for clock.

I've yet to feel my Q9550 is a bottleneck in anything - I've done a lot of game benchmarks where I'm only 9-10% behind people with 4gig i7 setups worst case the only exception is very CPU dependant scenarios where the HT units can be used properly - then the i7 pulls massively ahead.
 
Just done some tests, it seems the CPU never gets above 75% at any time during the game, fraps tells me the game on a large map nearing the end is a steady 25-30fps, which is fine for this type of game, and the mem still has about 1gb spare...so is it just the game?

I've already reached the conclusion to hold off, but it was worth asking as I now know there's something else coming up early next year, so thanks for that.
 
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