Worth the upgrade??

malachi

malachi

malachi

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Im thinking of upgrading my motherboard, CPU and Ram. Im currently running,
Intel Core 2 Q6600 2.4GHZ B0
8gig of Kingston DDR2 PC2-6400
Asus PK5-E with the P35 chipset

I was thinking of upgrading to this,
Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD4 iX58
Intel Core i7 920 2.66GHz
Crucial 6GB DDR3 PC3-10600 Memory

As I do play a lot of games with my Radeon HD 4870 512mb and sometimes encode videos. Would I see difference in speed if I do upgrade? I have no plans to do any overclocking as I dont with my current setup. Or is worth waiting for something like the Core i5?
 
Yes you will see an increase, probably not worth it for the cost though.
 
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For games you are unlikely to see much difference unless you overclock, in which case the i7 is almost certainly going to hit a better speed, but even then how much you'll see it in games is debatable. The general opinion is that i7s are awesome but not that much faster than Core 2 in games.

If video encoding is something you don't do a lot of and you don't really do any other CPU intensive work like rendering etc, then you'd probably be spending over £500 for no noticeable gain. I'd just leave it for now.
 
People will say that it wont be worth upgrading for your games...but I beg to differ even tho I have a 4870 X2...I have noticed significant change in gaming...with higher FPS on a number of games I play.

However, video encoding will benefit greatly from the upgrade and this you will definitely notice...

Also change the RAM for the OCZ range cos they are really cheap but really overclockable (if you do decide to venture for that of course). :D
 
CK61938 said:
People will say that it wont be worth upgrading for your games...but I beg to differ even tho I have a 4870 X2...I have noticed significant change in gaming...with higher FPS on a number of games I play.
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You are at 4.2GHz though and what CPU did you have before? I'm pretty sure that a 2.4GHz Q6600 to a 2.67GHz i7 isn't going to be substantially faster in games.
 
I estimate that your option with going i7 would cost around £450-£500

This will get you a lot more bang for buck then going i7

Gigabyte GA-X48-DQ6 - £184
OCZ Gold Edition 4GB x2 - £70
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4870 "Toxic" 512MB - £120

Total - £374

You will easily be able to overclock your Q6600 to 3.6Ghz or to 3.8Ghz with the right cooling. And at that speed it can more then hold its own with i7

You can even use the money left over and buy a nice water cooling kit :)

Or

Sell your existing motherboard and 4870 and get a pair 4870 1Gb which with the extra VRAM will make your games smoother :)
 
Phemo said:
You are at 4.2GHz though and what CPU did you have before? I'm pretty sure that a 2.4GHz Q6600 to a 2.67GHz i7 isn't going to be substantially faster in games.
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My Q6600 was OC'd (and still is) to 3.57Ghz...but the Core i7 has shown significant increase in game performance...
 
almighty15 said:
It has an extra 600Mhz over the Q6600, its gonna show a difference :rolleyes:
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You are also forgetting the Core i7 is a true quad core...not a dual core with two logical cores each...and believe me performance has been different...

I achieved an FPS of around 25 in Crysis when I was using the Q6600 and this is with settings of 1920x1200, 2xAA with VERY HIGH settings. On the Core i7 I can get 40+FPS with the same settings...COD4 gets FPS of upto 90+ on the Q6600 I was hitting 60FPS...and no its not an exaggeration...
 
I was going to sell my old kit to put towards getting the new parts, so in total should cost me no more than £350(i hope) once everything has been sold.
I currently have an Arctic Cooling AC-FRZ-7P Freezer 7 Pro on my Q6600, I know people are probably shouting at me saying "why dont I have overclock with that cooler"...lol. But I have never been too keen on overclocking, at the sametime Im also thinking of future proofing as I know come next year I wont be upgrading my computer due to moving house.
 
CK61938 said:
You are also forgetting the Core i7 is a true quad core...not a dual core with two logical cores each...and believe me performance has been different...

I achieved an FPS of around 25 in Crysis when I was using the Q6600 and this is with settings of 1920x1200, 2xAA with VERY HIGH settings. On the Core i7 I can get 40+FPS with the same settings...COD4 gets FPS of upto 90+ on the Q6600 I was hitting 60FPS...and no its not an exaggeration...
Click to expand...

Its a 600Mhz difference, if i down clock my CPU i get less FPS :rolleyes:
 
almighty15 said:
Its a 600Mhz difference, if i down clock my CPU i get less FPS :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Please re-read my post again and note the settings I was using for both CPUs...I am sure if you lowered your CPU clock, not only would u lose FPS, but also res and AA and graphics settings too...I didnt change these and yet the FPS changed just by the CPU speed...do you see what I am getting at yet or would u like me to draw u a diagram? :rolleyes:
 
CK61938 said:
Please re-read my post again and note the settings I was using for both CPUs...I am sure if you lowered your CPU clock, not only would u lose FPS, but also res and AA and graphics settings too...I didnt change these and yet the FPS changed just by the CPU speed...do you see what I am getting at yet or would u like me to draw u a diagram? :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Draw me a diagram
 
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