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Worth upgrading from a dual core E6600 yet?

PitchWhite

PitchWhite

PitchWhite

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9 Mar 2004
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Hi all - I'm still using a dual core e6600 on a p5wdh delux asus motherboard clocked at just under 3ghz. Graphics card is a 4870x2.
I mainly use it as a games machine and it seems capable of running most games in 1920x1200 (native res of my monitor) with everything enabled however I have recently started streaming games using an application called procaster.
I guess it puts a load on the system a bit like fraps does as it encodes and then saves/sends the output on to the internet - and it really struggles at some points. I've tried lowering the graphics and it seems to have no effect so I assume I'm CPU limited?
I don't like to upgrade very often as I tend to only bother upgrading my system when I will see a significant improvement. Should I hold out for the next generation of processors/motherboards or do you think the current ones are not going to be significantly improved on for a while?
Obviously with clock speeds still being very similar (3-4ghz) I'm not sure how much difference I will realistically see. Any recommended benchmark results I should look at?

Many thanks for your knowledge and input on this =)

PW
 
Recently upgraded my brothers PC from a E6600 - Q6600 and overclocked it to 3.2Ghz and I noticed in games such as Call of Duty World at War and Devil May Cry 4, it really did make a difference....

If the game can make use of the addtional cores, then its well worthwhile seeing if you can obtain a second hand Q6600. Go for around £80...

Will also help with Video Encoding, the E6600 is very good CPU the Q6600 just adds two addtional cores, depends if your board can accept it.

I'm limited on what I know, someone on here with much more knowledge will be able to offer more and maybe better advise..
 
When the 4870x2 was launched one of the review sites tested it with dual and quad cores and found that the dual core were bottlenecking the card even when overclocked. A Q6600 overclocked to similar or even higher clocks would good.
 
Thank you for the feedback guys.

Realistically how many apps/games actually makes use of the additional cores if I was to replace it with the quad core version of the same chip? 20%?
50%?
90%?
 
Is your chipset the 975X?

If yes don't bother IMO. Unlike P35/X38 older chipsets had trouble overclocking these chips to as high as they could.

Save up until an affordable Hex-core come out. Both AMD and Intel will have products out soon. You dont seem desperate and given that you dont like to upgrade too often this should be a good move.

Cheers :)
 
i went from a E5200 @ 3.6Ghz and some games i see allmost double the performance on my 4870x2 i'd say its worth it.
 
Also upgrading from an E6600 to an AMD 955 BE, hoping to see a big improvement! Hoping this will also last just as long as the E6600 has :)
 
Im still using my E6600 . . . . . @3.4
I have a 5850 which is bottlenecked a bit by the motherboard/processor.

I was pricing up an i7 build today, but I may wait for the next step up instead.
 
I am skipping corei3/5/7 completely quad q6600 q9550 is the way to go for a long while yet I for see.
 
A couple of years back me and my dad had the same systems, but I had an E6600 and he had a Q6600, both clocked just over 3Ghz. I seem to remember there being a difference in Microsoft's FSX which could use the extra cores. As already mention, your best bet might be to see if you can pick up a 2nd hand Q6600 cheaply, if it doesn't solve your problem you'll be able to sell it for pretty much the same price you bought it for.
 
spp said:
A couple of years back me and my dad had the same systems, but I had an E6600 and he had a Q6600, both clocked just over 3Ghz. I seem to remember there being a difference in Microsoft's FSX which could use the extra cores. As already mention, your best bet might be to see if you can pick up a 2nd hand Q6600 cheaply, if it doesn't solve your problem you'll be able to sell it for pretty much the same price you bought it for.
Click to expand...

+1 for the Q6600 ;)
 
C64 said:
I am skipping corei3/5/7 completely quad q6600 q9550 is the way to go for a long while yet I for see.
Click to expand...

Wait what?
Actually these new processors are great. A nice i5 is probably the best option a gamer could go for, they overclock so insanely well. An i3 will overclock to 4GHz no problem on ocuk's cheapest supporting motherboard. Not only that but the new chips use less energy and I wouldn't be surprised if they can do more processing in the same number of clock cycles. What I don't understand is if their lower cache has any impact? Some benchmarks around occasionally comment on certain games benifiting from a large cache.

I agree that core 2 quad cpus are still great for the job, however the price difference between a new core 2 build and a new i5 build is only about £70. Also, buying new core 2 chips at this time leads to horrible vids because intel are putting all their quality control into the new product lines. I bought a q9550 in January with a vid of 1.3 and it really doesn't like overclocking on a dfi lanparty t2rs plus or my asus p5n-t deluxe :(

However, with second hand purchases a great deal could be found.
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Also, most games and applications will benefit from more cores. Threads have been implemented for a long time, well before dual core cpus, when a thread is started Windows can assign it to another core. So even old games will benefit from extra processing capabilities which don't simply include higher clock speeds. However there are no doubt titles that don't see the expected increase in performance, either because they don't even use all of what a dual core can provide yet still get low fps, or they are not programmed particularly intuitively.
 
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I agree with C64 totally. Any upgrade to a 1156/1366 rig is going to cost significantly more than dropping a quad core into a already good platform. Add on the fact that 1156 is getting killed off in Q1 2011 and 1366 in Q3 2011 and it makes even more sense to stick with 775. We are not talking about a new build here, we are talking about a cpu upgrade. If it was a new build then going down the AMD route would be most practical. Vid is also not the limiting factor that people seem to think. I have had high vid cpu's that have been excellent clockers. If i remember rightly my Q9550 is a 1.3v vid yet it does at least 3.6Ghz on stock volts even in a poor clocking X48 board (X38/48 boards are not good for clocking 45nm quads). I will double check when i have finished rebuilding the rig as i have swapped the X48 out for the P45 board that was in my second rig.
 
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Yeah if you can get your hands on a second hand Q6600 or something similar and overclock it to 3.2 ish Ghz it just flies through everything.

I went from a E6300 @ 2.8Ghz to the Q6600 and what a diffrence the Q6600 was even at stock it seemed like 50x faster.
 
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