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Worth upgrading to q9550 and trying oc to 3.6??

Soldato
Joined
17 Dec 2004
Posts
8,743
Im thinking about upgrading my e8400 to a q9550, as the rest of my system is good accept for gpu,(see in sig)

What is the likely hood that I will be able to overclock the cpu to 3.6, due to having 8gb of mem and the mem only being 6400(800mhz) also will I notice much diff for general usage in windows?

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I had an e8500 which i didnt overclock at all because i was an overclocking noob and have upgraded to an q9450 which is clocked to 3.4 and tbh i havent really noticed a difference in games or generally in windows.
 
I upgraded recently from a E8400 @3.6 to a X3360 @3.4 (same as a Q9550) and I cant say I notice any difference. Temps are way down as it runs at 1.1v compared to the more juicy E8400.

My memory is holding me back, but I'm not going to fork out anymore money on old tech.

Unless to specifically use something regulary that used 4 cores, I wouldn't bother.
 
Ah ok thanks, Ill just get a new gpu then.. If the nvida gtx460 cards are as fast as Ati cards, how come ati 5850 are like £100 more? The MSI GTX 460 Cyclone looks tasty.
 
Ah ok thanks, Ill just get a new gpu then.. If the nvida gtx460 cards are as fast as Ati cards, how come ati 5850 are like £100 more? The MSI GTX 460 Cyclone looks tasty.

Depends where you look, gtx 460 1gb msi cyclone are much better for sli, much better performance for dx 11 titles, run cooler and quieter than the 5850, however when when running a single card the 5850 is slighlty faster, this is however its only merit over the 460. If your going to upgrade makesure you get the 1gb version over 786mb, its a better card.
 
Ah thanks, I been out of touch of nvida since I bought 2 6800gt and put them in sli. Was a total waste of money so I haven't touch nvida since. but I may go back to nvida if it means saving quite a lot of money for very little speed loss.
 
Im going to be building a i7 930 2.80ghz for someone in a few weeks and that's loads faster then my e8400 3.6ghz, but just how much diff will I notice for general and gaming use. Like will I be saying, I have to have a i7?
 
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Yeah 8gig on a P35 is going to hold back CPU overclock quite a bit - probably wouldn't get any better on a Q9550.

Purely for normal desktop useage and gaming you won't notice much difference going from a 3.6gig E8400 to an i7 setup unless you do a lot of stuff that gains massively from multi threading. Personally I'd say you were better off saving your money towards a GTX470 (pref one with good custom cooling) and clocking it to 800/1600/2000 with MSI Afterburner (needs 1.04-1.087 volts on GPU).
 
r u going to be gaming much? r the games u play using quads? if no to either answer, i'd stick with the e8500.
 
Im trying my cpu at 3.8 again, Ive upped the volts to 1.300v. Its ran 15hr of orthos without failing, now its running 12hrs of the dreaded burntest that it failed on before. So if burntest passes this time, I may of well leave it on 3.8 ready for the new card and monitor Im going to get in the next few months:D

Temps with orthos are 55-57c and 59-61c with burntest.
 
+1 for Nvidia 460 1024mb version. Oh and perhaps a shiny new SSD drive, they will give you the most noticable improvements to your system. Stick with your other bits for now.

I would say that in normal gaming you wouldn't really notice a signifcant difference in the CPU upgrade you suggest just yet.
 
Yeah Ive been looking at ssd drives but their still quite expensive for a decent size one. But cos I have 8gb of mem, windows put all my apps that I use in the mem so they open near enough instant anyway, its only my games that are not that fast at loading.
 
I think I got it stable now with burntest at 3.8. Been running now for about 10hrs and it hasnt failed, 2hr to go:eek: The cpu volt hovers between 1.300v - 1.310v

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