E6850 LGA775 Upgrade

[cameronson]

Hi, All,

Looking for a little advice and insight here...

I currently have an E6850 dual core CPU. I'm very happy with the performance of this CPU. It's served me well in the years that I've had it, and I mainly only do "gaming" with a product I help produce (OpenGL based). We are moving to multicore support soon, but I don't do much in that area of development, hence my lack of any judgement here. My current GPU is a newly installed AMD Radeon 5870.

Now, with the above said, and considering the fact that I'm very happy with the performance of this machine as it stands, I am looking into upgrading. One of our new add-on products has an outside dependency and we've optimized the product to utilize multiple cores. As it stands now, it is the only thing I've come across that brings game performance down quite a bit with my dual core E6850 (both cores will run at 100%). As I currently have a full setup in LGA775 form, the obvious choice would be a Q9650. Given that it's $339, I'm looking at all options, but I must admit...I'm a bit more inclined to want to do the Q9650 just for the ease of a straight swap and not having to fuss with my hardware, formatting, etc. if I were to opt for an i7 setup.

So, my question...

Would a Q9650 still perform well today (better than my E6850?), and will it still last for at least a couple of years to come? Would an i7 setup be better? Bear in mind that if I go with an i7 I'd need to purchase a new CPU, Mobo, and DDR3 ram (maybe there's more, but I think I've got that list right).

Where is the most bang for my buck given my current setup?

Thanks for ANY help! I've been scouring the net for days trying to find some good info on this, but cannot find much of a direct answer.

 

[HEXiT]

it will last as long as there are current games consoles.
lots will say get an i5/i7 but the lga 775 still has life in it yet. whether its worth 300 + bux is another story.

any core 2 quad over 2.6ghz is gonna be ok for a while yet so maybe you should save some money and get a lower cost 775 like a q8 series. they perform relatively well and can oc past 3ghz with ease to see you through to the end of this year maybe even q2 next year and then look at the 2011 socket cpu's

btw the 5870 is to much gpu for your cpu games like badcompany 2 wont use more than 50 percent of the cpu.

 

[cameronson]

Hi, HEXiT!,

Thanks for the reply here! I really appreciate it, and am certainly open to more feedback from others as well.

Regarding the 5870: I do realize it's a hefty GPU for the CPU. I only purchased it due to a special on NewEgg. The GPU was on sale for only $169, which was a steal, and a simple upgrade to my aging 8800GTX! Even still, that upgrade alone made a noticeable impact on my gaming performance FPS wise.

My assumption is that with a quad core the 5870 will perform even better. Is this correct?

 

[Uther39]

That all depends on your quad cores frequency and the game your playing.

 

[HEXiT]

any core 2 quad over 2.6 will make the 5870 shine. especially 1s with larger cache. the faster you can get the cpu to go in this case the better the card will perform.

 

[cameronson]

Hi, HEXiT,

Thanks again for the info.

If I were to go with Quad, my next concern IS my motherboard. Would the P5N-D suffice okay for even the Q9650?