Help! Q6600 upgrade for gaming?

[Paintrain84]

Okay, so i haven't posted much on this forum but lately i haven't been able to get the whole "I WANNA UPGRADE" out of my head! About 3 years ago i made my first real gaming computer and it went great. In-fact, i still have it and it runs well to this day. I just purchased a lap top about 2 months ago, and did a bit of research before i did, i wanted a sweet gaming laptop for the best price "Like we all do".

Well, i settled for the N61JQ ASUS that has the i7 (lower end 1.73ghz) and the ATI HD5730. Well it seems to be more of a nice multimedia laptop than anything, not quite living up to the FPS i crave! So i thought "Okay, maybe ill go ahead and upgrade the ol PC".

The case is awesome, i have the Thermaltake Armor+ full tower which still sells to this day for 200 bones.
The power supply is a beast at 750W so no shortage there
Monitor is sick, i just upgraded and HD etc. is good as well

What i am running is an Intel Core 2 Q6600 Quad Core. when the strong quads came out, this was the lower end model but was still such a solid CPU at the time i thought sure why not save some money and still get a nice cpu, well as it turns out with all this i3, i5, i7 3+ghz with hyperthreading and sandy bridge such and such, it has completely confused me! I am also running a P5ND SLI Motherboard with 2x SLI 9800 GT's (Fail, what a waste of money that was, those cards are terrible, and i def need to upgrade!). I am also working with 4gb of RAM but forget off the top of my head what it is.

So my question is, What processor / Mobo / Graphics card should i bother upgrading to!? I have heard so many mixed reviews, please someone tell me what these new processors have over mine and why i should upgrade the one i have. I can run games and what not at a moderate level but at ultra or high settings....well even WoW slows down a little, so i want something smooth and impressive without spending 800 bucks.

I NEED EDUCATION! Thanks guys and gals!

 

[Paintrain84]

and core2's 2.4s will go to 3.0 easily on decent stock cooling
and with no overvoltage
when you start to up voltage is where the danger lies

Hey king, is there a sort of "Standard" for "Safe overclocking voltage" or do you suggest i stop wasting your time and just go research the whole thing from the noob guide and up?

 

[HostileDonut]

haha okay, and finally for you overclocking masters out there, i see all this crazyness about LIQUID cooling....is it really worth it or should i put together a friggen wind tunnel in my computer with some thermal squeezy stuff on my cpu?

Don't do liquid unless you want a really really really high OC.

 

[HostileDonut]

Hey king, is there a sort of "Standard" for "Safe overclocking voltage" or do you suggest i stop wasting your time and just go research the whole thing from the noob guide and up?

3.0Ghz should be safe. Also, there are safe voltages, but it depends on the CPU. The Intel website might tell you like AMD does. I'll check, one sec.

 

[HostileDonut]

.85- 1.5v is okay on a core 2 quad q6600. You can overvolt a little I think. I would go 1.45v max though for long CPU life.

 

[king smp]

Ah your not wasting my time
I am not an expert at overclocking CPUs
I am an "expert amateur"
I do know that you can get decent overclocks WITHOUT
upping voltage especially on Core2s

for your reading pleasure and specifically talks about q6600
http://www.overclock.net/intel-cpus/497993-newbie-guide-overclocking-updated-core-2-a.html

i havent really OCd a rig since the Athlon XP days LOL
so I have to read that guide thoroughly myself to catch up

but the basics are the same

 

[king smp]

.85- 1.5v is okay on a core 2 quad q6600. You can overvolt a little I think. I would go 1.45v max though for long CPU life.

really if you can get a decent overclock without overvolting
especially on air then the extra mhz you gain from overvolting
will not be a big enough performance difference to make
it worthwhile

If you have a ten fan windtunnel or liquid cooling then
that is where overvolting comes into play

 

[Raidur]

Don't forget to flash the 6950 to a 6970.

 

[HostileDonut]

Don't forget to flash the 6950 to a 6970.

^+1

 

[HEXiT]

and it only works on reference cards...

 

[Paintrain84]

Is flashing the 6950 to a 6970 pretty easy and safe to do? Also, anybody have any insight on my laptop??? Im kinda curious

 

[HostileDonut]

Is flashing the 6950 to a 6970 pretty easy and safe to do? Also, anybody have any insight on my laptop??? Im kinda curious

If you knwo what you are doing, you can normally flash it. Sometimes, you can't though. As for your laptop, normally they can't be O.C.ed unless a you the ASUS ROG Connect by ASUS. I wouldn't recommend O.C.ing a laptop anyway though, they don't have sufficient cooling.

 

[Paintrain84]

Well heres the thing, I DONT KNOW WHAT IM DOING! lol!

At any rate i figured the same thing about the laptop, was just curious. Ill have to tinker around with learning how to overclock my Q6600. Im def interested.

 

[HostileDonut]

I have never OCed an Intel CPU, so I don't know too much, but the basic concept would be the same. Put the FSB up, RAM speed down, RAM voltage up, and maybe even CPU voltage up. Look it up on youtube.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

and core2's 2.4s will go to 3.0 easily on decent stock cooling
and with no overvoltage
when you start to up voltage is where the danger lies

i had to increase my voltage on my core 2 duo e6600 to get it past 2.8ghz stable, but ive heard many can get close to 3ghz with no voltage increase. you can pump a fair bit more voltage into these things safely, but just increase small steps at a time untill you find a stable setting for 3ghz. id suggest to just go 100mhz at a time. if you get to 3ghz and everything is still running stable then dont worry about the voltage. if it wont run stable, just increase the voltage small amounts at a time and test for stability. there are plenty of overclocking guides for this cpu http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2007/07/25/overclocking_intel_core_2_quad_q6600/2
heres a good ccomparison, using a gtx480 vid card (similar to gtx570 in performance) showing various cpu's. imagine your cpu as a phenom x4 in this articl, since performance is about spot on, clock for clock http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-gaming-cpu-core-i3-2100-phenom-ii-x6-1075t,2859-10.html you can see that in most games there isnt a huge difference with various cpu's.

 

[Paintrain84]

well the update: It turns out the HD6950 was really the answer to all my problems! LoL! Im SO impressed with how MUCH this graphics card has improved the performance of my games, it was insane. Changed 15-20fps into 60+fps maxed out! It was amazing. I guess i underestimated the ol' Q6600 setup i have lol. The i5 would def be a great addition when im ready but this card is AMAZING and wow what a difference. Impressed.

PS: I flashed the 6950 to the 6970 and its even better, although prob not even really needed just yet, it was too easy not to do it! Just an extra tid bit of info!

 

[HostileDonut]

NICE! Good to hear it worked!

 

[king smp]

awesome
that card is going to rock for years
and you could always get a second crossfire setup later on when needed