Is the Q6600 worth upgrading?

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joeman99

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Sep 8, 2011
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I am on a budget here so I cant upgrade everything ALL at once. I'd really appreciate some help here. I am clueless about motherboards and just want to upgrade from a Q6600 to a processor that won't bottleneck my nvidia 460

Also I am considering buying a solid state drive. Will I see much performance if I hook it up to an old motherboard thats probably only SATA 1 or SATA 2 and not SATA 3 ? Meaning should I wait to buy a new mobo first or is it safe to buy a SSD?

To be honest i'd probably feel safer buying a mobo/cpu already married together. How much more expensive is it to buy it this way instead of a separate mobo/cpu to hook up yourself?

And one last question. Say im really cheap so i'll buy the smallest SSD drive I can to be my master drive and I'd set up a normal non SSD drive as my slave to store my games for when I want to transfer them onto my SSD drive. I can do this , right?

Would buying a small SSD drive, say like 60-100 gigs reduce my performance in the event that I always have it really close to being full?

Does a smaller SSD drive in general not work as fast as a larger SSD drive with more empty space to transfer files around?

Thanks yall, sorry for the extensive list of questions.
 
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Also because I have an HP pavillion a6152n I can't OC my cpu. Would buying a new mobo and putting my CPU in that allow me to OC that? I'd much rather OC my CPU to as high as it can go and use that for as long as it takes me first before buying a new CPU.

Also I think because I have HP I can't install Windows 7 on it unless its from HP. Is this true?
 
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There is no processor worth upgrading to on that motherboard. They are old, hot, slow, and way too expensive. In fact, for less the price of a better Core 2 Quad, you could get an Ivy-Bridge core i3 and a new motherboard. If you do keep your current proc, a new motherboard will allow you to overclock and install windows 7. All the current restrictions are just because HP puts locks on all the motherboard features they don't want you messing with. I wouldn't recommend getting a new motherboard for your current CPU though, as it's very outdated, and you will need to upgrade soon anyways. What kind of budget are you looking at? An SSD will definitely increase performance, regardless of what kind of SATA port you plug it into, however it will increase much more with SATA 3. If you get a smaller SSD, make sure you only install the Operating System and a few frequently used programs on it. Everything else should go on a bigger drive. And no, the size of the SSD doesn't control the speed, the technology does. A 64GB Vertex 4 will be just as fast as a 256GB one.
 
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i3 i5 and i7 are cpu designations right? with i3 being the budget ,economic model?

thanks for the response. My concern is like you know how a HDD gets slower the more filled up it is, I was afraid a filled up SSD would be slower than a roomier SSD but you cleared that right up for me. G2K.

I'd rather just buy a very nice new mobo that has many PCI E slots then buy an I3 processor. I'm assuming any modern day mobo I buy will be SATA 3?

What is my current a6152n mobo at? Sata 1?

 
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I would assume it's SATA2. Yes, an i3 is the more economic, less powerful model, but it's still leaps and bounds ahead of any Core2 Quad, even though it's a dual core. The architecture is much more efficient, and it performs much better. This i3 and this motherboard are a nice $200 combo with SATA3, USB3, 2 PCI-E slots, etc... Plus you will be able to overclock if you upgrade to an i5 (i3 cannot be overclocked) and you will be able to install windows 7/8.
 
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Its the mobo that prevents me from overclockling the q6600 cpu , right?

Tapemod aside, If I buy that motherboard you linked, could I put my quad in there and OC it to I3 levels?

Also heres a non CPu question but what does it mean when it says 6 GB/s . Thats the speed it transfers data? How come thats so much larger than advertised SSD read/write speeds at around 500 mb/s?
 
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Let me clear up some things.
The Core 2 Quad Q6600 is probably not bottlenecking your graphics card so you won't see a huge benefit from upgrading.
An SSD's capacity does not determine it's speed, but if you compare drives from the same series with different capacities, the higher capacity models wil always be faster.(note that there is no increase in speed when going from 240GB upwards)
Its better go get a higher capacity SSD so you can put more programs into it and benefit more from the increased speed.
A core i3 is not leaps and bounds ahead of every core 2 quad.There are however core 2 quads that when overclocked are leaps and bounds ahead of a core i3 and come close to Core i5 speed.(Although they use a lot more energy).
And lastly 6 GB/s is the transfer speed limit of SATA 3.
Your the laws of the universe allow us to reach extreme speeds why are we so slow.
 
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Upgrading to i5 or even i7 does not enable overclocking. Upgrading to a K or X chip does and there are only two current-gen K models: i5-3570k and i7-3770k. All other i5/i7 Ivy Bridge CPUs have locked multipliers just like the Celeron/Pentium/i3.
 
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+1 to pretty much everything Kaman said
Check out toms CPU charts for a comparison of CPU performance - your (and my) Q6600 isn't on the 2012 charts to allow a direct comparison with the i3's but the Q8200 is as good as or better than the i3 in almost all multi-threaded tests and not far off in the single threaded ones, practicaly ties in 3d mark and is about 2fps slower in the Crysis 2 test.
I asked myself the same question as you just did a few few months back and decided that unless you stump up for an i5 an upgrade is going to give marginal improvements at best. Better to wait untill the next generation of CPU's where, hopefully, there will be a little bit more clear water between the Q6600 and the budget processors.
 
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Yeah I am fine with waiting on buying a new processor as long as I can OC my current. Better to have my Q6600 burn in a flame of glory from overclocking rather than fade away. Currently I can't OC right now and a new mobo will be able to fully utilize the SATA 3 connection of a new SD drive.

My upgrade path is probably going to be. Mobo > overclock cpu > SSD > new CPU in a year.
 
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How are you going to OC the Q6600 on the HP board ?
 
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The only downside to overclocking your Q6600 now a days is that the only motherboards available new for the 775 socket are all G41 or lower chip sets which means about the max you are going to get out of that chip is about 3.0Ghz. That's only bad because a good GO stepping Q6600 can do 3.6-3.8 on a good board with an aftermarket cooler. The good thing is new boards for the 775 socket running DDR3 are only about $50 or less. Here are a few links to some boards.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128536 Gigabyte

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157242 Asrock

There used to be an ASUS board P5G41T-M LX that I still use in one of my rigs that I would recommend however it seems they are no longer being produced.
 
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The last LGA775 CPUs and chipsets have been discontinued years ago so yes, whatever motherboard you may buy today for it is leftover inventory of discontinued parts. Almost everything older than LGA1155 / LGA2011 is discontinued, even Sandy Bridge CPUs are getting axed every few months as Intel accelerates the transition to Ivy Bridge CPUs.

Intel's CPUs market life lasts about two years from introduction to discontinuation while their sockets last about three years when they span at least two CPU generations. LGA775 is from 5+ years ago, which makes it ancient history.
 
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You can still find some LGA775 boards floating around. While it is discontinued, motherboard manufacturers and parts distributors still have some leftover inventory.

As far as prices go, if you are looking for new-in-box CPUs, they are every bit as expensive as today's CPUs. Ex.: NewEgg still carries the Core2Duo E8600 for $300. If you look on eBay or equivalent, you can find much cheaper deals.

Old parts carry such a large premium (at retail) for what they do it makes no sense to keep an old platform alive unless you have some weird constraint preventing you from upgrading.
 
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Wait until you can afford new mobo+CPU+RAM.

I've never heard of people buying a new mobo to overclock an old cpu. The CPU has aged and no telling how much it can still overclock.

SSD can help with load times but you're better off saving that towards the CPU. SSDs get faster/cheaper by the day.
 
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