Q6600 vs Core i7

[nick_dev]

Currently, I have core 2 quad q6600 with 6GB DDR2, and EVGA 650i ultra motherboard. Basically, i am thinking about getting a new motherboard, i7 960 and 4 GB DDR3. My question is will i see significant improvement in gaming performance or is it not worth upgrading. I have Nvidia 9600 GT video card. Thanks everyone for helping.

 

[tecmo34]

Here is a comparison between the Q6600 vs i7 950 (couldn't find i7 960): http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/53?vs=100

As you see the newer i7 is better cross the board compared to the much older Q6600. With that said, your gaming experience is limited more by your weak Nvidia 9600GT. You would be better served going with a newer GPU to increase your FPS, than move to a newer platform when the Sandy Bridge (LGA 1155) is released.

 

[wonder44]

Do not upgrade CPU yet. You will need to upgrade mobo aswell wich will cost a fair bit. I suggest only upgrading the GPU for now like tecmo34 said. I would suggest a GTX 285. If you overclock your Q6600 to 3.4GHz it will beat the i7 960 @ 2.8GHz hands down. My Q6600 is running at 3.4GHz and i get better frame rates in BF3 than my mate does with his core i7 960 @ 3.0GHz. Also a Q6600 @ 3.4GHz will future proof your system for about another 3 years. As most games these days are coded to run on dual cores they dont fully utilize quad cores although they support them. In the next 2-5 years most games will fully support quad core CPU's so the Q6600 may seem slow now but when games fully utilize its capabilities it will run flawlessly.

You can go for the i7 upgrade however you will need a mobo upgrade then the GPU will bottleneck the core i7, and then you may have to upgrade the PSU to power a new GPU. So i highly suggest keeping with the Q6600.

My setup:

Q6600 @ 3.4GHz
4GB DDR2 800MHz RAM
650w PSU
XFX GTX 285 1GB superclocked
XFX 780i 3-way SLI.

I am maxing out BF3 on 1600x900 monitor with no lagg.

 

[amuffin]

This is a 2 year old thread. :lol:

 

[amdfangirl]

This topic has been closed by Amdfangirl