Q9550 worth the extra money ??

[jaboyle]

Ok so my specs are

either Q9550 or Q8200

4gb ram
p5q motherboard
4870 1gb duel sonic edition
either windows 64 or 32bit.....

Im just going to be playing games really... is the Q9550 worth the extra cash... what kind of performance increase would I recieve on games like crysis if I were to play Crysis with the above specs and the Q9550 instead of the Q8200??

thanks

oh and p.s., please dont recomend me to use 2, 4770 graphic cards....

thanks again everyone !

 

[nerrawg]

Q8400 appears to be the best if you can find one and overclock it - look at this:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/261640-28-q8400-stronger-phenom-quads

 

[swifty_morgan]

I don't know what the price difference is but go with the higher clocked chip with the most cache. It'll help. As far as going dual core.............. NOT any more bud.

 

[B-Unit]

Q8400 appears to be the best if you can find one and overclock it - look at this:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/261640-28-q8400-stronger-phenom-quads

Did you not bother to read the second page of your new Bible? Even the Q9400 is 6% faster than the Q8400, add to that the 9550 has yet MORE cache, and is a better OCer due to higher multi, and its no contest.

Yes, its worth it.

 

[nerrawg]

Did you not bother to read the second page of your new Bible? Even the Q9400 is 6% faster than the Q8400, add to that the 9550 has yet MORE cache, and is a better OCer due to higher multi, and its no contest.

Yes, its worth it.

Well it is much better than the Q8400 - that I am not contesting - the poignant question is if you are going to spend $100 more to get it - why not spend a few more and get the i7 920? The boards are more expensive - but then you might be able to keep them quite a bit longer as well. That is why I don't consider the Q9550 good value - about its performance however you are right - technically the best of the C2Q's performance wise is the unlocked QX9650 or QX9770 (although some argue the 9650 is the best). The Q9650 has an even higher multiplier than the Q9550 - so it is the best option for C2Q extreme overclocking without spending $1000+. All of this is not what I was considering - I was only looking at what was a good deal - which is of course relative - so if you want max performance then of course you have to spend more - however if you want the best bang for the buck in gaming and you are on a budget - then I would save the ~ $100 premium on the 9550, get the Q8400 and spend the extra on the GPU (especially if crysis is the system demand) - or save it.

Of course my flaw here was assuming this was a gaming build, as I now see this wasn't specified even though crysis was mentioned - so if he is using this pc for other CPU heavy apps then maybe the 9550 is better spent money - my bad for assuming gaming.

Also lol to that bible comment

Actually just saw the wording in my first comment - it was very misleading - sorry bout that - I meant to say that the Q8400 was a better choice (what I forgot to say was: than the Q8200 because of the higher multi) Technically the Q9550 can probably OC a few hundred Mhz higher on air than the Q8400 (I have usually seen the Q9550 around 3.8-4 Ghz when pushed hard on air) - but water or Vapo would probably give the best discrepancies in result.

 

[B-Unit]

The 2 problems with your logic here are

A) Core i7 is no better for gaming than a Core2.

B) Core2 is a dead end platform, particularly if your starting with a quad.

So if your gonna build on Skt775 anyway, spend the extra $100 and make it last as long as possible rather than going cheep now and having to replace sooner.

 

[smithereen]

If you're going to build a new system, go with Core i7 or Phenom 2. As for the Core 2 series Phenom 2 performs as well for less, and the Core i7 beforms much better for more, and neither are dead-end platforms.

 

[nerrawg]

The 2 problems with your logic here are

A) Core i7 is no better for gaming than a Core2.

B) Core2 is a dead end platform, particularly if your starting with a quad.

So if your gonna build on Skt775 anyway, spend the extra $100 and make it last as long as possible rather than going cheep now and having to replace sooner.

1. That depends on the game - but in games where it is not, CPU's don't matter as much anyway so why not spend that money on the GPU?

2. Exactly, it is a dead plattform, but getting 3-4 fps more at max for a $100 (I would expect more like a 1-2 fps increase in a game like cysis when playing at 1920 x 1200 with a 4870 1GB) , when you are using a single 4870 1 GB is money misspent. If his monitor resolution is 1280 x 1024, well then the extra $100 spent on the cpu might gain a bit more fps and be worthwhile - however even then if gaming is what you want, spend that $100 on a new monitor. As for replacing - I doubt the the performance gap between an OC'ed Q8400 and a Q9550 will elicit the Q8400 to be upgraded long before the Q9550 - that doesn't seem likely for a gaming computer - the GPU will likely need to be upgraded long before this situation.

There are of course cases where the Q9550 is the better choice and better value - I just don't think that this is one of them - especially if this guy wants to play cysis with the eye candy maxed