The Q6600 is cheap, but are others worth the jump?

[Ghost9]

The Q6600 is rather cheap($314 on newegg), but I notice the majority of its quad brethren are about $700+ higher. Are those other cpus worth the jump in price? I mean, it's a huge difference.

 

[scubageek]

Wait, Penryn is about to come out and those Q6700+ Quads will drop in price.

Q6600 is good for now, if you don't plan on upgrading for a few years, and don't want to wait.

I plan on doing a new system next year, but the Q6600's price was enough for me to do a minor upgrade this year.

I wouldn't pay the 500+ for the q6700+ knowing that in a few months they will definitely be cheaper or I could just get a Penryn then.

Also remember about the time Penryn comes out, November/December timeframe, that AMD is talking of releasing their Phenoms. If they come close to Penryn performance, oh what a choice!!

The price wars will continue.

Just depends on your current needs, can you wait another few months to upgrade or do you need it now.

If you need it now, easy answer Q6600

If you can wait, then wait to see the new prices after Penryn comes out.

 

[Maziar]

nope it isnt worth it , the most cheapest Quad (not Quad X ) its Q6700 which is 520$ and its only 200mhz faster , get the Q6600 , u wont be disappointed

 

[gooman]

If I had any kind of a Core2Duo already or fast dual core AMD and I didn't encode or do work that could fully utilize all 4 cores, I wouldn't bother. If on the other hand, your processor is 3 or 5 years old, then it's probably worth it. Probably time to upgrade your motherboard, GPU and memory anyway if that's the case. I'm building a new system from scratch and I think it is the way to go. My system is almost 5 years old, so it was high time.
If you need to modernize your system and your goiing to need to buy a motherboard anyway...Quad is the way to go. Future-proof your build! If you don't need the power now and can wait a year, do it and go for a Penryn when they're reasonably priced.

 

[Ghost9]

My system is about 3 years old now.

I'm running an FX-55 on an ASUS a8v-delux pci-e mobo, with an x850xt, 2 gigs of corsair, and an audigy 2.

I'm a graphic designer so I'm actually huge into multitasking. At any one time I'll have 4 big programs open like Photoshop, indesign, illustrator, acrobat and often times web programs. I do lots.

I'm thinking it's time to upgrade my vid card for sure because I'm planning on getting a new 30" monitor but my current vid card doesn't support it. Plus I'm looking forward to crysis etc. Thinking cost effectively, I was just going to upgrade to an 8800 and get my monitor. But then I thought if I upgrade the processor I could get more out of the vid card, so on and so on I'm spending 3 grand on a new system.

But then i was also thinking that if I get a new mobo and a Q6600 maybe I could cannibalize some of my old system, but I think i'd need a new power supply for the new CPU and vid card(right now I have a 500W).

So I'm just trying to decide what's worth it. The system I have right now is not bad at all, but I'm looking for some more speed and performance, and from what I hear the multi-cores rock pretty hard.

 

[Hatman]

The current tech would be a huge improvement over your current setup, if you did choose to buy a whole enw system you wouldnt be disapointed.

 

[gooman]

For me the decision was easy. My rig was so old, that I couldn't really upgrade anything. I had AGP 4X, single core P4, old RAM, EIDE Hard Drives...and on and on. In order to get any real performance boost (especially for gaming), I needed a fast GPU. I figured that while I was at it, I'd upgrade the CPU and from there it turned into a completely new system. My kids are psyched...they get a faster hand-me-down computer.
If you watch the online stores, they often have good deals and you can piece together a smokin system for $1500. Keep an eye on Slickdeals.net they have daily deals that folks send in and some of them are pretty incredible. What would have cost me $1900 back in January, now costs around $1500 (sans monitor). Intel processors have had some huge price cuts this year. I was waiting for the E6600 to drop in price below $300 and before you know it, the Quad was below $300 and I bought it instead.

You definitely should be able to reuse some of your components. Now that I think about it, to run that 30" monitor, your gonna have no choice but to upgrade. That things gonna take at least one 8800gtx or better to run it well at high res (maybe 2 vid cards).

Good Luck

 

[Maziar]

Ghost , Q6600 is the best u can get for your work

 

[localcpuguy]

Go for the Q6600... If you wanna squeeze some extra MHz out of it, get an after-market HSF and drop a minor over-clock on it, or go nuts and pull it to 3.4-3.6GHz.

I just upgraded from an AMD FX-62, I'm not looking back one bit. Just my 2C. I'm an AMD guy, but Intel is slaughtering them FOR THE TIME BEING.