Upgrading from E6550

[MisterClean]

I'd like to make an upgrade from my E6550 to a quad core. It seems more and more games are taking advantage of the added cores (Bad Company 2, in particular).

This is only a short term upgrade until I build a new PC next year (probably once intel releases their new socket), so I would rather not spend that much.

What would y'all recommend for a budget of around 150 dollars? I see the Q8300 is around my price new, but it seems everyone recommends the Q6600. I can't find a new Q6600 for less than 250 bucks, and I'd reather not spend that kind of upgrade cash atm.

If you would recommend the Q6600 over the Q8300, would buying a used processor be a good idea to save cash? Where would be the best place to find processor deals? I couldnt even find the Q6600 listed on newegg, only on amazon.

 

[spentshells]

250 ? for the q6600? nuts.

 

[MisterClean]

Tell me about it i figured I would be able to find it at a lower price, due to it's age...but it's looking like it's age+popularity is working against me.

I can find them used from 100 to 150, but i am a bit leary of buying a used cpu.


Ct: From what I have read, the Q8200 is a pretty terrible overclocker, and it's priced at 185 on newegg. The Q8400 is supposedly pretty good, and is on newegg for 170. The Q8400 looks like it suffers from the same lack of cache size, though.

I see the Q9400 is on sale for 185, and has a larger (6mb vs 4mb l2 cache). I'm just not that familiar with the Q94400's performance, or really any of the quads performance, unfortunately.

It's certainly a tough choice to be making.

 

[saaiello]

If by any chance you have a MicroCenter near by they have Q8200's for $124.99 which is a really good price. Now its base clock of 2.33 is a tad on the low side but would be just as fast as a stock Q6600 at 2.66 being that the Q8200 is 45nm. Now the Q8200 isnt recommended often because enthusasist around like to be able to overclock to high 3 ghz at least and well the Q8200 won't get there but I know since I have a Q8200 in my encoding rig that it will go to 3.0 3.1 ghz on just a tad over stock voltage and it runs games that can take advantage of a quad core really well.

If you can find a Q9400 in your price range then that would be better but if you can overclock the Q8200 in whatever board you have it will do 3ghz no problem it just wont do much more than that but like I said at 3ghz it will run games that can take advantage of the quad core quite well.

 

[HansVonOhain]

I suggest that you get a q6600 processor so you do not have to buy a new mobo.

 

[saaiello]

I suggest that you get a q6600 processor so you do not have to buy a new mobo.

Where in this thread did you read what motherboard he has. Apparently the OP knows what can work in his board if he is looking at the newer quads in the first place.

 

[MisterClean]

Well, I do have my hardware specs listed in my profile.

I'm using an MSI P6N Platinum SLI. It's 650il based, which is a shame, but what are you gonna do when you built your machine 3 years ago?

Thanks to SAAIELLO for recommending MicroCenter. I had never heard of them, and figured they were a more northern store.

turns out there is one in Houston, which is about an hour away.

Even better? They are selling the Q9550 for 179.99 (about 195 after taxes). It's a bit mroe than I was hoping to budget for, but I'm thinking price for performance, this might be the best.

(for new, I still haven't ruled out a used q6600, apparently there are a few for sale right here on Tom's.)

 

[HansVonOhain]

650i mother boards do not support 45nm quadcores, just so you are aware.

 

[saaiello]

Well unfortunately the Q9550 will not work on that board.

http://us.msi.com/index.php?func=prodcpusupport&maincat_no=1&prod_no=1140#menu

You are gonna be stuck with a Q6600 at the best which can be had used on ebay around $100.

Other Than that you could save up a little more and Do something Like a AMD build reuse your DDR2 RAM maybe start out with a cheap Athlon II x3 or x4 but get a decent motherboard total would cost around $200 and going the AMD route you will have a pretty good upgrade path ahead of you if you pick the right board.

Just a Thought but I would seriously consider going this route instead of upgrading the EOL socket 775 board.

 

[MisterClean]

doh! you're right.

will support 45nm Wolfdale (Dual Core) CPUs with an upcoming BIOS update. 45nm Yorkfield (Quad Core) CPUs will be supported on upcoming nForce 700-series SLI mainboards.

The MSI P6N series is the most desirable mainboard for SLI gamers, which has been equipped with quad PCI Express x16 slots to support SLI X16 and X-Fi Xtreme Audio to provide the ultimate gaming experience. With BIOS update support for upcoming 45nm Intel processors (Wolfdale, dual core), MSI P6N series can extend its value cycle and brings more performance to enthusiasts.

I had misread and thought it was supporting 45nm quads as well as duals.

well, used Q6600 it is then.

I have thought about the AMD route, and I really don't want to do a full system upgrade any time soon, I just want to up the processor a bit, until next year when the new Intel socket is released, the new AMD is released, and I can start over from scratch. But thanks for the suggestion.

 

[MisterClean]

Best answer selected by MisterClean.

 

[MisterClean]

thanks for the help and discussion everyone, I wish I had discovered my errror sooner.

I'm sure I'll need help again later once it's time to build a new machine

 

[cadder]

Q6600 is usually a pretty good chip, some of them can overclock pretty well but they definitely need a good aftermarket cpu cooler.

I built a new machine about 16 months ago. I was pondering the Q6600 when I found a deal on a Q9400 so that's what I got. The Q9400 has a slightly lower multiplier so when you overclock it you need better ram. Overclocking my chip ended up running my ram at 850-900 MHz. A similar overclock with the Q6600 would run your ram at under 800MHz.