Upgrading from Q6600 to Q9400

[whleong1]

Hello,
Can anyone advise me whether is it a good idea to upgrade my processor from Q660 to Q9400. I do not want to spend to much money to upgrage my MB to the i7 plaform yet.
Tks

 

[saaiello]

First off what motherboard do you have?

The Q9400 is a great processor but I would say its not enough of a performance gain to upgrade to. You will be much better off saving your money and moving away from the socket 775 system.

 

[ketrab]

Hello,
Can anyone advise me whether is it a good idea to upgrade my processor from Q660 to Q9400. I do not want to spend to much money to upgrage my MB to the i7 plaform yet.
Tks

Man,
if u live close to microcenter get q9550 ($179)remember 9400 has 6mb of l2 vs 12 mb means double... Than just oc it to 3.4 and call it a day...Big difference... Save some bucks and still run ur favorite games at the decent fps..

 

[Lmeow]

The Q6600 is still a good processor though. I'd just buy an aftermarket cooler and overclock it, otherwise a Q9550 if possible.

 

[cadder]

I have worked with both processors. I don't know why you would change or what you would expect to gain. Based on the 2 that I worked with, the Q9400 would overclock a little better. The Q6600 has a multiplier of 9, the Q9400 has a multiplier of 8, so if you start overclocking very far the Q9400 will need faster ram than the Q6600 will. OTOH the Q6600 will put out more heat and will need a good aftermarket cpu cooler.

 

[ketrab]

9550 and ur done

 

[SofaKingWeird]

Make sure your Motherboard supports the newer chip. I had a friend that tried to do the same thing, it didn't work. It was an older nVidia chipset. You might have already checked, sorry if I'm being dumb.

 

[werxen]

Q6600 is a power draining heater - nothing more. I would say upgrade but the 775 socket is dead and $180 is enough to buy a better CPU with the right mobo + ram. Stick with the Q6600.

 

[arterius2]

this is not much of an upgrade IMO, you will not notice any performance gain for this. if money is an issue, the Q6600 can easily be OC'd to 3.2ghz+, so if i were you, id give that a go and OC it till it dies. then upgrade =)

 

[silky salamandr]

Yeah man thats a lateral move in a dead socket. Stick with your q6600. Buy an ssd if you just got this cash burning a hole in your pocket. That would be the single best upgrade you could ever do.

 

[saaiello]

A Q9550 will be a nice upgrade IF your board supports it. Gaming will see a pretty big performance gain with the huge 12MB of L2 Cache it really helps to push High End GPUS nicely also overclocks very well too but this all depends on 1 thingyour motherboard.

The Q9550 will be very close to an I5 750 in gaming and with a good overclock can match and exceed performance of a stock I5 750

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/50?vs=109

And will also perform about the same or slightly better clock for clock with a Phenom II 965BE.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/50?vs=102

So yea if your board supports it and you looking for a nice upgrade the Q9550 is a great deal and if you near a MicroCenter and can get one for $179.99 you can really not beat that for an upgrade. But anything lower than a Q9550 is really a pointless upgrade and you would be much better off sticking with the Q6600 and overclocking it.

 

[whleong1]

Thank to all for your sound advise.

 

[whleong1]

A Q9550 will be a nice upgrade IF your board supports it. Gaming will see a pretty big performance gain with the huge 12MB of L2 Cache it really helps to push High End GPUS nicely also overclocks very well too but this all depends on 1 thingyour motherboard.

The Q9550 will be very close to an I5 750 in gaming and with a good overclock can match and exceed performance of a stock I5 750

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/50?vs=109

And will also perform about the same or slightly better clock for clock with a Phenom II 965BE.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/50?vs=102

So yea if your board supports it and you looking for a nice upgrade the Q9550 is a great deal and if you near a MicroCenter and can get one for $179.99 you can really not beat that for an upgrade. But anything lower than a Q9550 is really a pointless upgrade and you would be much better off sticking with the Q6600 and overclocking it.

Thank you for you advise, currently I'm using an Asus P5Q deluxe MB, win 7 with 8G ram. what do you suggest?

 

[arterius2]

really tho, if you're like me, who just recently upgraded from my good old Q6600 to a 6-core, but if you don't have the money for a whole new platform, i'd wait. usually when I upgrade, my new system must have more cores and at least 100% faster than the old system. unfortunately, the performance u gain from Q9550 is just not enough to warrant an upgrade, as much as benchmark shows that there are differences, you will not likely notice this in your everyday use, unless your work pushes CPU to 100% 24/7 like me.

 

[saaiello]

Well the Q9550 is one of the best socket 775 processors you can get and can keep up with all the modern processors except the I7s they just blow it away but other than the I7s the Q95550 will holds its own in most cases and will overclock great on that ASUS board. I normally dont tell people to upgrade socket 775 systems but if you can find one at a decent price go for it because the Q9550 will definitely keep your computer going for a few more years no problem.


Q9550 vs Q6600
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/50?vs=53

 

[whleong1]

Best answer selected by whleong1.