Advice on upgrade

[slicksilver]

What I have currently :

Intel Q6600 2.4 Ghz
4GB RAM
Intel DG33BU board
OCZ Vertex 2 OCZSSD2-2VTXE60G 2.5" 60GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive
Using onboard graphics and sound
Bose Companion 20
Sennheiser HD555

What I will use it for :

• File transfers
• Browsing
• Music
• 1080p mkv playing
• MS Office

Why I want to upgrade:

More fluidity, better playing of 1080p mkv videos and better audio.

So what do you guys think I should get?

Thanks!

 

[aphelion02]

Whats wrong with your current rig? Q6600 should handle 1080p playback no problem.

 

[Sunburn74]

hardware accelerated video playback?

 

[ElFenix]

get just about any $50 graphics card. an amd 6450 or nvidia gt520 would be good.

get an asus xonar sound card.

 

[slicksilver]

get just about any $50 graphics card. an amd 6450 or nvidia gt520 would be good.

get an asus xonar sound card.

Thanks ElFenix. Which xonar were you referring to? I can see 9 of them at newegg. link - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...S&PageSize=100

Also any advantage in getting the 6570 or the GT 430? or should I stick to 6450/GT520?

Thanks

 

[Ken g6]

Pick your poison:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4380/discrete-htpc-gpus-shootout/

 

[lehtv]

The gaming range of Xonar cards is the cheapest and probably offer everything you need from a sound card. Xonar DG, the cheapest in the series, is already a nice improvement over onboard sound for people who use headphones. The integrated headphone amp and the equalizer already go a long way (but whether you'll like Dolby Headphone is impossible to say before you try it). The more expensive DX offers higher fidelity in specs but whether that difference is noticed, I'm not sure. I wouldn't say it's worth your while to invest in anything more expensive than that.

Xonar DS, priced between the DG and DX, has a signal-to-noise ratio (~fidelity) that is also intermediate, but it lacks Dolby Headphone, which you may or may not like anyway. My experience with Dolby Heaphone is very positive, it just works fantastically with Sennheiser PC350. But I've heard the opposite opinion as well

 

[mfenn]

I'm not sure if you are referring to general responsiveness when you say, "more fluidity". Assuming you are, a stock-clocked Q6600 can feel slow in tasks that are primarily single-threaded.

That's because it's essentially the same core as a C2D E6600 that came out back in 2006! A Sandy Bridge dual-core like the i3 2105 will be much faster in single-tasks and about the same speed in multi-threaded ones. It also comes with a competent IGP that can help to decode 1080P video. For example:

i3 2105 + GA-Z68MA-UD2H combo $230
G.Skill DDR3 1333 8GB $35 - more RAM will also help with responsiveness
Total: $265

 

[slicksilver]

The gaming range of Xonar cards is the cheapest and probably offer everything you need from a sound card. Xonar DG, the cheapest in the series, is already a nice improvement over onboard sound for people who use headphones. The integrated headphone amp and the equalizer already go a long way (but whether you'll like Dolby Headphone is impossible to say before you try it). The more expensive DX offers higher fidelity in specs but whether that difference is noticed, I'm not sure. I wouldn't say it's worth your while to invest in anything more expensive than that.

Xonar DS, priced between the DG and DX, has a signal-to-noise ratio (~fidelity) that is also intermediate, but it lacks Dolby Headphone, which you may or may not like anyway. My experience with Dolby Heaphone is very positive, it just works fantastically with Sennheiser PC350. But I've heard the opposite opinion as well

Will get the entry level Xonar. Thanks.

 

[slicksilver]

I'm not sure if you are referring to general responsiveness when you say, "more fluidity". Assuming you are, a stock-clocked Q6600 can feel slow in tasks that are primarily single-threaded.

That's because it's essentially the same core as a C2D E6600 that came out back in 2006! A Sandy Bridge dual-core like the i3 2105 will be much faster in single-tasks and about the same speed in multi-threaded ones. It also comes with a competent IGP that can help to decode 1080P video. For example:

i3 2105 + GA-Z68MA-UD2H combo $230
G.Skill DDR3 1333 8GB $35 - more RAM will also help with responsiveness
Total: $265

Yes this is what I was thinking too. Is there any site which shows benchmarking of single threaded tasks?

IGP beats 6570/GT620?

My RAM usage is shown here -



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

 

[mfenn]

Here's a comparison of the Q6600 and i3 2100. Cinebench ST, PCMark, and most games are either single-threaded or very lightly threaded. As you can see, the i3 2100 beats the Q6600 handily. The Sandy Bridge IGP does not beat a discrete card in gaming performance, but it is perfectly fine for normal Internet, office, and multimedia tasks.

As for the memory, it looks like you don't need any more RAM, but you will need DDR3 instead of DDR2 if you decide to upgrade the CPU. When 8GB of DDR3 is only $35, I don't see any reason to get less.

 

[lehtv]

Yes this is what I was thinking too. Is there any site which shows benchmarking of single threaded tasks?

Performance comparison Q6600 vs i3-2100: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/53?vs=289

Cinebench single-threaded score: 2778 vs. 5094
Cinebench multi-threaded score: 9681 vs. 11046

I'm not sure if this two-fold difference in single-threaded performance can be extended to single-threaded tasks beyond Cinebench. The WinRAR compression test scores would support that idea

EDIT: damn, ninjad ;P