c2d upgrade

[severus]

Let me begin by saying, I'm not prejudice to AMD or intel

Bulldozer seems to be a way off and I was planning on upgrading my current machine when it came out.

Right now I have a c2d e6750 @ 3.4ghz on a IP-35E with 4gigs of ram and a 1 gig 4870. I play some games, watch films, do mild photoshop and corel work.

I was thinking of upgrading my processor as I know it probably eats up a lot of energy. I have a Gigabyte 770 board lerking around my basement from my dads old build that I was going to reuse.

I was considering buying a 955BE for about $120 and using it for awhile. Is this a good upgrade from what I have?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Going from a dual core to a quad core will be interesting for you. Single-threaded performance will be (noticably?) lower though. Even the C2s had higher IPC than Phenom II. I don't think anything you do will be suddenly faster, but you might find yourself more comfortably watching videos while you game or something.

If I were you, I'd just fill my change jar and hold out for a Sandy Bridge. Or get an SSD if you don't have one already.

 

[Arkadrel]

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/60?vs=88

This is the c2d e6750 vs Phenom II x955,

Out of 31 tests, the stock phenom IIx955 beats the c2d e6750, 31 times.
This is stock vs stock though, and the 31 tests run by anandtech.

Since you oced your c2d:
2.66GHz -->3.4ghz

It would probably mean unless you overclock the Phenom II x955, you might lose performance in 2 or less threaded applications.

Theres really no debate though, the Phenom II x955 is a faster cpu than the c2d you currently have.
Question is should you be buying a Phenom II, when there are bulldozers and sandy bridge cpus out there/right around the corner?

Phenom II 955 @3.8ghz will probably be a decent upg. from your c2d you currently have.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Why not just get an SSD - you'll see your wattage drawl go down by ~ 7-10w

 

[nenforcer]

Severus, I'm in the same boat as you as I still have my C2D E6600 and just got a new motherboard on Ebay and would like to pair with it a new processor.

The problem is that these legacy Intel LGA775 and AMD AM2/AM3 boards are just not worth investing the money into right now with Sandy Bridge and soon Bulldozer just around the corner.

I've been looking at used C2D E8200 on eBay but I may very well just keep my E6600 and drop it in my new motherboard.

Buying a new (old) processor right now is not a good idea because they are just way overpriced. (especially the Intel)

 

[severus]

I am an overclocker/tinkerer but there seem to be some valid points here. Bulldozer will be released who knows when, but I think I might as well just wait till then. I already have an SSD and all types of other add-ons to enhance my computing experience.

I was just noticing some "lag?" when playing games like Civ 5/Bad Company 2 or trying to multitask while watching a film. Mind you I don't play games hard core (should be evident from me still using a 4870) so performance in that category doesn't matter much.

 

[jiffylube1024]

Let me begin by saying, I'm not prejudiced to AMD or intel

Bulldozer seems to be a way off and I was planning on upgrading my current machine when it came out.

Right now I have a c2d e6750 @ 3.4ghz on a IP-35E with 4gigs of ram and a 1 gig 4870. I play some games, watch films, do mild photoshop and corel work.

I was thinking of upgrading my processor as I know it probably eats up a lot of energy. I have a Gigabyte 770 board lurking around my basement from my dad's old build that I was going to reuse.

I was considering buying a 955BE for about $120 and using it for awhile. Is this a good upgrade from what I have?

If you've already got the Gigabyte board (and it's DDR2 I assume, so you can just pull your RAM from the old system to the new one) than the 955BE will be a decent upgrade for heavily multithreaded apps/games. However, most games don't benefit that much going from 2 > 4 cores, so unless you do serious multitasking that overloads your dual core processor, going from a C2D @ 3.4 GHz to a Phenom II at 3.2 GHZ (or even overclocked to 3.8 GHz) won't really feel that much faster.

As others have mentioned, the ultimate upgrade for your system to perform faster would be an SSD - boot times, program load times and system response speed would be much faster.

 

[Zorkorist]

Sandy Bridge is here and now... don't spend another dime on old tech.

-John