Debating an upgrade to a Socket 775 build, opinions?

[jimbob200521]

~~~~What I've got now~~~~

C2D E8400 @ 3.0ghz
P5Q-E Motherboard
4gb Corsair DDR2-6400 (800mhz)
AMD/ATI Radeon HD 6790
120gb Kingston SSD
550 watt Antec BP550 PSU
4 SATA Hard Drives totaling about 3.5tb
23" LCD Main/60" DLP Secondary

~~~~What I do on the computer~~~~

What I do on my computer is a good amount of multitasking with a dab of gaming. On any given day, I've got XBMC playing on the 60" for the g/f playing 720p - 1080p content while I'm on the other display doing Photoshop, browsing the web, encoding/trans-coding video, downloading files, etc. If the TV isn't being watched, then I'm listening to music, browsing the web, etc. The dab of gaming consists of Star Trek Online, Minecraft, Command & Conquer this spring when it's released, and I'm looking at getting the new SimCity.

~~~~What I'm considering getting/why~~~~

I've been fighting the itch to switch to a Quad Core CPU for quite a while now, but with prices where they are, I don't really want to hold off much longer but at the same time I don't want to make a rush, poor decision. What I'm looking at is upgrading to a Q9300 (SLAWE revision, which from what I've read is the newer/better stepping of the CPU) because I found one at a reasonable price (reasonable to me, $75 w/free shipping). My hope is that the multitasking would improve, but that's not to say it's rough now, usually only when I'm encoding and doing something else does it hiccup. I also want to be able to play the couple games coming out this year at a respectable resolution and frame rate. Also, I probably won't overclock but if I do, it'd only be to match the 3ghz of the CPU I've got now.

So my question is from those with experience, is this a worthwhile upgrade? I've tried to do research on the subject but that's not helping me make my decision much. Honestly, I don't want to spend the $200-$400 to build a newer system because if I do, I won't settle for anything less than a Quad Core Intel, don't really care for AMD any more. What I'd really like to do is just breath some more life into the one I've got now (which is why I recently got the SSD) but not if it's not going to be worth it.

Anywho, thanks to anyone that can help!!

 

[Kenmitch]

The price is reasonable it looks like. For your stated uses at times it looks like a quad would benefit you. Bumping up the speed on it to match your current E8400's would be best tho.

You could always sell your E8400 to offset the cost I'd think.

Just make sure your MB supports the quad in question....Might need bios update or be non-compatable all together.

 

[Hubb1e]

I think you need to get XBMC on a separate device. I'm not an expert on XBMC but there are a lot of small embedded devices that can run XBMC and that would take the load off your computer for running the TV which will smooth out the TV watching and your gaming. AppleTV, RasberryPi, etc. Then you can decide if you still want to upgrade to a quad core which judging from your use case you should also do.

 

[jimbob200521]

Just make sure your MB supports the quad in question....Might need bios update or be non-compatable all together.

I've done my homework on that, this mobo supports pretty much any Socket 775 I can throw at it.

I think you need to get XBMC on a separate device. I'm not an expert on XBMC but there are a lot of small embedded devices that can run XBMC and that would take the load off your computer for running the TV which will smooth out the TV watching and your gaming. AppleTV, RasberryPi, etc. Then you can decide if you still want to upgrade to a quad core which judging from your use case you should also do.

I've got an AppleTV in the living room, and the computer is for the bedroom. XBMC isn't really a huge drain on the computer but either way this computer also acts as the media server for the house (hence the 3.5tb of storage).

 

[crashtech]

You might want to aim a bit higher or you could actually see slowdowns under certain circumstances, unless you feel the 3.0GHz overclock is a sure bet. Also if you run into a Xeon X33x0 for a good price, it will drop in and work just like a C2Q (which it is under a different name). X3320 would be the equivalent to the Q9300 you are considering.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

It's a reasonable upgrade. I can definitely tell the difference between dual and quad cores. It's painful sometimes.

 

[jimbob200521]

You might want to aim a bit higher or you could actually see slowdowns under certain circumstances, unless you feel the 3.0GHz overclock is a sure bet. Also if you run into a Xeon X33x0 for a good price, it will drop in and work just like a C2Q (which it is under a different name). X3320 would be the equivalent to the Q9300 you are considering.

I'm glad you said that, I did a little looking and for $10 more ($85 w/free shipping) I found a X3320 with motherboard and 2gb RAM compared to $75 for just the C2Q I was looking at. Think I might have to jump on this one, that'd give me the component I'm lacking (motherboard) to get another system going. Hell, the Supermicro board that comes with the Xeon I found has 6 SATA ports so I could even shift all of my SATA drives over to it and make it my home media file server. Might have to do that today...

 

[Hubb1e]

I've got an AppleTV in the living room, and the computer is for the bedroom. XBMC isn't really a huge drain on the computer but either way this computer also acts as the media server for the house (hence the 3.5tb of storage).

You know your use case better than I do, but I do know that if I'm running anything else in the background on CPU intensive games like BF3 then my framerates drop, even with a 4.4ghz 2500k so if your girlfriend is watching a 1080p movie which uses CPU AND the GPU for decoding then whatever game you're playing will suffer and since that uses the GPU and the CPU, just adding more cores won't fix all of that problem. But, she may not be watching much so it may not be a problem for you or maybe it's just not a problem anyways since I've never tried running XBMC and game at the same time.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

If you're building another S775 rig... I know this guy with a FS/FT thread going on...

 

[jimbob200521]

If you're building another S775 rig... I know this guy with a FS/FT thread going on...

YGPM