Is an upgrade from Q6600 to Q9400 or Q9550 worthwhile?

[niggles]

I have a Q6600 right now and was thinking of upgrading to a Q9400 ($215 CDN) or a 9550s ($366 CDN). I'm gaming on this, and once again I can't find gaming comparisons that compare the Q6600 to the other two. I don't want to upgrade for the sake of upgrading is all. Thanks for any and all input in advance.

 

[toyota]

for that much money it would be a complete waste. just oc the Q6600 if you have an aftermarket cooler.

btw your sig makes no sense because you cant sli a gtx275 and 8800gts 640mb.

 

[dguy6789]

To make a long story short and hopefully save you time and money, the answer is no, not at all.

There isn't really a cost effective upgrade from the Q6600 in existence right now. Anything that is sufficiently faster for gaming is also far more expensive than the performance gain is worth.

 

[dawp]

have you checked the bench selection on the anandtech home page?

there's a few gaming benches there:

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

they're near the bottom of the page.

 

[niggles]

for that much money it would be a complete waste. just oc the Q6600 if you have an aftermarket cooler.

the only overclocking I've done was back in the AMD K2 days... I think that was Jurassic period. I've looked for walkthroughs and I just can't figure out how I'm supposed to know what I should be changing voltages etc to... or memory timings to for that matter. I should probably spend more time looking.I usually get to an hour of looking and them I'm done. Maybe I should look some more. If you can think of a good walkthrough let me know.

btw your sig makes no sense because you can't sli a gtx275 and 8800gts 640mb.

serves me right for not updating my sig properly. No, it wasn't in SLI, it was my previous 8800 GTS rig that was SLI

Thanks for everyone elses input, I'll stick with the Q6600 then

 

[F1N3ST]

the only overclocking I've done was back in the AMD K2 days... I think that was Jurassic period. I've looked for walkthroughs and I just can't figure out how I'm supposed to know what I should be changing voltages etc to... or memory timings to for that matter. I should probably spend more time looking.I usually get to an hour of looking and them I'm done. Maybe I should look some more. If you can think of a good walkthrough let me know.



serves me right for not updating my sig properly. No, it wasn't in SLI, it was my previous 8800 GTS rig that was SLI

Thanks for everyone elses input, I'll stick with the Q6600 then

You don't need to change voltages to OC a decent amount if you have a decent mobo.

Mine's 400fsb all voltages stock.

 

[Axon]

Just upgrade your GPU. A GTX 460 will significantly improve your gaming experience.

 

[Vette73]

Yea theres a reason why the Q6600 still pull in a good price point. They work with older and new boards (775) and with a good heatsink overclock well.

 

[toyota]

Just upgrade your GPU. A GTX 460 will significantly improve your gaming experience.

lol no it wont. overall a gtx460 is barely better than a gtx275. in fact in a few rare cases it could be even slower than a gtx275.

 

[Tsavo]

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/180?vs=169

 

[sxr7171]

You'd probably have more fun taking a lighter to 2 Benjamins. Seriously just O/C the 6600.


EDIT: Okay 2 Robert Bordens.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

the 9550 is noticeable faster than a q6600 but i certainly wouldnt go out and spend 180 on a 775 chip at this stage

 

[Axon]

lol no it wont. overall a gtx460 is barely better than a gtx275. in fact in a few rare cases it could be even slower than a gtx275.

Yah, didn't see that he had a 275.

 

[RussianSensation]

I have a Q6600 right now and was thinking of upgrading to a Q9400 ($215 CDN) or a 9550s ($366 CDN).

Both of these are horrible upgrades, especially at the prices you listed. Get a $40-50 aftermarket cooler and with your very overclocker friendly board, crank it to 3.4ghz+. If you can sell the GTX275 for $170 CDN, then allocate the other $60 and grab yourself a GTX460. Overclock the 460 to 850-900mhz.

 

[RussianSensation]

You don't need to change voltages to OC a decent amount if you have a decent mobo.

Mine's 400fsb all voltages stock.

Why are you comparing a Q9550 45nm to a Q6600 65nm ? The 2 processors have nothing in common with respect to voltages.

OP do this:

Set PCIexpress frequency lock to 100.
Set a lower CPU:Ram ratio so that your ram is not overclocked.
Set CPU FSB to 350 x 9 multiplier = 3.15ghz.
Set CPU voltage to 1.425V

That should get you started.

 

[evolucion8]

Check your Q6600 stepping, if it uses the G0 stepping, it should be able to reach up to 3.6GHz nicely with a Vcore between 1.44 and 1.52V (Depending of the motherboard) I used to have an QX6850 (Basically an unlocked Q6600 G0 stepping) overclocked to 3.60GHz and since I sold it on ebay for a nice price, I went for the Q9650 which I overclocked to 3.82GHz and I can't really notice much of a difference besides much less power consumption and heat dissipation (The Q6600 series are hot and power hungry when overclocked)

But I felt my system more responsive when doing intensive file transfers, multi tasking and media encoding all at the same time (Probably the larger, faster cache comes in hand here). But I think that doesn't worth the investment overall, just overclock your CPU (Just check your CPU stepping with CPU-Z or similar tools and pray that's not a B3 stepping CPU)

 

[jihe]

I have a Q6600 right now and was thinking of upgrading to a Q9400 ($215 CDN) or a 9550s ($366 CDN). I'm gaming on this, and once again I can't find gaming comparisons that compare the Q6600 to the other two. I don't want to upgrade for the sake of upgrading is all. Thanks for any and all input in advance.

You may in fact make a profit by selling your Q6600+mb and buy an unlockable x2 550 BE and an unlocking motherboard.