Quad Core or SSD

[ochadd]

Which upgrade would I likely be more impressed with in each machine? Q9550 or OCZ Vertex?

Personal machine: e6750 @ 3.4 and a boot drive is a two platter Seagate 640GB 7200.11.
Work machine: e6420 @ 2.1 and boot drive RAID 1 of Samsung 160GB

Personal:
This time of year the majority of usage comes from kicking around Youtube, playing with/learning Linux, and maybe 30-40 minutes a week waiting on video conversions. During the winter I game 15 or so hours a week and it could be any genre.

Work:
Multitasking. Outlook and Excel open all day, 5-10 browser tabs, 3-4 remote desktop windows, log monitors, and a couple of production applications. Any number of apps I'm just checking out.

 

[angry hampster]

Linux kernel compilations run *significantly* faster on quad core CPUs.

Overclock the work machine if you want better performance. E6420 should be easy to get to ~3GHz on most motherboards.

 

[ochadd]

Originally posted by: angry hampster
Linux kernel compilations run *significantly* faster on quad core CPUs.

Overclock the work machine if you want better performance. E6420 should be easy to get to ~3GHz on most motherboards.

Dell machine with no bios options to crank it up.

 

[dguy6789]

Simply enough, SSDs are too small and too expensive. In a year or two they will be awesome though.

 

[ilkhan]

ssd will give you a "feel" improvement.

 

[Omerta]

I don't think SSDs are worth it at this point. I'd go with the Q9550.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Well it depends alot what you do with the computer. But after reading Anands recent SSD roundup and comparison to mechanical hdd's I would have to say that upgrading to a SSD for your boot/OS drive would provide a significantly more noticeable performance improvement than going dual to quad CPU in almost all realworld situation except encoding and other hardcore multithreaded apps or extreme multitasking.

Anand shows with his testing that SSD's destroy the fastest hdd's in random read/write speed and access times by multiples, in some of the comparisons he had trouble graphicly showing the improvement because the velocirapor when compared on a scale with SSD it didn't even regester a blip.

With an SSD apps open instantly, in Anands bootup tests he measured how long Vista took to boot with a standard set of apps loading at startup up and on the velociraptor it was like 41's and the SSD's took less than half the time. And as much as you game you will see a huge differnce in the time waiting on maps to load.

Read Anands SSD article on the frontpage(or at least the conclusion), it's very long and indepth peice but it certainly changed my perspective on SSD's. As Anand puts it, even in their current state (which everyone expects will improve quickly) an SSD is the single most effective performance upgrade you can do, and SSD's represent a quantum leap in the I/O area which has been a major bottle neck for ever.

 

[Dadofamunky]

My next upgrade will definitely be an SSD. In the future...

I think your current CPU is just fine. I'd go with the Vertex in your case.

 

[Denithor]

Work computer:

Try the 1066 to 1333 BSEL MOD. If it works you'll move your e6420 from 2.13GHz to 2.66GHz.

 

[ochadd]

Left in a dead heat at 8 and 8

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: ochadd
Left in a dead heat at 8 and 8

For 300+ thread views, 17 poll votes is kinda sad.

Clearly you have no choice but to buy them both...I know you are disappointed with that outcome.

 

[dguy6789]

I still say get the quad core. In a year or two, you will be able to get much bigger and faster SSDs for a fraction of the price they are at now. You'll kick yourself for buying a small SSD for a ton of money when one comes out that is several times bigger for 1/4th the cost.

 

[Hacp]

Originally posted by: dguy6789
I still say get the quad core. In a year or two, you will be able to get much bigger and faster SSDs for a fraction of the price they are at now. You'll kick yourself for buying a small SSD for a ton of money when one comes out that is several times bigger for 1/4th the cost.

You could say the same thing for processors. I would say that the OP should get an SSD unless all he does is video/picture editing or transcoding.

 

[Idontcare]

Buy what you need and will use today, not what you think you might use tomorrow.

There are very few things you can throw your money at which will depreciate in value faster than consumer electronics.

 

[faxon]

buying a Vraptor was the single biggest system performance upgrade i have ever seen. i have seen system upgrades where i added more ram, whole new systems w/fresh OS/file system, the works. the Vraptor went into a pre exsisting system before i got more ram, and it made a world of difference since i was hitting the pagefile a lot vs all my other HDDs. seeing as to where it stands compared to a 120GB OCZ vertex, i would say go with that drive hands down. i still wouldnt buy one myself yet though. i got the 150GB vraptor, its sitting at 75% capacity right now. i dont like having to move/uninstall games when i want to add more

 

[taltamir]

I voted other, but consider it changed to vertex. But that is only assuming you already have 4GB of ram!

 

[dguy6789]

Originally posted by: Hacp

Originally posted by: dguy6789
I still say get the quad core. In a year or two, you will be able to get much bigger and faster SSDs for a fraction of the price they are at now. You'll kick yourself for buying a small SSD for a ton of money when one comes out that is several times bigger for 1/4th the cost.

You could say the same thing for processors. I would say that the OP should get an SSD unless all he does is video/picture editing or transcoding.

The difference isn't even as close to as big for processors. Two years from now, you won't get something several times faster than a Q9550 for a fraction of the current Q9550's cost.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: dguy6789

Originally posted by: Hacp

Originally posted by: dguy6789
I still say get the quad core. In a year or two, you will be able to get much bigger and faster SSDs for a fraction of the price they are at now. You'll kick yourself for buying a small SSD for a ton of money when one comes out that is several times bigger for 1/4th the cost.

You could say the same thing for processors. I would say that the OP should get an SSD unless all he does is video/picture editing or transcoding.

The difference isn't even as close to as big for processors. Two years from now, you won't get something several times faster than a Q9550 for a fraction of the current Q9550's cost.

all the more reason to buy the ssd... the cpu isn't advancing so fast, in other worst the q9550 isn't THAT big of an improvement over his current one.
But the SSD gets better so fast that its bound to be a huge performance boost over his current hardware.

 

[amenx]

I think SSD's are still not perfected. They seem to have a degradation problem:

http://www.anandtech.com/stora...owdoc.aspx?i=3531&p=13

 

[CrimsonWolf]

I'd go quad and give SSDs more time to mature and improve in value.

 

[CrimsonWolf]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: ochadd
Left in a dead heat at 8 and 8

For 300+ thread views, 17 poll votes is kinda sad.

Clearly you have no choice but to buy them both...I know you are disappointed with that outcome.

:laugh:

This of course is the real answer.