This CPU upgrade for my S775 boards - worth it ?

[swayzak]

Hi

I run 2 DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations), one with E6600 and one with E8400 (Asus P5B Delux & Asus P5KE-Wifi respectively).

Been out the loop regarding cpu development - but gather the i7 current "must have".

Now I'm happy with these systems - they cope well with what I do on them - and don't want the hassle of a complete rebuild.

But I see that newer 65W C2Q s775's have arrived with 65W rating (rather than original 95W)

e.g. Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550S

Obviously heat (& noise) are my primary concern - and these "S" versions seem to come out quite well:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc .aspx?i=3505&p=8

Can't seem to locate comparisons with my old C2D cpu's though.

Would I see a big performance boost with this cpu ?

Would power consumption be similar ?

My only slight concern is that I still sometimes use Cubase SX2.2, which is not optimised for Quad cores & I think may suffer as a result...


thanks

 

[Borealis7]

you've pretty much already have the most Socket 775 can get you.
the S models are indeed lower TDP parts but also perform worse, though not by a lot.
you could benefit from a Q9550 overclocked to 3+GHz and slap on a good HSF to minimize heating.

 

[swayzak]

you've pretty much already have the most Socket 775 can get you.
the S models are indeed lower TDP parts but also perform worse, though not by a lot.
you could benefit from a Q9550 overclocked to 3+GHz and slap on a good HSF to minimize heating.

thanks

So sticking in a C2Q won't dramatically increase performance ? I'd have thought doubling the processors & increased cache would boost things significantly ...

 

[Kenmitch]

I guess you could use this to compare cpu's just change them at the top and click the compare....Didn't see any S series listed tho

Should pop up as a comparison of the Q9550 vs E8400

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/default.aspx?p=50&p2=56

 

[swayzak]

I guess you could use this to compare cpu's just change them at the top and click the compare....Didn't see any S series listed tho

Should pop up as a comparison of the Q9550 vs E8400

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/default.aspx?p=50&p2=56

Thanks - that's very helpful.

However it's also a bit confusing as some results favour the 2 core and others the 4 core !

Not sure which results I should be looking at - I'm mostly using these PCs for music e.g. realtime audio processing (plugin effects. playing plugin software synthesisers etc).

One of them will also be used for a bit of low to medium-end gaming.

 

[21stHermit]

However it's also a bit confusing as some results favour the 2 core and others the 4 core !

Single threaded applications benefit from a dual-core's faster clock speed. whereas a multi-threaded applications will benefit from more cores.

Only you can know your application portfolio and the best balance.

 

[cubeless]

open up task manager... click performance tab... stretch it as wide as your screen lets you... fire up and run your apps... alt-tab to task manager... if both cores aren't @ 100% u don't need to upgrade...

even a well threaded app that doesn't use up all of the current cores won't be any faster on a quad... you might get better performance with a faster disk (ssd) if you push a lot of bits...