Upgrade path..

[BUTCH1]

Hello all ,I'm currently running a 775 based E4600@3ghz system, my board will accept an E8400 although these are getting a little hard to find. Would it be best to scrap the current rig and start with new mobo/CPU or just spend the $125-140 for an E8400?, I haven't been keeping up with current CPU trends so I don't know where the current bang/buck chip is, thanks in advance for any advise/tips..

 

[Denithor]

What do you do with your system? What does the rest of it look like?

Keep in mind that you can get a 2500k/z68/8GB DDR3 for about $350 (less if you are near a Microcenter). Minus whatever you could get for your e4600/mobo/DDR2...could make for a relatively cheap upgrade and large increase in performance.

If you need it.

 

[fourdegrees11]

$125+ is way to much for a straight dual core. Sounds like time for a new MB and CPU

 

[llee8820]

If you live near a microcenter you can get a phenon II x6 1055t for $119, and they will throw in a free microatx motherboard. Or you can get a full atx board for $158 total for both cpu and mobo ($148 if you do the MIR). This is the route I'm taking and I'm upgrading from a e7200 dual core.

 

[Zap]

I'd vote new CPU/mobo. You can get an overclockable Z68 chipset motherboard starting around $120 or so, 4GB DDR3 for $20 and get a dual core Sandy Bridge for whatever you can sell off your old stuff for. If you can get $70 for your mobo/CPU/RAM, then you can get a Pentium Dual Core G830 or something like that, and have your motherboard ready for future upgrades to a 2500K or even Ivy Bridge.

 

[BUTCH1]

What do you do with your system? What does the rest of it look like?

Keep in mind that you can get a 2500k/z68/8GB DDR3 for about $350 (less if you are near a Microcenter). Minus whatever you could get for your e4600/mobo/DDR2...could make for a relatively cheap upgrade and large increase in performance.

If you need it.

Thanks for all the replies all, the rest of my system is 4850 vid card, Antec earthwatts 400W PS and a 250GB SATA drive. I was planning on keeping the vid card but I'm so far out of the loop a $50-75 card might blow mine out of the water these days LOL, I think I bought it in 2008. Lots of overtime $$ nowadays so this is the time to do it, I'm gonna check on some of the suggestions on NE, thanks again..

 

[BUTCH1]

$125+ is way to much for a straight dual core. Sounds like time for a new MB and CPU

Yea, the E8400 isn't even carried anymore at NE, that's the pricing on Ebay for a working pul. I've looked at the Sandy bridge, interesting that one variant has a built in GPU that doesn't suck and is a viable option for mild/moderate gaming, unfortunately I don't live near a Microcenter, sucks as it sounds like a great place to shop..

 

[fourdegrees11]

Thanks for all the replies all, the rest of my system is 4850 vid card, Antec earthwatts 400W PS and a 250GB SATA drive. I was planning on keeping the vid card but I'm so far out of the loop a $50-75 card might blow mine out of the water these days LOL, I think I bought it in 2008. Lots of overtime $$ nowadays so this is the time to do it, I'm gonna check on some of the suggestions on NE, thanks again..

Your 4850 is still decent. I upgraded from that to a 6850 and only saw a moderate performance gain. The true next generation 28 nm GPUs will be out sometime next year, wait for that if you can.

You could always go for a cheap i3 1155 setup right now, which offers hyper threading, a big improvement over a regular dual core, with the intention of getting a 22 nm Ivy Bridge CPU next year (same 1155 socket).

Or you could just wait until next year to buy everything haha.

 

[Denithor]

Yea, the E8400 isn't even carried anymore at NE, that's the pricing on Ebay for a working pul. I've looked at the Sandy bridge, interesting that one variant has a built in GPU that doesn't suck and is a viable option for mild/moderate gaming, unfortunately I don't live near a Microcenter, sucks as it sounds like a great place to shop..

All SB cpus have integrated GPU that isn't worthwhile for gaming. All that means is that if you're using a discrete GPU your cpu will generate that much less heat. And will therefore potentially OC much better...

 

[sm625]

Gosh my sig never loses its relevance. Get a Q6600 if your board can support it. Even if you cant run it at 3GHz, it will still be faster in single threaded applications even at 2.8GHz, thanks to its bigger cache. But its the 4 thread ability that you really need. If you've gotten by with an E4600 then I'm sure you will like what a Q6600 does for you. There are a few G0's for $100 on ebay. Try and get a G0.

 

[mrjoltcola]

I love sm625's sig too; for a long-time the 2600K has been the perfect pill for all your ills, but you can't argue with a gem. It'll go down as one of the best chips of all-time because of its price. If it had made its debut at $500, a whole different story would have played out.

Back to the OP, lets be honest, $100-120 for a LGA775 drop-in replacement isn't a good investment now. I've been wanting to upgrade several of my older Dell Core2Duos with a quad, but people are asking $120 for Q6600 and $150+ for QX6700s; heck if I'll pay that when a little more than double that investment gets me a whole new Sandy Bridge or AMD X6 setup with the current chipset, bus speeds, memory bandwidth and IPC. The Q6600 wont benefit you, coming from the Core 2 version. Don't upgrade unless you'll see an IPC increase.

Unfortunately, it only makes sense in special cases, for example, a business with a lot of Core 2 boxes that are multi-threaded CPU bound, $125 for a drop in CPU replacement saves time and money, but for anyone else, the new platform deals are too cheap. If you can't afford a 2500K setup now, save your $$ until you can.

A lot of Kentsfield, Bloomfield and Gulftown owners are going to be very disappointed at what they get in resale a year from now, once Sandy Bridge has saturated so much of the market with solutions for < $300. I see tons of chips going unsold on eBay just because the owners are out of touch with the situation. Heck, I'd be upset too if I had paid $600-1000 on a top-end CPU in 2009, then saw Sandy Bridge come along at a fraction of that.

 

[BUTCH1]

Gosh my sig never loses its relevance. Get a Q6600 if your board can support it. Even if you cant run it at 3GHz, it will still be faster in single threaded applications even at 2.8GHz, thanks to its bigger cache. But its the 4 thread ability that you really need. If you've gotten by with an E4600 then I'm sure you will like what a Q6600 does for you. There are a few G0's for $100 on ebay. Try and get a G0.

My mobo should support it but I'll check to be sure if I go that route. Bigger cache is always better, think I'll have to check the performance gains from a quad vs the new I3 setup and go from there..

 

[fourdegrees11]

There's only a few areas where the old quad is better. i3 also gives you a chance to upgrade within the next couple years to IB.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/53?vs=289

 

[BUTCH1]

There's only a few areas where the old quad is better. i3 also gives you a chance to upgrade within the next couple years to IB.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/53?vs=289

Yea, and I checked on the quad prices on Ebay, close to $150 so it it's looking like socket 1155 is the way to go, I could sell current cpu/mobo for prolly around $60-70 and put that to the cost the entire upgrade will be around $200 and like you said a chance to get a faster CPU later whereas the quad is a 775 dead-end..

 

[gmaster456]

Sell your current CPU/Mobo/ram and go with a Core i3 1155 setup. You won't be disappointed and the platform offers extensive upgrade options for later down the road.