Upgrade question

[Johnbear007]

I'm looking to move my A64 X2 ( NOT AM2) 3800+ @ 2.8 ghz into a secondary machine for my wife to do office work, but I want to wait until I am replacing it with a significant upgrade.


Will a q6600 be a big upgrade? I plan on putting on a TRUE (Thermalright Ultra Extreme 120) and pushing it as high as possible. I won't want to upgrade again for probably 2 years so I would prefer the quad for upcoming multithreaded games and would prefer to skip the 8400


Thoughts?

***UPDATE****


I have 4gb of DDR2 I want to use. Should I go 650i with like a p6n or the new asrock board they reviewed here, or should I go p35?

What will I get max OC potential out of?


I dont NEED SLI, I currently have an 8800GTS, but it might be nice to add something to my GTS as it ages? That's the only reason I would consider the 650i

 

[nerp]

Yes. big difference.

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: nerp
Yes. big difference.

Exactly. The fastest X2 I have left is 2.5 ghz. A C2D @ 3.4 is almost twice as fast in many apps. And my Q6600 is twice as my C2D's, as long as the software is multi-threaded.

 

[aigomorla]

LOL...

a jump this scale would probably be close to this:

an OG P4 single core around 2.53ghz -> AMD X2 2.4ghz

roughly about simular. 😛



so yeah its a very big leap. Expecially if that quad is overclocked.

 

[Jester666]

I went from an A64 x2 3800+ @ 2.6 to an e4300 @ 3.0 and saw a huge performance boost for things like video encoding. If you jump the quad, you won't be disappointed.

 

[sgrinavi]

I went from an x2 4200 (939) to a q6600. They are not even in the same league.

 

[Johnbear007]

Cool thats good to know, I will not hold out for nehalem then and just get one now!

 

[BlueAcolyte]

The new ASRock board looks pretty nice. P35 boards you can get for that price offer Crossfire instead, like the MSI Neo2-FR.

I'd say the ASRock board is almost even with a P35 in terms of an OCing potential (466FSB max in the review, right?) but what do I know?

EDIT: Nvm, apparently it tops out around 450FSB. Which is 4GHz for the Q6600. Scary, isn't it?