Worth upgrading a C2D E6600 to C2Q6600

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MountainKing

Senior member
Sep 9, 2006
268
1
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Upgrade cost: $17.

Just had a read on AT today and it marks the 10th year anniversary of the C2D CPUs. Still using the E6600. It's starting to get a bit long in the tooth and even Chromes uses so much CPU. :D

Worth upgrading to a Q6600 for one more year until AMD releases its ZEN CPUs or just use the E6600?
 
M

MountainKing

Senior member
Sep 9, 2006
268
1
81
I should try to OC a bit. My current C2D is garbage at OCing. Never went past 3.06Ghz. It's running at stock now...
 
Eug

Eug

Lifer
Mar 11, 2000
23,586
1,000
126
For $17 it seems like a no-brainer to me. However, if you are running Windows you might have to re-activate the computer via a call with MS.
 
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Sheep221

Golden Member
Oct 28, 2012
1,843
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Eug said:
For $17 it seems like a no-brainer to me. However, if you are running Windows you might have to re-activate the computer via a call with MS.
Click to expand...
This is not required when changing the CPU, however it is required when changing motherboard.
 
T

therealnickdanger

Senior member
Oct 26, 2005
987
2
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C2Q CPUs are a dime a dozen nowadays. Get the fastest one that will work in your motherboard. The Q6600 is fantastic, but there are better ones.
 
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SPBHM

Diamond Member
Sep 12, 2012
5,056
409
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make sure you get a g0 and not a b3
most g0 could run at 3GHz with little or no overvolt.
 
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therealnickdanger

Senior member
Oct 26, 2005
987
2
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MountainKing said:
Unfortunately this mobo will accept only the first generation of C2Ds...
http://www.gigabyte.com/support-downloads/cpu-support-popup.aspx?pid=2314
Click to expand...

Looks like as long as you've got BIOS vF12, you can go up to the Core 2 Extreme QX6800. Wow, eBay pricing is around $80 for that. There's a guy on craigslist in my area selling one for $50. The Q6600 will definitely be cheaper.

SPBHM said:
make sure you get a g0 and not a b3
most g0 could run at 3GHz with little or no overvolt.
Click to expand...

This.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2303

Look for SLACR
 
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VirtualLarry

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,315
10,033
126
Well, this thread got me to pick up a cheap Core2Quad to upgrade a friend's C2D rig. Q8400, used, tested, for $15, seemed fair. Was looking for Q8400s (the low-wattage one), but they were more than twice the price. Not worth it. The CPU support list for that board does allow 95W 45nm Core2Quad CPUs, although I had thought that there were some reports from back in the day, that they would display an error if the CPU was more than 65W. Or maybe I'm remembering wrong, and that was this particular Intel ITX board that I also had at one point.

Hope I can talk them into upgrading.
 
V

.vodka

Golden Member
Dec 5, 2014
1,203
1,537
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$17? Go for it.

If your motherboard supports 45nm quads and you can get one for a similar price, even better when considering power consumption.
 
J

jtvang125

Diamond Member
Nov 10, 2004
5,399
51
91
VirtualLarry said:
Well, this thread got me to pick up a cheap Core2Quad to upgrade a friend's C2D rig. Q8400, used, tested, for $15, seemed fair. Was looking for Q8400s (the low-wattage one), but they were more than twice the price. Not worth it. The CPU support list for that board does allow 95W 45nm Core2Quad CPUs, although I had thought that there were some reports from back in the day, that they would display an error if the CPU was more than 65W. Or maybe I'm remembering wrong, and that was this particular Intel ITX board that I also had at one point.

Hope I can talk them into upgrading.
Click to expand...

I'm still rocking a Q8400 @ 3.5ghz. Still does everything I need except for gaming. I'm just a casual gamer but this cpu is just too old to keep up with some of the newer GPUs. I think an upgrade to a current i5 with a mild OC should last me another 5yrs. Something I've been considering.
 
BonzaiDuck

BonzaiDuck

Lifer
Jun 30, 2004
15,708
1,450
126
As I remember it regarding motherboards and chipsets, there was at least a problem with 680i chipsets in that you could upgrade from a Conroe to a C2D Wolfdale or a C2Q Kentsfield, but you couldn't upgrade to a C2Q Yorkfield. As for the Intel chipsets, I think there would be better luck. The 680i limitation coincides with a feud between NVidia and Intel.
 
VirtualLarry

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,315
10,033
126
nerp said:
For $17, yes, do it. Max out that old box.
Click to expand...

That's the way I feel, too.

So, I ordered a Q8400 for $15, for a friend's rig. They currently have a Biostar G41D3C mobo, an E5200 or E3300 (2.5Ghz Core2 dual-core), might be slightly OCed (stock vcore, no vcore adjust), with 4GB DDR3-1333 running probably at around 800. 500GB WD HDD, Win7 64-bit.

Was thinking 8GB 2x4GB DDR3-1333, SSD (240GB TLC 2.5"), GT620 LP video card, Win10 64-bit, Q8400 quad-core. ($20+$60+$45+free+$15 = $140 + labor.)

Edit: Or a Skylake micro-ATX rig retrofit. H110 micro-ATX mobo ($55), G4400 dual-core ($65), 8GB DDR4-2133 DIMM ($30), $150 total. Oh, that might require a new OS license. Maybe. I might be able to transfer the family pack Win7 over, if I call them.
 
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Sheep221

Golden Member
Oct 28, 2012
1,843
27
81
I think that in single thread performance Q6600 is not much faster than E6600 since Q6600 is two E6600s in one package.
 
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Magic Carpet

Magic Carpet

Diamond Member
Oct 2, 2011
3,477
231
106
MountainKing said:
Upgrade cost: $17.

Just had a read on AT today and it marks the 10th year anniversary of the C2D CPUs. Still using the E6600. It's starting to get a bit long in the tooth and even Chromes uses so much CPU. :D
Click to expand...
Depends on your budget, if $17 is all you've got, then go for it.

However, it's still rather a slow CPU, uses quite a bit more power which will likely produce some noise, unless supplied with good cooling. Idle power consumption is double of what you've got, for instance (think the early revisions of Q6600 idle around 24 watts). I would do a platform upgrade at this point. But Chrome will undoubtedly run better for you, no question about that.

MountainKing said:
As chrome is multi process will it benefit from the quad though?
Click to expand...
It will. Chrome loves cores! Something like this should be nice for serious web-browsing (if you need to work with legion of tabs at the same time), this one lacks the RAM, though :p

MountainKing said:
Worth upgrading to a Q6600 for one more year until AMD releases its ZEN CPUs or just use the E6600?
Click to expand...
If you are bored, why not? Will learn something new along the way maybe ;)

EDIT: If you are running stock Intel cooler, I would strongly advise to upgrade it.
 
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Thinker_145

Senior member
Apr 19, 2016
609
58
91
Absolutely. Back in the day I upgraded from an E6700 to a Q8400 and it was well worth it. It actually made me regret not spending the extra $100 for a Q6600 in 2007.

People who bought a launch Q6600 and overclocked it got one of the greatest deals in the history of PC gaming.

Sent from my HTC One M9
 
Oyeve

Oyeve

Lifer
Oct 18, 1999
21,912
821
126
I have that exact same mobo and even brought it to work to game with. It has a Q9500 and 16gb DDR2. Running my AMD 290x on it and it runs great!
 
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nusyo

Member
Feb 27, 2011
106
0
0
Have a look at 771 socket conversion threads as well .... an xeon x5450 is about $18 as well on ebay and they can be easily overclocked to 3.6 -3.8Ghz

I did it on a Asus motherboard (it was displaying "cpu not supported" or something like that, but it was booting with no problems, besides, later on I found a custom bios that supported the cpu ...)
 
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