Worth upgrading from Q6600 to Q9550 for ~$100?

[jihe]

Its a new paradigme when "we overclockers" worry so much about the 20$ added on the yearly electricity bill. We didnt really use to care ..
So what changed? Did some1 start pushing the perf/watt idea down on us from the server segment and we just ate it raw?

What changed is power efficient chips became available? We certainly preferred A64 over Prescott.

 

[jihe]

Q6600 = 105W
FX6300 = 95W

Intel P45 = 22W
AMD 970 = 13,6W

Even if you OC the FX6300 to 4GHz with default Voltage it will consume less than the Q6600 + P45 at default. Idle power usage will be more than HALF the power of his current setup.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/53?vs=699

But he is comparing AMD to current Intel offerings.

 

[sjwaste]

I have almost the same build, except I have a Pentium E2200 @ 3.2GHz and 6GB in mine. I was going to post a thread asking if it was worth buying a Q9450 for like $120 on Ebay.

I get by just fine on a Radeon 5770 video card too. I suppose there's no point in upgrading for me.

The SSD was the best upgrade I did.

 

[AtenRa]

But he is comparing AMD to current Intel offerings.

He was asking about upgrading to Q9550 (for $100) which is 95W like the FX6300.

Have a look at the performance, no contest here for the FX6300 and Idle power will be significant less with the FX6300.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/50?vs=699

What's outstanding is the fact, that he can have this performance + Motherboard features (USB3, 6x SATA6 ports etc) without spending more than $100 if he could sell his Mobo+CPU+Ram.

 

[Hubb1e]

I have almost the same build, except I have a Pentium E2200 @ 3.2GHz and 6GB in mine. I was going to post a thread asking if it was worth buying a Q9450 for like $120 on Ebay.

I get by just fine on a Radeon 5770 video card too. I suppose there's no point in upgrading for me.

The SSD was the best upgrade I did.

Your scenario is quite different. The OP is already on a quad core. You would get a sizable performance boost when moving to a quad IF the game you play is well threaded. You would need to post more info about the games you wish to play or check your CPU use in your games. You could also try upgrading your video card to a 7770 instead and that might make your experience better for the same price. It all depends on the games you play and if they can benefit from more threads.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I have almost the same build, except I have a Pentium E2200 @ 3.2GHz and 6GB in mine. I was going to post a thread asking if it was worth buying a Q9450 for like $120 on Ebay.

I get by just fine on a Radeon 5770 video card too. I suppose there's no point in upgrading for me.

The SSD was the best upgrade I did.

I used to have an E2140 @ 3.2 (well, two of them). I upgraded my two rigs to Q9300 @ 3.0, when Microcenter had them on clearance for $100. I thought it was worth it for me. I don't game much, if I did, it might have been even more worth it. (I do DC.) Then again, that was back in 2009/2010, Sandy Bridge wasn't out yet I don't think.

 

[SammichPG]

I have almost the same build, except I have a Pentium E2200 @ 3.2GHz and 6GB in mine. I was going to post a thread asking if it was worth buying a Q9450 for like $120 on Ebay.

I get by just fine on a Radeon 5770 video card too. I suppose there's no point in upgrading for me.

The SSD was the best upgrade I did.

I used to run wow (which can get very cpu heavy while raiding and using some addons) on a e2160@3ghz with an nvidia 9600gt (much slower than a 5770).

I upgraded to a q9550 and noticed how much cpu bottlenecked was my gpu, more recent games will show even a bigger impact and my gpu was slower than yours.



To the OP; the e8500 is still a rather sought after cpu, what about selling the cpu+ram+mobo and buying a 5600k apu?

An a10 5800k performs roughly on par with a q9550 or it's a bit faster, the 5600k clocks similarly to the 5800 (4.3-4.6ghz) while being cheaper.

You should get around 100$ for your old hardware and with another 100$ that you planned to spend you'd get a new socket with modern features like sata3 and usb3 support and better power consumption.

Ibn the end you must decide between the hassle of selling your old hardware and mounting the new parts VS a drop in upgrade.

Sata 3 alone is worth it imo.

As soon as AMD releases FM2 athlons you should spend even less since you don't need the igpu anyway.