Upgrading: E6300 to Q6600or 9450; is it worth?

Hi there,

just wanted to know if you guys think I should upgrade my Cpu. My system spec. are in the signature.

Usage:

-Folding @ home (24hrs)
-Gaming ( company of Heroes and Crysis)
-Browsing the internet/movies general everyday stuff
-Little Photoshop usage every now and then
-P2P sharing (oops)

I like to overclock, so this chip (which ever one it may be) will be over clocked also.
So basically to question ; should I switch from dual to quad core? If yes then, which quad core would you recommend. (Ignore c1 stepping compatibility with my board for the 45nm)

As always, thanks in advance.

I'd say that you should upgrade to the q6600, if at all. The Q6600 will let you overclock enough so that any leg up the the 9450 would afford you would not be worth the extra $100 or so.

Off topic: I'd start a Nehalem fund, $50 or so every month until it establishes itself should get you a kick ass rig..

I'd start a Nehalem fund, $50 or so every month until it establishes itself should get you a kick ass rig..

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Same thing I would recommend. Nehalem is going to bring about a whole bunch of changes. The biggest change of course is the new socket. Since Intel tends to keep a socket design for a number of years I would wait for it.

You dont need to upgrade yet, im still using a e6300 @ 3.3-3.5ghz and it runs probably the same as the newer quads. If you play at 1680x1050 or higher, then there wouldnt be a noticeable fps difference.

Just save your money, and wait for the newer ones when you really think your CPU is falling behind (it's not right now!)

Overall you would probably be better off with the Q6600 over the Q9450. The lower multiplier has somewhat of an effect on being able to get higher overclocks out of the CPU without buying more expensive RAM.

Personally, upgrading from a dual core to a quad core in regards to folding is a no brainer. This winter I built a new Q6600 system, then I went and upgraded my E6400 to a Q6600 and then ended up building another Q6600 system. One of the quads is my main system while one of the other quads is a folding only machine and the third quad is a folding machine as well as VMWare machine.

As far as F@H goes, I went from about 2100PPD to over 13k PPD by upgrading a dual to a quad and adding two other quads. The three quads are running 3.6Ghz, 3.6Ghz and 3.51Ghz with some higher end aircooling.

You probably won't notice much of a difference in gaming with the quad but depending on what filters you use in Photoshop the quad could speed things up a bit.

I'm also a heavy multitasker and the quad allows me to do a hell of a lot more at the same time compared to the dual core.

So as far as I can tell from what you guys have said :

q6600 over the 9450 if its is overclocked (~3.5 Ghz)

OR

wait till the Nehalem stuff with eagle lake comes out (if eagle lake is the new socket that is)

Hmmmm.....

will the quad run a lot hotter than the E6300 right now?

If you have money to burn, get a Q9450 - it runs cooler and quieter and will overclock easier. Now the Q6600 will definitely have a higher maximum overclock, but I wouldn't be surprised if after the Q9450 is out for awhile there is a general trend found that Q9450 have a higher average overclock than Q6600's. Of course, if you can find a Q6600 for $200, that's a damn good deal as well . Still, Nehalem is going to be the major change, so if you don't have money to burn, save it and wait.

EDIT: Forgot to add, there's price drops coming next week I've heard, so wait a week anyway before deciding.

You should check your cpu usage when running the tasks you listed. if it is at 100% then you would benefit from an upgrade to q6600.

If not, hold off until the Nehalem arrive.

ganesh21 said:

You should check your cpu usage when running the tasks you listed. if it is at 100% then you would benefit from an upgrade to q6600.

If not, hold off until the Nehalem arrive.

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If I run Company of heroes and folding @ home at the same time then the usage touches 95%.

I can't run a Norton scan and do the above 2 without seriously comprised performance. Is Nehalem a really big boost? I mean realistically 6 months after the product has launched do you think $1300 Canadian dollars are going to be enough to maker a good system. (I bought my current system 6 months after the 965 chipset was launched minus the graphics card).

umgill45 said:

If I run Company of heroes and folding @ home at the same time then the usage touches 95%.

I can't run a Norton scan and do the above 2 without seriously comprised performance. Is Nehalem a really big boost? I mean realistically 6 months after the product has launched do you think $1300 Canadian dollars are going to be enough to maker a good system. (I bought my current system 6 months after the 965 chipset was launched minus the graphics card).

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well, if you upgrade to Nehalem, you would have to pick up a new cpu, memory, and mobo, but you would still be able to keep the other things (HDD, gpu, case, psu, etc.) so i would say that cuts the price considerably.