Q9550 now vs i7 in a few months?

S

singh_uk

n00b
Joined
Jul 28, 2007
Messages
28
Hello,

I currently have an E6600 @3.3GHz on a P45 Gigabyte motherboard (this was only bought last year as a replacement for a broken ASUS one).

I am looking to upgrade my 260GTX for when Fermi comes out next year to a DX11 card, and assume that I would probably need a new CPU to replace the E6600 which would probably be the bottleneck.

My question is, would there be a huge difference in gaming between an OC-ed Q9550 and a low to mid range OC-ed i7 eg 920? Budget is moderately tight and I don't do upgrades very often, but I would like to be able to play Crysis 2, Mafia 2, etc maxed out or near to with my rig. My choice therefore is get a Q9550 now before prices rise even more, or shell out for a new motherboard, RAM and i7 CPU in a few months time when I buy my new GFX card?

Other than gaming I don't do much encoding, a little photoshop, thats about it.

Thanks
 
There isn't a major difference between an overclocked i7 and an overclocked Q9550 when gaming with a single-card setup. If money is an issue for you, then a Q9550 would probably be the best way to go.
 
singh_uk said:
Hello,

I currently have an E6600 @3.3GHz on a P45 Gigabyte motherboard (this was only bought last year as a replacement for a broken ASUS one).

I am looking to upgrade my 260GTX for when Fermi comes out next year to a DX11 card, and assume that I would probably need a new CPU to replace the E6600 which would probably be the bottleneck.

My question is, would there be a huge difference in gaming between an OC-ed Q9550 and a low to mid range OC-ed i7 eg 920? Budget is moderately tight and I don't do upgrades very often, but I would like to be able to play Crysis 2, Mafia 2, etc maxed out or near to with my rig. My choice therefore is get a Q9550 now before prices rise even more, or shell out for a new motherboard, RAM and i7 CPU in a few months time when I buy my new GFX card?

Other than gaming I don't do much encoding, a little photoshop, thats about it.

Thanks
Click to expand...

Curious, why not overclock your e6600?

At any rate, there is almost no difference in PC gaming at 19x12 or 16x10 between a Q9550s and a Core i7 920 when both are overclocked to 4.0 GHz

i have both.

i tested 17 games and sometimes the Q9550s wins over i7; the rest of the time there was no practical difference
 
If you already have a P45, it's a no-brainer. The i7 IS faster, but not nearly to the extent that it would be worth the additional cost of a new motherbord and Ram for someone in your situation.

Don't ignore the Q9650 either, often they are not much more expensive than a Q9550 however the higher multiplier will mean you will probably be able to overclock a good bit higher before you run into a motherboard FSB wall. That could be a big deal depending on where the FSB on your board likes to top out at.
 
Zero82z said:
Looks like an overclock to me.
Click to expand...


i guess so; i was typing e6600 but thinking e8600
:eek:

Q9550s would be a lot cheaper as a drop in and there would be no practical difference in gaming compared to i7 when they both approach 4 GHz
 
Shouldn't be a huge difference (no more than 10%) when it comes to gaming so your best solution would probably be to drop in an E0 Q9550.
 
Whats a decent price for a Q9550 these days? I am looking to upgrade my e8400. almost the same deal as the OP.
 
$169 for a Q9550? Here in UK, the best price you will find is £165 which is about $270 :(

Thanks for the advice though guys.
 
There is always eBay and then there are users having some used ones for sale here. Although sellers usually want a higher price than you can get on eBay.
 
singh_uk said:
$169 for a Q9550? Here in UK, the best price you will find is £165 which is about $270 :(
Click to expand...
Well, all computer hardware is proportionally more expensive in the UK, so you can't compare prices directly between the US and UK.
 
OK, so I am thinking of getting a Q9550 now. The only problem is I have pretty old Crucial Ballistix 800mhz RAM. If I wanted to OC the Q9550 to around 4GHz, I am assuming the FSB is going to need to be around 470, which means the RAM will be running at 940mhz. I dont want to overvolt the RAM above 2.0v as Ballistix are meant to have a pretty bad failure rate at raised voltage...

Ive tried running the RAM at that speed now to test it out - just decreased the multiplier on the E6600 so it didnt have a clock it couldnt handle- and it seems to be running OK in Orthos blend

(other than the fact that the CPU fan is louder than normal - which is odd since the CPU is now clocked lower at 470x6=2.8ghz rather than 400x8=3.2ghz as it was before??)

So can I assume if the RAM is taking the 940mhz now - it will take it the exact same with the new quad chip aswell? And any idea why the fan is running faster at the increased FSB even though the temps are the same?
 
Would you really notice that much difference from a E6600 @ 3.3 to a Q9550 @ say 3.8?
Other than games optimized for quads.
 
I've been looking at articles that talk about CPU bottlenecking with high end GPU's and have come to the conclusion that the differences are insignificant to the average gamer for the most part as long as a certain baseline is maintained with the CPU. This baseline includes C2D and Quad2Duo too.

The differences noted by most reviewers shows lower, although highly playable, framerates(80+) in lower resolutions(1280x1024) unlikely to be played by someone with a decent monitor anyway. The higher resolution framerates seem to be nearly identical with varying CPU's above the baseline.

Which means a nice Q9550 will run just fine compared to an i7 for gamers. Guys who are looking to fight benchmark/stats wars not so much.

Heck, I am still running my old E6400 at 3.2GHz and trying to justify a cheap upgrade.. I could go with the Q9500 and run it at 3.4 easy but I can run my E6400 at 3.4 easy too so it's not that easy to justify, lol. I was gonna hold out until i7 but I'm thinking of waiting even longer, heh.
 
I was about to order a Q9550 with a Xigmatech S1284 (achilles) and I found that it is too tall for my case :( I have been told an AC Freezer Pro 7 probably isnt up to the job . Any other slightly shorter coolers that have pushpin design/ don't require you to remove the motherboard to fit?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top