Just for clarification, I have an E8400, any CPU upgrades that make sense?

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jordan12

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I have the E8400 CPU. I would prefer to not replace the MB and memory as well.


But do I have any upgrade path that makes sense on just the CPU? I do play some games, but I have been doing some video encoding, etc.

But wasn't sure if I would see much of a general performance increase unless I jumped to a new architecture. Your guys opinions?
 
jordan12 said:
I have the E8400 CPU. I would prefer to not replace the MB and memory as well.


But do I have any upgrade path that makes sense on just the CPU? I do play some games, but I have been doing some video encoding, etc.

But wasn't sure if I would see much of a general performance increase unless I jumped to a new architecture. Your guys opinions?
Click to expand...

What MB do you have? If it's one based on an NVIDIA Nforce 680i, it will not support the 45nm quad-core CPUs at all.
 
sorry but i'm interested as well. so i have a p5q-e motherboard with the p55 chipset. that should work with say a q9550 right?
 
kevinf said:
sorry but i'm interested as well. so i have a p5q-e motherboard with the p55 chipset. that should work with say a q9550 right?
Click to expand...

The P5Q-E was based on the P45 chipset, not P55. But yes the P45 chipset was compatible with the Q9550.

@ OP
If you don't have a 680i mobo and if you can find a Q9550 for around $160 to $180 shipped, then it'll be a worthwhile upgrade. Any higher than that and you're just wasting money.
 
I have the same CPU and I don't think it's worth upgrading the CPU only unless you really need more speed on the encoding. Games might actually be slower. You're better off buying a good HSF and overclocking if you haven't already.

Otherwise I would wait for sandy bridge or maybe even ivy bridge. I'm trying to decide myself which one to upgrade to.
 
jordan12 said:
I have the E8400 CPU. I would prefer to not replace the MB and memory as well.


But do I have any upgrade path that makes sense on just the CPU? I do play some games, but I have been doing some video encoding, etc.

But wasn't sure if I would see much of a general performance increase unless I jumped to a new architecture. Your guys opinions?
Click to expand...
If you have a mb that supports quad core you will cut your encoding time in half. See if your mb will support it. If so, hit the classifieds or a place like overstock.com for your next purchase.
 
My board has the P45 chipset, and I confirmed that it would support Quad core CPU's


But I am thinking from your guys response, that it really doesn't make a ton of sense.


Maybe Ill just keep it and move to the next new CPU set..
 
Going from dual core to quad core was a luxury move for me. I encode alot so it saves time...... a lot of time. If you have plenty of time and don't want to spend money then use what you have. Upgrading to a quad core with your current socket is the cheapest upgrade with significant bang for buck. If you want the newest stuff then you're looking at upgrading your complete system minus the cd/dvd/br drive.
 
i went from a E-6850 to the Q9550 and was really happy.big improvement in gaming for me,my Q9550 is o/c to 3.5gig
 
I just went from a e8400 to q8300--found a spare at work :)
Overclocked the q8300 to 3.0Ghz and it made a noticeable difference in games, mainly FPS.

All I do on the PC is internet and gaming, so the benefit of quad took a while to really show for me.

I'm still thinking of upgrading my CPU/mobo/mem since I'll be getting GCs from Newegg, but I might just upgrade my video card instead. It's odd that 2 years ago when I was thinking of upgrading to a Core i7 920 setup....I would still not need to upgrade or would really even want to :^/
 
AlexTheGreat said:
I have the same CPU and I don't think it's worth upgrading the CPU only unless you really need more speed on the encoding. Games might actually be slower. You're better off buying a good HSF and overclocking if you haven't already.

Otherwise I would wait for sandy bridge or maybe even ivy bridge. I'm trying to decide myself which one to upgrade to.
Click to expand...

You may be surprised how much a quad can help in several games. Any game that runs slower will be so marginally so that it would really not be noticable. Any game that runs faster would run quite a bit faster. For games like BC2 and even Black Ops, a quad makes a pretty big difference. When the e8400 was first introduced there were lots of "wars" regarding the dual vs quad debate. Lots of people said "by the time games support quad cores, todays quads will be so old you'd need an uprade anyway" or something to that effect. Well, that turned out to be far from the truth. Many who opted for dual cores found themselves upgrading for games like BC2 while the ones who went with quads are still able to stretch their dollar to this day.
 
So from the E8400, should I just get the fastest CPU available for my socket?

Newegg has the Q9550, but it is 279.00. So at what price point do I need to just upgrade the MB, CPU and RAM?
 
I love my q9550, but you have to be realistic about how much you pay. For about $360 (or less) you can have a new mobo, ddr3 ram, and a quad core cpu that will outperform your old system even if you add the q9550. If you can get a fairly cheap one, then yeah, upgrade. But its not much more to have a new platform with new tech.
 
you can try to find q9550 for less then 200 used. that would be cheaper then upgrading to a whole new platform
 
$279.00 is too much IMO. According to toms hardwares 2009 performance index (for some reason they don't have a performance index in their 2010 charts) a AMD Phenom II X4 955 or 965 is better than a Q9550 and even with motherboard and ram will come out to a comparable price (and that is before you consider the resale value of your current motherboard/ram). An I series build will set you back a bit more but potentially get you more performance (the i5-750 seems to be about equivilent to the Phenom II X4 965 mentioned above). I'd avoid the AMD x6 chips for a gaming rig since afaict most games can't use the extra cores.

Another interesting possibility would be to make use of AMDs backwards compatibility and use one of the aforementioned chips in an AM2+ board. That way you could keep your existing ram. Not sure how it would compare on performance though.

How much ram do you have? whether we are talking about replacing 2GB, 4GB or 8GB makes quite a difference to the figures (I assumed 4 in my calculations).
 
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I recently upgraded from an E6400(3.4GHz, stock volts) to a Q9450 and it made sense for me as I do a lot of video and encoding work. It's a definite improvement and saves me a lot of time.

I needed another Intel cpu anyway for another machine so it's a win-win.
 
plugwash said:
$279.00 is too much IMO. According to toms hardwares 2009 performance index (for some reason they don't have a performance index in their 2010 charts) a AMD Phenom II X4 955 or 965 is better than a Q9550 and even with motherboard and ram will come out to a comparable price (and that is before you consider the resale value of your current motherboard/ram). An I series build will set you back a bit more but potentially get you more performance (the i5-750 seems to be about equivilent to the Phenom II X4 965 mentioned above). I'd avoid the AMD x6 chips for a gaming rig since afaict most games can't use the extra cores.

Another interesting possibility would be to make use of AMDs backwards compatibility and use one of the aforementioned chips in an AM2+ board. That way you could keep your existing ram. Not sure how it would compare on performance though.

How much ram do you have? whether we are talking about replacing 2GB, 4GB or 8GB makes quite a difference to the figures (I assumed 4 in my calculations).
Click to expand...


I have 4 gig now. And would like to stay at that amount. I am starting to think that I should simply wait until early next year to upgrade and then get the newer technology.

Not thinking just a CPU change is going to be worth it..
 
I have an e8400. Used q9550 prices seem to be hovering around $200 so Sandy makes the most sense.
 
If you can wait awhile, get some SB action.

If you're like me and have waited long enough, roll something like this:

I5-760
GA-P55A-UD3
2x 4G GSkill DDR3 16000

this is upgrading my E8400 setup as I type this.
 
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