Best bang-for-buck processor right now?

C

Canadian 2.5RS

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Hi all,

Im looking at upgrading my computer and I was wondering what you guys think the best bang-for-buck processor is right now.

If it helps,
Im looking to OC on air and going with a XFX nForce 680i SLI, some corsair dominator RAM, and a Corsair PSU.

Feel free to tell me if I am missing out on fantastic substitute for the above list (I am not really good at keeping up with all the new products and try to keep it within the same price range).

Thanks
 
If you already have a good air cooler Ive heard of people taking the E6550 up to 3.8ghz stable with a Zalman 9500. You can get the e6550 for $175. Doubt thats the BEST bang but its the best I know of.
 
The 9500 works on 775s? Neat to know. For some reason I thought it was 754, 939, and 940 only for some reason. Maybe it was an older version I looked at.
 
Canadian 2.5RS said:
Hi all,

Im looking at upgrading my computer and I was wondering what you guys think the best bang-for-buck processor is right now.

If it helps,
Im looking to OC on air and going with a XFX nForce 680i SLI, some corsair dominator RAM, and a Corsair PSU.

Feel free to tell me if I am missing out on fantastic substitute for the above list (I am not really good at keeping up with all the new products and try to keep it within the same price range).

Thanks
Click to expand...

For doing what exactly?

I like the celeron 420 :) only 35w of power also. Not a really good gaming cpu though.
 
q6600 go stepping overclocked mine to 3.4 stable , i leave it clocked @3.0 for 24/7 use but thats clocked at the exstreme speeds of the thousand dollar versions, but unless you are gonna be using two cards in SLI mode you would be better off getting a p35 chipset with an 8800gtx, because the p35 's clock higher,and perform better in virtually all benchmarks and it would take two 640 mb 8800 gts cards to get the performance of 1 8800 gtx on a large display. So unless you are planning on getting 2 8800 gtx's, go with the p 35 chipset
tha Asus blitz edition is what i have and it's the cream of the crop,exspensive but worth every penny
 
I'm in the same boat as well. I just bought a combo: e6550 and Gigabyte P35C-DS3R for $278.

Should this be okay for a couple of years or would I be better off buying the same mobo and a Q6600 instead for about $100 more? Would I notice a huge difference in Games, Apps, etc? Thanks and sorry for the sort-of hijack, OP.
 
Well i would go for the Q6600 ,because it's such a good overclocker and it should last for a while, as for noticing a diffrerence you probably won't right now unless you fool around with video thats where quads are the best converting video and with high def becoming standard soon and the size of those large files quad core is the way to go, and future games will utilize all cores. So for today the dual core may suffice but if you are planning on using it for a while i would definitely go quad
 
Yea, im thinking like 2-3 yrs. or something like that with the next top-dog card from nvidia. I dont think I can do much HD content-wise since my monitor isn't HDCP-compliant (24" Soyo from officemax).

The difference in price will be about $130, which can help me in the vid-card dept. You think I can have my e6550 NOT be a bottleneck for about 2-3 yrs.?
 
It depends on your budget, how long you plan to keep it before your next CPU upgrade, and what your needs are for the PC.

If you want a good gamer, the E4400 is good, and the next best step up is the E6750. The next above that is the Q6600.
If you plan to upgrade to a better CPU within a year or so, go with a dual core for now, and upgrade to a Yorkfield CPU within a year.
If you plan to keep this system for a while, go with the Q6600.

FYI, you don't need expensive dominator RAM to get a good performing system.
With a Q6600, all you need is some CL5 DDR2-800 RAM. You won't notice a huge difference between CL4 and CL5, so dont pay a huge price premium for lower latency.
With an E6750, your best bet is the Crucial Ballistix for $70AR, which use Micron D9GMH chips and can OC to DDR2-1066 speeds easily.
For an E4400, you just need some decent CL4 DDR2-667 ram. If the price is too close to DDR2-800, just go for 800 then.
 
e6750 or q6600 GO along with ballistix 2g ddr2-800 depending on length of your next upgrade path.
 
If you were open to used processors, I have found that an E6400 is great. One can be had on this board generally in the 120-160 dollar price range and they can just about all do 3.0GHz easy. Mine could do 3.6GHz stable and was lapped and I got it here for just $175 before the price cuts.

Now if you're willing to shell out another $100 I would recommend just getting a quad core. With a Quad core (or even dual core) processor and a P35 motherboard you can't beat it.
 
Talking Intel what you have to realize is that its all the same core, cheapest to most expensive. Cache and rated FSB (which matters not at all if you OC you will be running 350+ FSB anyway. ) are the only differences.

The best bang for the buck is the cheapest you can buy of the type you want, dual core/quad core with the cache size you want, and at least an 8x mulitplier if you intend to OC. Unless you are very unlucky you will be running 3.2GHz regardless. So you have to decide on cache size for duals, for quads it just defaults to the Q6600 case closed.
 
Wow! thanks for all the replys.

That gives me a lot to go on. Some of you inquired into the length of time I want to keep this processor and the answer would be for a few years (i know that is basically blasphemy around here but I was running a 3500+ until I recently got my hands on a free FX-55 that wont overclock at all (its a clawhammer :( ) I dont do a lot of gaming so I wont be running SLI, I just want to have the option in the future should I decide to start gaming more seriously. I am going with an 8800 GTS (probably this one XFX Geforce 8600 GTS 256MB PCI-E Extreme Edition (720MHz) ). I do a lot of multitasking so i think the Quad would help with that (i could be wrong here). For my heatsink I am using a Thermalright SI-128. I am still open to switching almost everything else. I really appreciate the info about the RAM. It's stuff like that where I get lost. I dont want to spend money where I dont have to. Finally, I dont know what a P35 mobo is. :( I just want a good mobo that will let me run SLI in the future and allows for the best overclock (feel free to tell me what the best cpu/mobo/ram combination is kicking ass right now :D )

My ultimate goal is to have a computer that is "above average" now, and "decent" in a year or two.
 
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