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... I paid near $300 for an C2D E6600 in 2007, and the price of the C2Q were considerably higher when they first came out. i5 2500k came out at $250ish? That doesn't include the cost of 4 years of inflation either at roughly 9% either for the C2D and C2Q. Also, it really has nothing to do with what companies perceive .....
Let's take a different look at your situation and pretend you sold it all and started over.I recently purchased a used Q9550 to replace my E8400 since I wanted the extra juice to play BF3 but didn't want to replace the whole system. I spent $170 for it (actually a good deal), minus what I sold my E8400 for ($80), so really only a $90 investment for significantly more power. I guess there are a lot of people out there like me who are in the same situation.
Let's take a different look at your situation and pretend you sold it all and started over.
Split up your 4x2GB of DDR2 1066 into 2 kits of 2x2GB. Sell it on ebay and it would go for at least $40 for each set, so that's $80.
The motherboard is a good one and should sell for $50.
You sold the E8400 for $80
Add all this up and you are at $210.
You could get an i5 2400, z68 motherboard, and 8 GB of ram at newegg for $310.
All this may be cheaper elsewhere, but most who post here have access to newegg.
Note I picked an asrock motherboard and Patriot ram. The asrock board has decent reviews and the ram has a small rebate, but I am not including that at all.
So overall that is $100 for a really nice upgrade.
You spent $90 to just upgrade the cpu.
People seem to forget how much DDR2 can be sold for. It is about double the price of DDR3 right now, and that's used DDR2 prices.
A 2400 goes up to 3.4GHz with Turbo. That should definitely be faster than a Q9550 at 4GHz.It'd be a shame to get the i5 2400 and not the 2500K, but then you're up to $170. A Q9550 at 4 GHz must be pretty close to a i5 2400 if not a touch faster.
Dell optiplex desktops (with a few exceptions) basically skipped over LGA1156 going straight from LGA775 to LGA1155 sometime in early 2011.I believe all production on Intel® Core 2 Duo's and Intel Core 2 Quad's ended three years ago. So any of these processors that are out there are ones that people have had sitting around.
The thing that really sucks is 775 is a dead platform now. Most of the older Quads run great still and still have plenty of life left in them, but you cannot buy a good motherboard now days for them unless you get something "used" off ebay or the like. Just looking at neweggs choices for 775 motherboards is depressing. All bottom of the barrel micro or mini atx boards, with hardly any features and shitty chipsets. My Q9550 still runs great, but I'd really like to have a new(er) DDR 3 board for it.
I don't think it's sad at all that LGA775 is a dead socket. The Core 2 line was introduced in 2006 and it's already out of date by two generations. It's time to let it go.
A Sandy Bridge-based computer is hardly expensive. You can pick up a Dell with an i3 for less than $500, and that is more than powerful enough for most people. If you're willing to go down to a Sandy Bridge Pentium or Celeron CPU, the price goes down even more. For anyone who needs a new computer, that isn't very difficult to justify.Also true - however, a sour economy makes it darn difficult to justify.
If it weren't for MC bundleage, I couldn't justify it at all.
This,I believe all production on Intel® Core 2 Duo's and Intel Core 2 Quad's ended three years ago. So any of these processors that are out there are ones that people have had sitting around. Now since we are not making any of these and socket 775 had a long life and was very popular, demand is still high for the limited supply. I think it has been more than 2 years since there were any of these within our distribution channel.
I'm still holding on to my q9550 as there are no games (that I play) that is worth upgrading for really. The most intensive game I have atm is BF3 and it is running fine on my system. For sure upgrading will warrant me more performance but it doesn't make sense to pay $400 on a new system just to get more fps in that 1 game. I also do not see any upcoming PC games in 2012 that requires immediate upgrading...which is sad...
Yes, it's real sad that you don't have to spend $400 because your games run so well...I'm still holding on to my q9550 as there are no games (that I play) that is worth upgrading for really. The most intensive game I have atm is BF3 and it is running fine on my system. For sure upgrading will warrant me more performance but it doesn't make sense to pay $400 on a new system just to get more fps in that 1 game. I also do not see any upcoming PC games in 2012 that requires immediate upgrading...which is sad...
The thing that really sucks is 775 is a dead platform now. Most of the older Quads run great still and still have plenty of life left in them, but you cannot buy a good motherboard now days for them unless you get something "used" off ebay or the like. Just looking at neweggs choices for 775 motherboards is depressing. All bottom of the barrel micro or mini atx boards, with hardly any features and shitty chipsets. My Q9550 still runs great, but I'd really like to have a new(er) DDR 3 board for it.
How about buying a used Q6600 quad core and overclock it to 3.4mhz