CPU upgrade from E6400?

N

NickM

Gawd
Joined
Apr 9, 2007
Messages
522
Specs on existing box in sig.
Would it be worthwhile to pick up a newer CPU?
Thinking primarily Q9450 or 9550.
Most strenuous thing it does is gaming.
BC2 is the thing that hits it hardest CPU wise.
Opinions please?
 
Q9550 if you can find it on sale.
I upgraded my friends machine 3 weeks ago from a E6400 to a Q9550 and he was very pleased. He does graphic design, book covers, book layouts, magazines, etc.. and to him it was worth the $250 for the Q9550.
To me, $250 for a proc is pushing it for older hardware.
 
tvdang7 said:
Just go cheap i5.
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That means new board and new ram, which means at least an extra $200+.

But honestly, the E6400, overclocked to 3.2GHz is still a solid cpu. Are you experiencing performance issues?

If you really needed to upgrade, I would go the Q9550 route.
 
No performance issues.
BC2 I notice, however, has me running darn close to 100% both cores.
This doesn't leave me any leeway for something else starting up in game.
I turned off indexing for just that reason, since I was getting a lot of lag ingame, and also I see when my antivirus starts a scan.
COH can be kind of hitchy sometimes as well.
 
Ummmm, I don't disable antivirus unless I am installing something.
Doesn't present an issue unless it happens to be running a scan at the time.
 
i5 is nice but too much money for cpu, mobo, and ram.

If you plop a q9550 in there you will be good for a long time. That's what I would do.
 
If you can find either the Q9550 or Q9450 or Q9400 for $200 and below, then it'll be a good upgrade for the money. As Zepher said, $250 for any of those CPUs are just pushing it for old hardware.

Do note that a Core i5 750 upgrade would cost about $385:
$280 - Intel Core i5-750 CPU + GIGABYTE GA-P55-UD3L LGA 1156 Intel P55 ATX Intel Motherboard Combo
$105 - G.Skill Ripjaw Series F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL 2 x 2GB DDR3 1600 RAM
 
NickM said:
No performance issues.
BC2 I notice, however, has me running darn close to 100% both cores.
This doesn't leave me any leeway for something else starting up in game.
I turned off indexing for just that reason, since I was getting a lot of lag ingame, and also I see when my antivirus starts a scan.
COH can be kind of hitchy sometimes as well.
Click to expand...

BC2 will run MUCH better with a quad. It gets up to 85+% usage on my Q6600 @ 3.2GHz. It runs a lot better on my quad than it does on my C2D system and runs horribly on my older Athlon X2 machines.
 
Danny Bui said:
If you can find either the Q9550 or Q9450 or Q9400 for $200 and below, then it'll be a good upgrade for the money. As Zepher said, $250 for any of those CPUs are just pushing it for old hardware.

Do note that a Core i5 750 upgrade would cost about $385:
$280 - Intel Core i5-750 CPU + GIGABYTE GA-P55-UD3L LGA 1156 Intel P55 ATX Intel Motherboard Combo
$105 - G.Skill Ripjaw Series F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL 2 x 2GB DDR3 1600 RAM
Click to expand...

Actually, double that on RAM, since I have no desire to go back to only 4 GB on a new build.
I would consider only 6 on a triple channnel rig, with the caveat that I would double that as soon as possible.
And, before someone suggests gong SLI, my board only has one slot-is there anything out there that is a SUBSTANTIAL upgrade from the 260, and is affordable?

Nick
 
Depends on your defination of substantial and affordable. I would consider the 5850 as meeting both those requirments.
 
Why not just get a Q6600 and overclock if you're looking for a cheap upgrade?
 
I've thought about that, but over 3.2 on a 6600 seems to be a bit of a crap shoot, plus they don't have as much cache as the 9450-9650.
Probably not a big deal on games, or is it?
8400 clocked to the moon has some interest for me as well.
I'm sure that it is somewhat epeen, as I'm not pushing this hotshit board or the RAM like they are capable.
 
If you have any interest in BC2, you should scratch off that dual core idea off the list right away. Even if it has a 1GHz advantage it will not run nearly as well as a quad core CPU. The days of dual core CPU's is coming to an end for anything but ultra budget builds.
 
NickM said:
Specs on existing box in sig.
Would it be worthwhile to pick up a newer CPU?
Thinking primarily Q9450 or 9550.
Most strenuous thing it does is gaming.
BC2 is the thing that hits it hardest CPU wise.
Opinions please?
Click to expand...

I'm in the exact same boat:

E6300 @ 3.4GHz,

and I thought about it, long and hard, and I think as soon as I get the money I'm jumping on the AMD ship, with plans for a bulldozer CPU (thats H1 2011, so its away's off)

Intel boned the overclocker on kentsfield, and they boned the overclocker on yorkfield. They've boned the overclocker on the new core series and amd's next gen looks pretty wicked.

AMD has $150 CPUs out now which unlock and overclock (read: no locked-in CPU multiplier) to their full $250 CPU, and that keeps up with the entire core 2 line. The RD800 chipsets are significantly nicer feature wise than P55, and will be bulldozer compatable. Still requires DDR3 unfortunately.

But yeah, if you dont like the idea of A) waiting until 2011 with your current rig (I dont blame you) or B) buying AMD now and using a holdover CPU (also dont blame you), and you also dont want to jump on the i5 bandwagon (more non-blame), I actually started making offers for a Q6600 before I talked myself into the AMD koolaid. You can get one for no more than $150 --probably $130 if you're patient enough.
 
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450 said:
:rolleyes:

Modern computers (think 2005-6+) can run an AV client like its nothing.
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free edit: modern computers (think 2005-6+) can run a well made AV client like its nothing.

I'm down for Microsofts Security Essentials package, and I'm hoping that before the 2010 x-mas season It'l be more opt-out-ish.
 
if you look around you might get a used q9450 for a great price. i have seen them going for $125 on some of the forums. this would be a nice bump in performance.
 
I would go with the Q9550. If you have a Micro Center near you or know someone that does, they are on sale for $179 I believe. That Gigabyte mobo is more then capable of running a Q9550.
 
Atl530i said:
I would go with the Q9550. If you have a Micro Center near you or know someone that does, they are on sale for $179 I believe. That Gigabyte mobo is more then capable of running a Q9550.
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Link plz
maybe I'll take a drive by there, when roads are clear

EDIT: Confirm Q9550 is $179 @ Microcenter (151 in stock @ ny location)
 
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Definitely get a Q9550 if you have a Mc near you. You won't regret it. I wouldn't spend more than $200 on s775, so if a MC isn't near you ask someone on the forums. Someone was nice enough to get me the Q9550 from MC and I had a e8400 @ 4ghz. I haven't looked back yet, although my e8400 wasn't slow by any means; I just wanted a quad core.
 
NickM said:
Actually, double that on RAM, since I have no desire to go back to only 4 GB on a new build.
I would consider only 6 on a triple channnel rig, with the caveat that I would double that as soon as possible.
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Just wondering if you realize that 32-bit programs (read: all current games) are limited to only 2GB each even if they are running on a 64-bit operating system.

So you need all that ram because... superfetch? lol
 
GotNoRice said:
Just wondering if you realize that 32-bit programs (read: all current games) are limited to only 2GB each even if they are running on a 64-bit operating system.

So you need all that ram because... superfetch? lol
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Not exactly...

The importance of the above applications and games being flagged is not just to avoid the need to modify the executable, but also because there is another solution to the issue we haven't talked about so far. 64bit versions of Windows(i.e. XP and Vista) do not suffer from the traditional 2GB barrier, as all the kernel mode addressing is usually moved to well above the confines of the limited 32bit addressing area. As such, these versions of Windows don't need to have their space allocations adjusted for an application to gain access to more addressing space, bypassing the instability and any possible performance problems that occurs as a result of making this adjustment.

However in order to maintain compatibility with older applications, Windows still keeps the artificial 2GB barrier in place to keep from triggering any bugs that result from the extra space. So even if we use a 64bit version of Windows, the offending application must still either be flagged by the developer or modified by the user if we want to get past the 2GB barrier.
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http://www.anandtech.com/gadgets/showdoc.aspx?i=3034&p=6

Not to mention, these are comptuers, not consoles. It is entirly possible someone may have more than just the OS and a game running. I don't have a problem getting my memory usage over 4GB on my system.
 
RamonGTP said:
Not exactly...

http://www.anandtech.com/gadgets/showdoc.aspx?i=3034&p=6

Not to mention, these are comptuers, not consoles. It is entirly possible someone may have more than just the OS and a game running. I don't have a problem getting my memory usage over 4GB on my system.
Click to expand...



Yes, a program being Large Address Aware is the exception but very few games are.

As far as memory usage from other programs, most people are going to have the main game process using 1-2GB and beyond that probably 100-150mb for your web browser, a few more using ~60mb like anti-virus, etc, and it's all downhill from there. Doing a lot of things on your computer doesn't mean you are going to be using significant amounts of ram. Most people don't transcode movies, etc in the background while they game though I'm sure someone will mention something like that.

What programs are you running while you game that are giving you a combined usage of over 4GB? Don't even say superfetch.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to the idea that more ram is a good thing, but let's be sure that when we are giving advice that we can back that up with real legitimate reasons and not just "because more is better". I have a hard time coming up with a reason why a gamer would need more than 4gb of RAM. In many cases a person would be better off going with a smaller kit of faster ram than a large kit of ram they will never use.
 
I've seen q9400 pulls for 160 shipped on fleebay. If you want to make the jump and stalk closely I've also seen I5 750's go for under 150 shipped brand new if you try to catch one.

You should sell your mobo/chip/ram while it has it's value and make the jump. ;)
 
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I know I am late to the party, but I recently upgraded my entire rig. I went from a Q9650 to a i7-860. I loved my Q9650 though. I had it overclocked to 3.6 on air. I sold it in the forums along with 8GB of Ram for $300 total. The guy who purchased it from me has been able to get it to 4ghz on Air as well. THe Q9400, 9550 and 9650 are really good procs with a lot of horsepower. You can't go wrong.
 
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