CPU Upgrade - Thoughts?

[BugginOuT]

Currently running:

Intel Q9300 with Gigabyte EP45-DS3R.

Not feeling to spend $$$ on a i3/i5/i7 platform yet.

Was wondering if it would make sense to upgrade the CPU to Q9550 or higher and overclock to save a few $$$ until next year or 2.

Thoughts?

 

[E4g1e]

Currently running:

Intel Q9300 with Gigabyte EP45-DS3R.

Not feeling to spend $$$ on a i3/i5/i7 platform yet.

Was wondering if it would make sense to upgrade the CPU to Q9550 or higher and overclock to save a few $$$ until next year or 2.

Thoughts?

I would hold off on that "upgrade" until you save up enough money for a new i3/i5/i7 platform upgrade (or put it this way, I would not spend a single penny on any upgrades for your system until you save up enough money for the newer platform). This is because Socket LGA775 is on its last legs right now (no new processors are being developed any longer for that socket, and LGA775 will be going away completely by the end of the third quarter of this year), and the Q9550 costs way too much money for the performance improvement that you'd achieve over your current Q9300 (in other words, that processor costs $250, but you will not get sufficiently improved performance to be worth anywhere near the going price for that processor). Plus, very few new systems continue to use DDR2 memory any more. Thus, both LGA775 and DDR2 are at a dead end right now.

 

[sfsilicon]

I would hold off on that "upgrade" until you save up enough money for a new i3/i5/i7 platform upgrade (or put it this way, I would not spend a single penny on any upgrades for your system until you save up enough money for the newer platform). This is because Socket LGA775 is on its last legs right now (no new processors are being developed any longer for that socket, and LGA775 will be going away completely by the end of the third quarter of this year), and the Q9550 costs way too much money for the performance improvement that you'd achieve over your current Q9300 (in other words, that processor costs $250, but you will not get sufficiently improved performance to be worth anywhere near the going price for that processor). Plus, very few new systems continue to use DDR2 memory any more. Thus, both LGA775 and DDR2 are at a dead end right now.

+1 on E4g1e's rec

What is your existing system? What app is making you think of upgrading?

If you already had a Socket 775 system I can see why you might want to upgrade just the CPU, but getting a new MB and CPU doesn't make sense.

 

[Dangman]

Nah, even with an OC, a Q9550 upgrade would not be worth it over your current Q9300. You're better off saving your money.

 

[E4g1e]

Nah, even with an OC, a Q9550 upgrade would not be worth it over your current Q9300. You're better off saving your money.

This is exactly the point that I was trying to tell the OP.

And as I type this post, I am posting this from an old 2.8GHz Northwood Socket 478 Pentium 4 system. I will soon upgrade this to an i-something system even though this is my secondary system that I regularly use when I am using my primary for video editing/rendering work.

 

[AMDXP]

Just get some decent air-cooling heatsink with some good fans, and overclock the hell out of your q9300.

 

[BugginOuT]

Just get some decent air-cooling heatsink with some good fans, and overclock the hell out of your q9300.

That's the problem, you can't OC the Q9300, it's locked.

Instead of spending $500 - 1000 on getting a new mobo, memory, CPU, I would try upgrading to a Q9550/9650 for less than $300 and OC it.

But I think I may have resolved my issue, I was getting major lag on Bad Company 2 and I didn't know if it was CPU or GPU related.

 

[E4g1e]

That's the problem, you can't OC the Q9300, it's locked.

Instead of spending $500 - 1000 on getting a new mobo, memory, CPU, I would try upgrading to a Q9550/9650 for less than $300 and OC it.

Actually, the Q9550 and Q9650 are also locked in the exact same way as your Q9300. You cannot raise the multiplier on any of those three chips (since the maximum multiplier setting is locked to stock settings on all three). The only way for you to OC any of those three chips would be to raise the FSB. The only Core 2 processors with an unlocked multiplier are the Core 2 Extreme processors, which are now no longer in production (and they were extremely expensive when they were available).

On the other hand, if you can't OC your existing Q9300 because it doesn't run stably or won't POST with the FSB setting of even 10 MHz above the stock 333MHz (FSB1333), then you must have gotten a bum processor to begin with.

On top of all that, how much memory are you running? You see, the major lag in games like Bad Company 2 have little to do with your processor; instead, it's more likely either GPU or system memory related. Who knows? You might not have enough available memory to run that game properly.

 

[skiddy]

That's the problem, you can't OC the Q9300, it's locked.

Instead of spending $500 - 1000 on getting a new mobo, memory, CPU, I would try upgrading to a Q9550/9650 for less than $300 and OC it.

But I think I may have resolved my issue, I was getting major lag on Bad Company 2 and I didn't know if it was CPU or GPU related.

You should be able to get it to 3-3.2ghz with that board. My Q8200 does 3.0ghz with only a slight increase in volts, and it is plenty fast.

I would also recommend keeping your current setup until you're ready to make a dive into a i5/i7 system.

 

[zc1]

I don't know if you're looking for better gaming performance or not, but I will give you my experience with gaming with a Q6600 vs Q9650, anyway.

I had a Q6600 @ 2.4 then 3.6 GHz, and just swapped to a Q9650 overclocked at 4.05 GHz. I ran Dirt 2 benchmarking in various setups, with 1 and 2 Sapphire 5870 Vapor-X cards.

In short, gaming @ 1920x1080, a 50% increase in FPS could be had just by adding a second graphics card and overclocking the CPU. If you game using Eyefinity and high resolution, though, the graphics card is far more limiting and not the CPU. At 5760x1080, overclocking or switching to the Q9650 made no difference in and of itself, but certainly had a modest additional effect when combined with adding a second graphics card (additional 10% increase in FPS).

Also of note is that my results (average FPS) with the 50% overclocked Q6600 were comparable to what [H]ard|OCP found with their i7 920 @ 3.6 GHz.

My entire results can be found here (click), but below is my summary:

A) If you game at 1920x1080 or less:

If you game at 1920x1080 or less then your best performance will be from adding a second card and upgrading your processor to the fastest that you can get (either by overclocking or moving up to a faster processor +/- overclocking).

-Overclocking or switching to a faster processor alone --> 0% average FPS improvement

-Adding second graphics card alone --> 5% decrease in average FPS

-Adding second graphics card + overclocking @ 3.6 GHz --> 20% increase in average FPS (60 to 72 in my case) vs stock speed and a single card

-Adding second graphics card + swap to Q9650 @ 4.05 GHz --> 50% increase in average FPS (60 to 90 in my case) vs stock speed and a single card


B) If you game at 5760x1080:

At high resolution, processor speed was not limiting, so your best performance bet is to get a second graphics card and stopping there.

-Overclocking or switching to a faster processor alone --> 0% average FPS improvement

-Adding second graphics card alone --> 46% increase in average FPS (37 to 54 in my case)

-Adding second graphics card + overclocking @ 3.6 GHz --> 62% increase in average FPS (37 to 60 in my case) vs stock speed and a single card

-Adding second graphics card + swap to Q9650 @ 4.05 GHz --> 65% increase in average FPS (37 to 61 in my case) vs stock speed and a single card


Again, these statements are based on my data for Dirt 2 only. Other games will certainly differ in their results in accordance with their CPU- and GPU-dependence.

 

[BugginOuT]

You should be able to get it to 3-3.2ghz with that board. My Q8200 does 3.0ghz with only a slight increase in volts, and it is plenty fast.

What's a slight increase?

I've tried bumping up 10mhz, went thru the boot screen, but never actually got to the desktop.

@ Eagle: Running 4GB of RAM under Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit.

@ZC1: Running BC2 under 1920x1200. Game is playable if I changed all the settings to "Low".

Going to keep messing around with the settings, let you guys know what i come up with.

 

[zc1]

@ZC1: Running BC2 under 1920x1200. Game is playable if I changed all the settings to "Low".

What graphics card are you running?

Non-Crossfired, 1920x1080:
Almost all settings at low (exceptions were 8x MSAA and 16x AF) ==> 83-94 FPS average (75 minimum).

Crossfired, 1920x1080:
Same "low" settings as above ==> 133-153 FPS average (101 minimum).

This is with a Q9650 @ 4.05 GHz.

 

[Alonan]

im not sure what your thinking but i would hold on to what i have and save for an I7 1366 socket rig you can sell your old one and almost have enough if you went with an evga x58 micro atx board a 2.66 i7 and some mushkin mem you can do it for a a little under 500$ if you know how to price priced my project I7 rig at 600$ or so loaded

 

[BugginOuT]

What graphics card are you running?

Non-Crossfired, 1920x1080:
Almost all settings at low (exceptions were 8x MSAA and 16x AF) ==> 83-94 FPS average (75 minimum).

Crossfired, 1920x1080:
Same "low" settings as above ==> 133-153 FPS average (101 minimum).

This is with a Q9650 @ 4.05 GHz.

eVga 285GTX

 

[E4g1e]

BugginOuT,

Also check your CPU cooler. A lot of times, an improperly installed CPU heatsink/fan combo can cause core temperatures to rise much higher than normal. Either the cooler you are using isn't making good contact or you've used too much thermal interface material between the heatsink and the CPU.

In fact, the behaviour that you've described from your system is a good clue that your CPU may be overheating even at stock speeds. This is almost always caused by an improperly installed CPU cooler or (less likely) a CPU cooler that's mismatched to the CPU's thermal properties. And if you're still using the stock boxed Intel CPU heatsink which came with the boxed version of the Q9300, there is a very good chance that the pins might have popped loose. This causes the heatsink to lose contact with the CPU.

 

[FalconSS]

make sure you fix your PCI frequency or even a 1 mhz change would cause that.

 

[E4g1e]

BugginOuT,

Also check your CPU cooler. A lot of times, an improperly installed CPU heatsink/fan combo can cause core temperatures to rise much higher than normal. Either the cooler you are using isn't making good contact or you've used too much thermal interface material between the heatsink and the CPU.

In fact, the behaviour that you've described from your system is a good clue that your CPU may be overheating even at stock speeds. This is almost always caused by an improperly installed CPU cooler or (less likely) a CPU cooler that's mismatched to the CPU's thermal properties. And if you're still using the stock boxed Intel CPU heatsink which came with the boxed version of the Q9300, there is a very good chance that the pins might have popped loose. This causes the heatsink to lose contact with the CPU.

On top of what I stated in that post, the Q9550 or Q9650 would not be an upgrade - in fact, it would be a total waste of money - if you continue to install the CPU cooler the very same way you did with your current Q9300. You will still experience severe lag in games because the CPU speed has already been throttling down to well below stock speeds due to potential overheating.

 

[zc1]

Should be able to get that Q9300 up around 3.4 GHz if all is otherwise well: http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/intel_q9300/3.htm

 

[Climber]

What's a slight increase?

I've tried bumping up 10mhz, went thru the boot screen, but never actually got to the desktop.

@ Eagle: Running 4GB of RAM under Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit.

@ZC1: Running BC2 under 1920x1200. Game is playable if I changed all the settings to "Low".

Going to keep messing around with the settings, let you guys know what i come up with.

My secondary system that my roomate plays on is an old E6750 at 3.2ghz with 4gb of ddr2 800 running on an 8800 gts 512 and according to fraps it is avg 45 fps on high settings under DX9 with water and shadows to low.

You should be getting better than me by a long shot I would assume.

 

[BugginOuT]

I'm using the Thermalright 120, don't recall if it was the Extreme edition or not. The last time I checked, the CPU temperature was below 40c.

I can double check that setting again for verification, I'm pretty sure that the heatsink is on there, nice and tight.

It's been a while since I've O/C, will ZC1 reference as a starter.

I'm going to hang on to the Q9300, save some money for the new platform later down the road.

Would like to thank everyone for their opinions/thoughts/recommendation.

Cheerios!

 

[Spanky93]

Just save up your money until you can make the full upgrade to a Core i3/i5/i7 rig.