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Help me decide on upgrade!?!

T

tjb117

n00b
Joined
Nov 13, 2007
Messages
17
I'm planning on moving to Windows 7 here shortly, and I have the itch to upgrade some of my hardware as well (even though my current setup runs everything for me just fine) I don't game much at all, but do a good amount of encoding and photoshop type tasks.

Basically, I'm looking at 3 options and I could really use everyone's thoughts/advice here.

I'm using the system I have in my Sig, which is currently a q6600 in 775 board.

Option 1: leave everything the same and just get over the itch to upgrade the hardware, and wait for another year or so

Option 2: I have a microcenter near me, and they have a killer deal on q9550. I wouldn't change anything else really, just swap these processors. Would sell my q6600, and based on what I'm seeing would not be out of pocket too much (~ $50). I could use this to tide my over for a while longer and upgrade in a year or so later on. But, that is still money (even though not too much) that I could be using on a new system...

-is there going to be much of a noticeable increase by moving to this? or is this pretty much a pointless upgrade? there is more cache on this processor, but don't know if that is really enough to be significant?

Option 3: Upgrade my motherboard, cpu, and ram and go Core i5/i7 route. This would be a little more expensive, but I'd be moving to a new technology and would give me upgrade options down the road.

-Since these are fairly new, does it make sense to wait and let them mature more? new revisions of motherboards, revisions/steppings of CPUs, price drops, etc..
-would I see a significant performance increase over my current q6600?
-I'm leaning towards the i5 for price considerations, but is there a significant difference b/n the 2 to justify the extra ~$70 difference? Is the hyperthreading that significant?


I've read a lot of reviews and different threads here on the forums, and am still undecided on what to do. I appreciate all your help! Thanks in advance!!!!
 
I would take option 2.

-is there going to be much of a noticeable increase by moving to this?
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Depends on how much you are currently overclocking and what applications you are using. I also believe the Q9550 is more energy efficient than the Q6600. Mine idles at ~1.05V and uses ~1.15V at full load and ~3.1GHz.
 
drescherjm said:
I would take option 2.


Depends on how much you are currently overclocking and what applications you are using. I also believe the Q9550 is more energy efficient than the Q6600. Mine idles at ~1.05V and uses ~1.15V at full load and ~3.1GHz.
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I only do mild over clocking now, but no where near what most people do here.

That was another thing I was looking at was the energy efficiency factor. I wasn't sure how much more/ess an i5/i7 was then my q6600. Anyone know? I know the q9550 would be, which was part of the reason I thought to upgrade it. Thanks for bringing that point up, forgot to mention in my initial post...
 
If you don't game much then I don't think upgrading to the i5/i7 would necessarily be worth it.

I would recommend upgrading your video card before anything else, if you were to upgrade. Maybe, along with the Q9550.

How much do you OC?
 
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i like option 2 also. i would try to squeeze in a video card upgrade also if possible.
 
option 1. while the mc deal on the 9550 is good, and its a nice cpu, you wont see much difference unless you are gaming. save your money. its kind of pointless to invest in any s775 stuff now. also kind of pointless to go from a q6600 to an i5 750.
 
Thanks for all the advice so far!

vanilla_guerilla - you make a good point, and that was my only hesitation with going with the q9550 is that I'm investing in s775, which for all intents and purposes is dead.

Would I not see any or very little performance increase by upgrading (to either option) in video encoding and just overall performance in general?

I've changed jobs a while back, and just don't really have the time to game much at all anymore. Plus my wife is big into xbox360, so when I do game, it's usually with her. So, I will eventually upgrade my video card (I know my current one is ancient), but that's a lower priority for now.

I'm only oc'ing to 3ghz now. I was trying to push it further back when I first got it, but ended up just dropping it back.

Probably a stupid question, but which is the more future proof (even though really isn't such a thing) path, s1156 or s1366? I'm not really up to speed on them, and wasn't sure if one was going to be more short-lived than the other?
 
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tjb117 said:
Probably a stupid question, but which is the more future proof (even though really isn't such a thing) path, s1156 or s1366? I'm not really up to speed on them, and wasn't sure if one was going to be more short-lived than the other?
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The 1366. The triple channel memory, also 6 dimm slots, and the upcoming i9, add to the future proofness. The 1366 is geared for the enthusiast, while the 1156 is more mainstream. Although you won't really notice much of a difference.

If you were to go with the 1366 route, i7 920 all the way ;)
 
with very little overclock, for what the op is doing, the fact that the 750 might "smoke" a q6600 in 3dmark and/or crysis doesnt amount to much. and why should he be stuck with an s1156 machine anyway, when he could just upgrade to a s1336?
 
If you were to upgrade, go option 3 (920). With being able to purchase the Cpu at MC, you save nearly 80 off of NE.
 
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