Just curious...

H

HondaCop

Limp Gawd
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Feb 12, 2008
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Just out of curiosity, if you were to buy an Intel QX9650 CPU, which mobo/ram would be the best to pair it to? Taking into account that you are not going to run SLI and just one GX2 card instead.
 
IMO definately a P35 motherboard. why? your only planning to get one nvidia card so its pointless to get a crossfire motherboard (x38/x48). plus the p35 motherboards are a ton cheaper than the x38/x48. ddr2 ram is recommended unless you feel like being broke and if thats the case go ahead and get ddr3. 800mhz is good for moderate overclocking but if you want to push it then i would have to say get 1000mhz. and to get that you also need a decent cooler..
 
Why are you considering the QX9650? Because of the unlocked multiplier?

IMO, that's not worth spending over $1000 on. There's no guarantee that you'll obtain a high overclock (as in, over 3.4GHz) on ANY processor, regardless of price.
 
crhscoog said:
IMO definately a P35 motherboard. why? your only planning to get one nvidia card so its pointless to get a crossfire motherboard (x38/x48). plus the p35 motherboards are a ton cheaper than the x38/x48. ddr2 ram is recommended unless you feel like being broke and if thats the case go ahead and get ddr3. 800mhz is good for moderate overclocking but if you want to push it then i would have to say get 1000mhz. and to get that you also need a decent cooler..
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Thanks for your response... Concise and to the point. ;)

tiraides said:
Why are you considering the QX9650? Because of the unlocked multiplier?

IMO, that's not worth spending over $1000 on. There's no guarantee that you'll obtain a high overclock (as in, over 3.4GHz) on ANY processor, regardless of price.
Click to expand...

Not everyone wants to overclock you know. In case you wasn't aware, there are people out there who can afford a $1,000 processor and prefer to have a 3GHZ processor running perfectly off the bat, instead of spending countless hours configuring an overclocked system. I know people that have overclocked systems and spend 95% of their time in the BIOS and running benchmarks than what they do using the computer itself for what it was built. The other 5% is spent on forums trying to figure out why their system is not stable. Now that is definitely not worth it. ;)
 
Yeah.. but I'd take a 600mhz hit and give the difference to charity, but that's just me.
 
HondaCop said:
there are people out there who can afford a $1,000 processor and prefer to have a 3GHZ processor running perfectly off the bat
Click to expand...

Ever think of the new 3ghz(!stock!) E8400 for less than $220(almost to $190 nowadays)? That's what most of us non-rich folk typically tend to purchase, myself included being a recently graduated HS student with diploma with around $700 atm cuze havent been able to work much to upgrade CPU+HSF/mobo/ram/GPU/case.....so yeah, $1K on a proc is.....a waste imo.
 
HondaCop said:
Not everyone wants to overclock you know. In case you wasn't aware, there are people out there who can afford a $1,000 processor and prefer to have a 3GHZ processor running perfectly off the bat, instead of spending countless hours configuring an overclocked system. I know people that have overclocked systems and spend 95% of their time in the BIOS and running benchmarks than what they do using the computer itself for what it was built. The other 5% is spent on forums trying to figure out why their system is not stable. Now that is definitely not worth it. ;)
Click to expand...

I am aware that there are people who can drop $1000 on a processor... and that there are people who really don't want to tamper with anything once everything else is set up. I understand that. However, I don't see that $1000 processor being a good... "investment"?... in the long term when, possibly six months from now, one of the low-end Nehalem processors could potentially keep up with (or even surpass) it.

I would like to know what, aside from the faster clock speed, makes the $1000 QX9650 more appealing to you than the ~$400 Q9450. Maybe it's just me, but I don't see the QX9650 blowing away the Q9450 in most of the things I do on a computer.
 
HondaCop said:
Just out of curiosity, if you were to buy an Intel QX9650 CPU, which mobo/ram would be the best to pair it to? Taking into account that you are not going to run SLI and just one GX2 card instead.
Click to expand...

To answer your question, it depends on what features you need in a motherboard. IMO, just about any good P35 mobo out there will run the QX9650 well. If your needs aren't much, a $100 Gigabyte DS3L will run it just fine.

Since it doesn't look like you're overclocking, ANY set of DDR2 667 RAM will suffice. C2D systems do NOT benefit from having the RAM faster than the FSB or at anything other than a 1:1 FSB to RAM ratio. Some math:

Stated FSB/4 = Actual FSB
Multiplier x Actual FSB = CPU Speed
2 x Actual FSB = RAM Speed

QX9650:
Multi x Actual FSB, Stated FSB, RAM Speed = Clock Speed
9 x 333Mhz, 1333Mhz, DDR2 667 RAM = 3.0Ghz <==Stock Speeds
9 x 400Mhz, 1600Mhz, DDR2 800 RAM = 3.6Ghz <== Good OC

Also, you won't notice a real-world increase with RAM with lower timings outside of synthetic benchmarks.

With that said, I concur with tiraides about the Extreme Edition CPU. The Q9450 has a MSRP of $316 and is clocked at 2.66Ghz. The QX9650 has a MSRP of $999 and is clocked at 3.0Ghz. The price difference between the two CPUs is $683 and all you get for that extra $683 is 333Mhz. That's it. Does that sound very reasonable to you?
 
Hmmm After reading your replies, I noticed that I had overlooked a very important detail.. The QX9650 and QX9450 are the SAME EXACT processors! Only difference is the 333Mhz gap. Everything else is the same.

Now I can see why you guys were saying what you were saying. YES, it doesn't make sense to dish out an additional $600+ for just a 333Mhz bump. I was pretty much interested in the unlocked multiplier, in case I decided to overclock in the future, but still, if I want to overclock, I can just up the FSB a tad.

I guess I will indeed go with the QX9450 instead.
 
You missed our point -- don't buy any of the Extreme Edition (QX-) processors. They're not worth their price premium.

(And there's no QX9450, only the Q9450.)
 
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