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Q6600 to i7

P

PaintballBrokeMe

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 3, 2006
Messages
345
Hey guys. I'm looking for a little advice. Maybe you can help me out?

I'm currently using:

Q6600
Gigabyte DS3L P35
2x2gbs of DDR2 1000
4850 512mb

I'm thinking about building an i7 machine. I have two dilemmas. How significant of a performance boost will I see, and should I get the i7 860 or 920?

I'm going to be gaming, running VM's, and doing a little bit of video encoding when it comes to needing power. I pretty much just want the fastest machine I can get for the money.

I have a budget of 1300 dollars for the tower. I already have a case and drives, so you can take that out of the picture. Also, I'm going to be paring the i7 with a 5870 and 6/8gbs of ram depending on what CPU I go with.

Thanks.
 
In my honest opinion, it's not worth it over the current system you have. There will be a gain, a good one. But nothing that's going to be noticeably mind-blowing. I would just OC the Q6600 to 3.0+ Ghz the rest looks fine.
 
Yeah, that Q6600 sure has a long life.

In all the benchmarks I seen, it get beaten by the i7 920, but not mind-blowing like AMDXP said.

I am waiting, for something with a bigger delta compared with our trusty Q6600.

Besides, there are just too many unknowns for my taste in the X58\P55 platforms. I would hate to invest in so many new components (mobo\hsf\ram\cpu\chipset).

But if you got the $ to spend and want the fastest, go for it. Along with plenty of new RAM for those VMs.
 
I upgraded from a Q6600 and I can easily tell the difference...especially in encoding, but also in "daily" use.
 
I have an e6600 and am looking to make the upgrade to i7. My system is 3 years old now and is really showing it's age.
 
Atech said:
I upgraded from a Q6600 and I can easily tell the difference...especially in encoding, but also in "daily" use.
Click to expand...

Same, gaming as well... I'm going to just repost a previous one I made on this exact topic since there's no need to rewrite it:

LordVampyre said:
I just built my i7 machine and I never looked back. If you have the money to do it.. go for it.
Click to expand...

I responded:

GoldenTiger said:
Same... I was on a Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 3.2ghz and my i7 920 @ 3.72ghz+HT on, using the same video card, stomps all over the Q6600 in my CPU-intensive games (Warhammer Online, Supreme Commander, GTA4, Burnout Paradise, Team Fortress 2, Call of Duty 4 (which isn't very GPU-bound nowadays), etc.). Bear in mind I'm running on a single GTX 280 @ 2560x1600 resolution and am still seeing the gains. Depending on the game it ranges from 20%-ish (CoD4) to 50%+ gains (Warhammer Online, TF2). This is strictly gaming-speaking, not even mentioning the huge gains in stuff like encoding, rendering, compiling, and whatnot :).

My new setup is in sig (i7 920 @ 3.72, 6GB DDR3 @ 1560mhz 8-8-8 1T command rate, GTX 280 1GB, 80GB Intel X25-M G2 SSD, etc.). The old setup for comparison was a C2Q Q6600 @ 3.2, 8GB DDR2 @ 820mhz 5-5--5 1T, GTX 280 1GB). As I said, the difference is phenomenal... if you can afford the extra $100-200 average build increase for an i7 vs. a C2Q, go for it. Quad vs. Dual should be obvious... so many games use multi-core now, and even those that don't benefit from dual-core usage on the quad while having Windows/everything else on the 3rd/4th cores. Many many games will support multicore in the coming months and years as well. It would be downright silly to buy a dual core if you have a choice between a dual/quad at this point of time.
Click to expand...
 
I have a Q6600 and I'm planning on keeping it for a long long time. It's more than fast enough for everything I do, and I can always OC it to at least 3.2 GHz.
 
shurcooL said:
I have a Q6600 and I'm planning on keeping it for a long long time. It's more than fast enough for everything I do, and I can always OC it to at least 3.2 GHz.
Click to expand...

Same here. Just plan to get some more ram, windows 7. Maybe a new Graphics-card in the future.
 
I always have access to systems using a Q6600 @3.2GHz, a PII X4 @3.6GHz and i7 920 @3.7GHz, the i7 system is the fastest but the performance difference is not worth it for me to upgrade the quad systems to the i7. For a new build it could be worth it but not for an upgrade.
 
Last edited:
I was in the same boat and decided to rebuild a new system seeing as how my brother needed a new PC. Ended up giving him the Q6600 box and rebuilding i5-750 (which I haven't been completely satisfied with for OC'ing). Gonna rebuild on LGA1366 instead.
 
If you can manage to overclock your Q6600 to 3.6ghz for 24/7 use, I see no point in upgrading to an i7 machine with new mobo and memory, unless you really want a second computer.
 
aznofazns said:
If you can manage to overclock your Q6600 to 3.6ghz for 24/7 use, I see no point in upgrading to an i7 machine with new mobo and memory, unless you really want a second computer.
Click to expand...

8*400 = 3.2 is good as well. I seriously wouldn't upgrade unless you have money to blow. The technology changed and advanced, but it's as I stated just not worth it yet.
 
The VMs and encoding are where the i7 is going to shine. The CPU won't be a huge factor for the VMs depending on what you do with the VMs especially since they usually end up being RAM limited more than anything. However, the i7 has a better IPC and with hyperthreading, that will help. Encoding is one of the best ways to see the difference. I've done a lot of encoding and still do some from time to time and I'd kill for a nice overclocked i7 rig to do the encoding on. Currently, I have three Q6600s ranging from 3.4Ghz to 3.6Ghz and I know the encoding times would be cut drastically with an overclocked i7 rig. The i7 rig would also help greatly on the distributed computing projects I run as well.

I'm one of the few who can use every last ounce of CPU power which comes my way. If I was building a system right now (which I would be if I had the money) it would definitely be an i7 system.

I'll state that if you do much encoding at all, the i7 will easily be worth it. Using Handbrake and the x264 encoder with custom settings, a 2 pass encode for a DVD takes me about the same amount of time as the length of the movie. An i7 system would probably halve that time between the higher IPC and hyperthreading. There is also a good chance I would be able to overclock the i7 higher than the current 3.6Ghz limit I have on my Q6600s which would also help.

I would say that if you're looking to build a new system, then i7 is right for you. The types of work you're doing on the system will benefit from i7.

 
The RAM throughput on the LGA 1366 setup is to die for...

With a nice high speed set of DDR2 on a core2 based system, you are looking at 8Gb/s give or take. With a nice high speed set of DDR3 on a LGA 1366 setup, you are looking at 25-30GB/s.

If you look at the system in my sig, the processor benches slightly slower than an i7 920 that is running at a stock speed of 2.66Ghz.

I've already ordered a MB and RAM for an i7 920 build/upgrade... All that is left is the processor and most likely a new heatsink.
 
Oh wow. Thanks for all the help fellas.

Yeah, it really just comes down to if I can justify the price. I'm always looking for the extra boost in performance and now I have the money on hand to get it. I'm going to think about it a little more and probably go for it. I have my Q6600 OC'd to 3.2ghz but I want MOAR. Obviously greedy.

Thanks for all the input.
 
This week i ll hopefully be boasting a new i7 rig (up from what i have)
I know i truly don't need it, but damn do i need a new toy :)

The performance is there, but just yet... its not worth the cost (if all u look for is performance)
 
I built this about 2-3 months ago. Was a little cheaper thanks to Microcenter (got processor, case, and dvd drive for cheaper)RAM was also cheaper back then.

FYI, I made this post awhile ago, so the prices are subject to change.

Heres the list with links...

~ Antec 902 case - $124.95
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811129058

~EVGA x58 SLI LE motherboard - $239.99, $219.99 with $20 mail in rebate. Free 4gig flash drive too.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813188049

~i7 920 2.66ghz CPU - $279.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115202

~OCZ XMP 6GB (3 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) - $147.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820227388

~MSI 260gtx 896mb 448bit, 216 cores. - $174.99, $159.99 with $15 mail in rebate.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127430

~Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache HDD - $74.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136319

~Corsair 850tx PSU - $139.99, $119.99 with $20 mail in rebate.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817139009

~HP Black 24X DVD - $33.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E1682714004

Total without shipping ~$1,216.88
Total with shipping ~ $1,241.97

Since, you already have some parts already, you should have enough to add an OS, and a better CPU cooler.

Let me know if the links are broken. ;)

Anyways, good luck!
 
Dark12 said:
You guys should sell me your old mobo/cpu/memory. :)
Click to expand...

LOL.. no can do... am using some parts from my wife's computer to help build my brother-in-law a new computer, my wife is getting the CPU/MB/RAM and the GTS250 from my rig in sig in her computer... and I will gank the GTS250 back and give here my 4850 once I can get a 5850 or 5870.

I almost never upgrade unless I am either passingthe parts down or selling some of them to help me recoup the cost of the upgrade.

I really only had to pay out of pocket for the i7 920 when all said and done cause I had some money in my paypal account and my bro-in-law is buying a MB and 4GB of RAM from me.
 
I jumped from Q6700 @ 3.51GHz to i7 920 @ 3.5GHz and this is nothing to sneeze at. For games, I disable HT so all of the raw power goes to them. For days when I need to encode, HT helps a lot. I don't lag in Dalaran anymore like I did on the Core2Q system.
 
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