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Q6600 Vs 920, Really worth the extra $$$?

D

darren700

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 19, 2008
Messages
130
Ok, i want to build a new computer. I will probably be purchasing all the parts around late november - late december (including Black Friday, and Boxing Day) Below are my best guesses as to what the cost for each system would be. I am going to use this computer primarily for gaming, as well manage a large itunes library (200gb) and some encoding of x264. Im having a hard time justifying more than twice the cost for a I7 system over a Q6600. In your opinion do you think its worth it? keep in mind i only upgrade every 3-4 years. Will the q6600 oc'd be able to keep up with the i7 and current games 2-3 years down the road? do you think that im screwing myself going with a now obsolete socket? I bought S754 just as s939 came out and shot myself in the foot after cause of no PCI-E support and the inability to upgrade.

Thanks for any advice.


Intel Q6600: $160
Asus p5q-E: $130
4gb Mushkin Redline Ram: $50
4870: $220

$560


Intel 920: $280
Asus p6t Deluxe Mobo: $280
G Skill 6gb Ram: $280
4870: $220

$1060
 
I would say no but that is just me. I plan on holding off on DDR3 till It actually provides a good reason and price to upgrade.

I may build a Core i7 rig but It won't be until P55/DDR3 prices fall.
 
This is a tricky situation you are in. Look at it this way... you spend $560 now and get a Q6600 setup and save $500. 3-4 years down the road you decide to upgrade to an i7 which requires you to purchase a new mobo, CPU and DDR3 RAM. You already spent $560 on the Q6600 setup which means if you spend no more than $500 on upgrading to i7 then it's a wash. In short, it comes down to pay now or pay later. I don't think there is a best solution because we don't know what will be available 3-4 years down the road.

Sorry if this wasn't much help. I'm glad I'm not in your situation because I would hate to overpay for technology that isn't being fully utilized. If it were me, I'd say build for today's needs. Go with the Q6600 because that is more than enough for today's games and games 2+ years away.
 
You need to add in the cost of a good HSF.

Any HSF that you buy for the S775 will probably not fit on the new i7 socket 1336.
So unless there are legacy adapters made, that will cost you.

Where did you see the ASUS P6T for 280??? Most articles I've seen place the prices well over 300 dollars. At release all the i7 prices are going to be jacked, except the RAM.
 
cnick79 said:
This is a tricky situation you are in. Look at it this way... you spend $560 now and get a Q6600 setup and save $500. 3-4 years down the road you decide to upgrade to an i7 which requires you to purchase a new mobo, CPU and DDR3 RAM. You already spent $560 on the Q6600 setup which means if you spend no more than $500 on upgrading to i7 then it's a wash. In short, it comes down to pay now or pay later. I don't think there is a best solution because we don't know what will be available 3-4 years down the road.

Sorry if this wasn't much help. I'm glad I'm not in your situation because I would hate to overpay for technology that isn't being fully utilized. If it were me, I'd say build for today's needs. Go with the Q6600 because that is more than enough for today's games and games 2+ years away.
Click to expand...
3-4 years from now either system will be slow and outdated and newer faster cpus and platforms will be out.
 
cannondale06 said:
3-4 years from now either system will be slow and outdated and newer faster cpus and platforms will be out.
Click to expand...

+1

You can never keep up with technology. It's always going to be not worth it. You buy something now, a month later it's outdated, etc, etc.
 
soulesschild said:
+1

You can never keep up with technology. It's always going to be not worth it. You buy something now, a month later it's outdated, etc, etc.
Click to expand...

atleast it's not as bad as that year we went from 667mhz to 2-3ghz.
 
Zero82z said:
That never happened...
Click to expand...

No but I remember when we got a computer in 1998. 3 years past and early Pentium 4 where already to market that were exponentially faster than our 350MHz computer. Whereas when we got a computer in 2002 with its 2.53GHz P4, in 2005 it was still useable.

EDIT: I'd get the Q6600 rig. That should last you a good amount of time as it is still modern. Let Core i7 prices drop and then sell your parts and then buy Core i7. Get better tech and save money. Win.
 
450 said:
No but I remember when we got a computer in 1998. 3 years past and early Pentium 4 where already to market that were exponentially faster than our 350MHz computer. Whereas when we got a computer in 2002 with its 2.53GHz P4, in 2005 it was still useable.
Click to expand...

Such is life in the glorious world of computers :D.
 
i would get the nehalem system if i was u. why go on a dead end socket? u will HAVE to get a i7 of some shape or form later down the line anyway so why not go for it now instead of building a core 2 now and a i7 later resulting in your initial price being higher then before?

You also have to think about your income. alot can change in the next few years ie debts to be paid, loss of job etc etc. you may not have the money to buy a i7 later down the line. if you have the money to do so now, get the i7 and you wont be disapointed of if your a rich rich person who knows that in 2-3 years time u will still be as wealthy as u are now, go for the i7 later down the line
 
or you could invest the $500 instead of watch it depreciate rapidly. Though it probably won't lose value as fast as houses have the last couple years LOL!

Funny side note : my friend and I always joked about this guy in our apartment complex who bought a new lamborghini almost two years ago. We were like ha yea screw investing in a house, just go straight to the sports car. We saw it again a few days ago and realized that that lamborghini we joked about has probably lost less value than houses have over the last year and a half. Got served some crow.
 
I'd spend the $500 of the Q6600 rig and put the other $500 away, forget about it. In a couple years when the Q rig is starting to show it's age you'll already have $500 allocated towards a new machine and whatever other money you can come up with should put you in a nice new system. And that Q system will make a mighty fine HTPC rig for watching blu-rays. :)

Q6600 will still be a usable platform for the next couple years. A video card upgrade here and there is all that's needed.
 
I would look into getting a DDR3 based S775 system. This way you can get the ram today for the i7 system you upgrade to later. It may cost a little more (DDR3 is a lot cheaper than it used to be), but it will be cheaper than buying that ram twice...
 
Not worth it. A Q6600 with 4GB ram and a GTX 260 or HD 4870 will do just fine. The DDR3/x58/i7 are useless upgrades because they aren't worth the time, money and effort! Most Q6600 will do 3.0 - 3.2 on air and on stock volts (maybe a slight bump). There is no reason you need more in fact the 45nm have been flakey for me and you cannot push too many volts without damaging the aluminum gates. The 65nm is a more durable chip and overclocks better due to the higher multiplier.
 
Modred189 said:
I would look into getting a DDR3 based S775 system. This way you can get the ram today for the i7 system you upgrade to later. It may cost a little more (DDR3 is a lot cheaper than it used to be), but it will be cheaper than buying that ram twice...
Click to expand...

The only caveat I see in that is DDR3 will certainly come down in price in the next couple years. Buying it now to use later is a waste of money. Buying 4-8GBs of DDR2 now is more cost effective than buying 2GB's of DDR3 for the same price. I imagine, and this only speculative, that DDR3 will be priced in the ballpark of DDR2's current prices in the next 1-2 years. If that holds true, which it probably will with DDR3 becoming more mainstream, you'd be a fool to purchase it now for future use. We'll probably see a price trend similar to when DDR was being phased out by DDR2 and costs reversed course driving DDR up and DDR2 down.
 
flegg said:
or you could invest the $500 instead of watch it depreciate rapidly. Though it probably won't lose value as fast as houses have the last couple years LOL!

Funny side note : my friend and I always joked about this guy in our apartment complex who bought a new lamborghini almost two years ago. We were like ha yea screw investing in a house, just go straight to the sports car. We saw it again a few days ago and realized that that lamborghini we joked about has probably lost less value than houses have over the last year and a half. Got served some crow.
Click to expand...

that $500 that he could invest may dissapear quickly mate over the next few years. like i said, in a year or two you could need that $500 for something far more valuable then a pc. you could be jobless etc etc by then. You can never tell what will happen in the future mate. same crap happened to me. i had funds to build a q9450 a year ago but due to circomstancies i had to use a good bulk of my savings for something more important. i should have got the q6600 before the pethyn's came out but because i was waiting for it and because of my circumstances i ended up having hardly any funds left to get one.

i say, get a i7 if u have the money now or will do within a month or two. no point wasting money on yesterdays tech when EVENTUALLY u will still have to buy tomorrow's tech some day..

up to u pal but good luck with whatever solution u go for
 
Yea, but if he goes that route he should wait a bit to see if the 920 is anything like the q6600 was
 
flegg said:
Yea, but if he goes that route he should wait a bit to see if the 920 is anything like the q6600 was
Click to expand...

well wait till jan feb which i will be doing. tahts teh sweet spot right their mate. these cpu's are out next week so give it a month or two and u will see prices of these new tech fall abit
 
cnick79 said:
In short, it comes down to pay now or pay later.
Click to expand...

Well, since Core i7 is just being launched and everything is very expensive (especially motherboards, and also DDR3), I'm not sure if getting on the Core i7 platform is such a good investment compared to buying more reasonably-priced items down the line. We also don't really know how long the new socket will last, to be honest.. Sandy Bridge might require a new socket again (and I plan to skip the Nehalem/Westmere generation with my Q6600).
 
Mithent said:
Well, since Core i7 is just being launched and everything is very expensive (especially motherboards, and also DDR3), I'm not sure if getting on the Core i7 platform is such a good investment compared to buying more reasonably-priced items down the line. We also don't really know how long the new socket will last, to be honest.. Sandy Bridge might require a new socket again (and I plan to skip the Nehalem/Westmere generation with my Q6600).
Click to expand...

It really depends on your budget, what you're upgrading from and what you wanna do with your system.

Someone who has an old X2 system and wants to max out Crysis on a $750 budget is in a different ballpark from someone who already has a Q6600.
 
i'll throw my 2 cents in on this since i'm kinda in the same boat...

me personally, i'm going to be building 2 new i7 rigs for the me and the wife...since we both game and are currently suffering thru old single core 3700+s....it makes sense for me to hop on the new platform at the ground level. in my experience intel doesnt NORMALLY change sockets around once they release a new generation. so i figure i can grab a 920, run it stock, be blown away for now(compared to an old 3700+ lol) and when more power is needed start cranking up the clocks....

it all really depends, for the guys that are budget conscious but already have some nice Core2 setups, i dont see much need....for people like myself, it may make more sense.

my .02 .....
 
There will probably be several Quad-core systems and parts come up for sale in the FS/FT forums when people move up to i7. I don't know how you feel about used and possibly overclocked parts but that will be cheaper even than your new Q6600 cost.
 
Go Q6600

I did... twice actually.. I bought a new system last week to replace my gaming box and I've ordered a Q6600 again... it's just that fast @ 3.2 Ghz
 
well if you think about it a few diff ways.. if your a high end gfx designer then ya get the i7 it will make your work ez and faster.. if its for gaming i dont think the i7 is even faster unless you have 3xsli..

one thing ill say is asus is a very poor choice!

i7 will drop in price and 775 is almost as low as it will go.. you decide pay overpriced for new tech or buy it when it cost 500$.. so have both systems for the price of new i7 now..

also cpu coolers usually are 35$ for a really nice core contact one now days so that shouldnt even be a issue..
 
spend the extra coin now for the upgrade path or save the coin?

I got the Q6600 back in 06 just when the G0 became available and couldn't have been happier spending the extra amount, the CPU has now gone thru 3 generations of video cards and it's still not the bottleneck, perhaps in another generation, but doubtful.

My old P4 oc to 3.4ghz system lasted me from the 6800, 7800 series, so I consider that a fairly decent investment too.

Never look at a system in terms of future proofing, you know it will be outdated by what you do and how can it help you. For gaming purposes, the i7 isn't that much of a leap, for everything else, it's significant.
 
CPU aside, won't your biggest performance increase be jumping on the PCI-E bandwagon?

Buy a Q6600, cheap mobo, DDR2 and a decent Gfx card. Maybe something you can run two of in the future on an i7 system within a year. None of the current games are really going to utilize the i7 to it's fullest, and in the meantime you could save yourself a bundle and allow some maturity in both the chip and mobo's to develop and buy a better quality, more affordable i7 system in a year or two. If within a year, go dual GPUs. If not, you could prolly go through two or three Gfx cards if you wanted while waiting!!

I have an E4300, so while not in the same position you are in, I sympathize. Do I wait period and stick with what I have? Buy a Q6600 in a month when they are dirt cheap because of the holiday + i7 having come out? Or pony up on an i7 now and not have to worry about CPU and RAM for two years? Either way, upgrading my video is going to need to happen, no matter what my CPU is!
 
How about?

Intel Q9550: $230
Asus p5q-E: $130
4gb Mushkin Redline Ram: $50
4870: $220

$630
 
darren700 said:
Ok, i want to build a new computer. I will probably be purchasing all the parts around late november - late december (including Black Friday, and Boxing Day) Below are my best guesses as to what the cost for each system would be. I am going to use this computer primarily for gaming, as well manage a large itunes library (200gb) and some encoding of x264. Im having a hard time justifying more than twice the cost for a I7 system over a Q6600. In your opinion do you think its worth it? keep in mind i only upgrade every 3-4 years. Will the q6600 oc'd be able to keep up with the i7 and current games 2-3 years down the road? do you think that im screwing myself going with a now obsolete socket? I bought S754 just as s939 came out and shot myself in the foot after cause of no PCI-E support and the inability to upgrade.

Thanks for any advice.


Intel Q6600: $160
Asus p5q-E: $130
4gb Mushkin Redline Ram: $50
4870: $220

$560


Intel 920: $280
Asus p6t Deluxe Mobo: $280
G Skill 6gb Ram: $280
4870: $220

$1060
Click to expand...

Go with the Q6600 rig, and if you have extra money left over compared to what you would have spent on an i7 rig, get a better GPU. For example, you could get a 2nd 4870, crossfire them, and still come out cheaper than the i7. Which do you think would give you the better performance then? Obviously the crossfire setup... Hell go with 8GB DDR2 also and it will still be cheaper.

Over the next few years we will see more games like Farcry 2 that benefit from Quad Core, the Q6600 should have plenty of life in it especially if you have a good overclock on it.

Socket 754 was a dead socket that sucked the moment it came out, you're not doing yourself any favors making comparisons against 775.

I have a 2nd system that I built in 2003, a dual xeon rig (with 4 virtual processors since each has hyperthreading) and despite the system now being over 5 years old, due to the way things have continued to become multi-core optimized it feels just as responsive as many new systems I build and plays even new games like FarCry2 at 30+ FPS.

If you were talking about building a new dual core system now that would be one thing but I highly doubt a quad core system won't last a few years at least.
 
Well in my case, it was worth it...

Current system
P4 3.0
1GB DDR 1
Compaq POS mobo
Nvidia 9600GSO 384

New build
I7 920 $235 (live cashback)
MSI x58 Platinum $220
6 GB DDR3 $205
Same Vid Card

Parts should be delivered tomorrow.

As I see it, Even if I make 90-95% of what everyone else gets when overclocking this thing, I will be happy, and it was worth it for the cash I put out. I might get a 4850/4870 on Black Friday, but that's if I get cash somewhere else before then and they have it in town.
 
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