Upgrade or not from a Q6600?

R

Robin B

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 14, 2004
Messages
209
Still running on my Q6600@3600Mhz 1,4v 24/7 since it came out. A few days ago it started to act weird, clocked it self down on the fsb to default.

So i am looking to upgrade my cpu, mem and mobo. But seeing that the socket 1155 is at the end of its life i need som advice what to do?
 
I wouldn't worry about EOL if you get the performance you need out of it. I recently upgraded from a q6600 to a new 2600k/p67 chipset and I could not be happier. Easy as hell to overclock compared to the q6600 and I'm definitely enjoying the new performance!

If you're looking for a q6600 to replace yours with though, I have my old one that did [email protected] on a 750i motherboard :)
 
SSD, Q9550, GTX 680, new Power supply were my reaction to a slowing/failing system. I'm doing everything I can to avoid a new windows instal. But that's just me...
 
Relativist said:
SSD, Q9550, GTX 680, new Power supply were my reaction to a slowing/failing system. I'm doing everything I can to avoid a new windows instal. But that's just me...
Click to expand...

...and that's a horrible route to go. The 9550 is not at all competitive compared even with a modern dual core, nevermind something like a 2500K which would be about the same price, maybe $50 more. The GTX 680 is being bottlenecked beyond belief in that system to the point it might as well be a GTX 480 or worse. Far worse. The SSD is the only thing in that list that makes any sense at all.


To the OP: If you are not "hurting" with the CPU at stock (and have you tried returning to the OC? Maybe your CMOS battery is just on the way out) I'd hold out for the next Intel socket in 6-8 months. If it's no longer doing what you want, pick up a cheap Z77 board (I recommend Biostar, they offer amazing bang for the buck) and 8-16GB of RAM with a 2500K (ideally used to save some cash) or one of the current Ivy Bridge quads.
 
Get an i5-2500k system. If you reuse parts you could probably do it for under $400. Have mine at 4.8 on a coolermaster hyper 212+
 
If my GTX 680 is bottlenecked it's by my monitor in BF 3. So far so good 60 FPS with adaptive vsync most of the time. For the OP I would reccomend a simple tune up, who knows some freshly applied thermal compound may do wonders...
 
Relativist said:
SSD, Q9550, GTX 680, new Power supply were my reaction to a slowing/failing system. I'm doing everything I can to avoid a new windows instal. But that's just me...
Click to expand...

Terrible waste of money should have gone for sandy/ivy bridge and when did a windows install become difficult?
 
Spun Ducky said:
Terrible waste of money should have gone for sandy/ivy bridge and when did a windows install become difficult?
Click to expand...

This, plus you don't actually have to reinstall Windows 7. Going from one Intel chipset to another worked fine when I upgraded from P35 to P67/Sandy Bridge.
 
I did my sandy bridge upgrade ffor around $380. 2500k, P67, and 8GB of g.skill. Though my motherboard is discontinued. I would recommend upgrading to sandy, it kills any C2Q out there.
 
Spun Ducky said:
Terrible waste of money should have gone for sandy/ivy bridge and when did a windows install become difficult?
Click to expand...

Well I'm not reccomending the OP do what I did, unless he has another reason to hold out like I do. For me it's mostly about time & preference. My next system will be win 8 and at least a 6 core. When I build a system I try to get the best within reason, so it makes an upgrade more expensive for me. At the point I'm at now, I have upgraded all the extras so that at this point I'd be only getting a new MB/CPU/RAM set once I do upgrade.

If the OP finds a simple fix that's probably the best bet. A simple fix would be power supply, reapplying thermal paste, etc.

Otherwise he needs to find his upgrade path, admittedly mine seems backwards from what others chose.
 
i was in the same spot a little while ago. i bumped the Q6600 for a Q9400 @3.4GHz and swapped out to 8GBs of DDR2-800, 7770 and a vertex 3 and it performed really well. strong upgrade from the 4GBs and 4850.

but when i built my sandy bridge system it was a huge leap in performance. but it was a completely ground-up build.
 
I don't OC anymore (I have enough computer stuff to solve w/o putting o'clocking into the mix) and I am seriously considering going from a Pentium Dual core (E5800) to a i5-3450 for $149 at MC. If I'm feeling really ambitions I might go for i7-3820/LGA 2011
 
Well other than what do you use your computer for, if you have to ask then the answer is probably no, you don't need an upgrade. Is there a big performance increase? Yes, a very big one. But that depends on what you do. If you were straining your current system you would know it.
 
Its mostly used as a server, but i also use it for some gaming. Next on my list is to change my 5870 since i run a 27" Lg-Ips panel, but i will wait to see what Nv comes out with later, or when the 680 drops in price. Price is not the biggest issue when it comes to a new cpu, i want something that is more futureproof and i was looking at the Core i7-3820 with the ASUS P9X79.

So my next question would be if its possible to overclock the Core i7-3820 on the Asus board?
 
I just upgraded my Q6600 to a 3570k, very happy with the upgrade. I play a lot of Civ 5 which choked my Q6600 at late to end game with next turn taking 30-45 seconds, 3570k takes less than 10 seconds so yeah, I'm really pleased. As for the SB-E, my person opinion is you go 6 core or you don't go at all and/or you really need a lot of RAM, otherwise go for a IB 3770k.
 
Robin B said:
Its mostly used as a server, but i also use it for some gaming. Next on my list is to change my 5870 since i run a 27" Lg-Ips panel, but i will wait to see what Nv comes out with later, or when the 680 drops in price. Price is not the biggest issue when it comes to a new cpu, i want something that is more futureproof and i was looking at the Core i7-3820 with the ASUS P9X79.

So my next question would be if its possible to overclock the Core i7-3820 on the Asus board?
Click to expand...

There are limited overclocking options for the 3820 (4 turbo bins and BCLK overclocking) but it's not as easy as with unlocked CPUs. Forget about socket 2011 unless you are getting a 6-core CPU and/or running 3-4 video cards at once (although I'd argue Z77 is fine for 3-way with PCI-e 3.0).

What do you mean when you say server? Just sharing files on your local LAN, or actually processing transactions in a db, VMware etc?

As for GPU, I would not expect price drops on the 670/680/7970/7950 until at least fall, possibly January for the next high-end GPU launch.

I upgraded from a Q6700 3.3GHz, 4GB DDR2, GTX 560Ti to a 3770K 4.5GHz, 16GB DDR3 and the improvement was significant in gaming (even with the 560Ti), especially in minimum frame rates/overall smoothness of demanding games like BF3. When I put in a GTX 670 it obviously blew away the old system. That said, I was still getting satisfactory gaming experience out of my Q6700/560Ti in pretty much all games except BF3 and The Witcher 2 (as well I had to turn down AA in some racing games to maintain 60fps).
 
What I am impressed with is that the OP is still rockin a 8800GTX! I haven't seen one of those in anybody's sig in awhile. That card must be around six years old? Talk about getting your money's worth.

I think if you are looking at "future proofing" I wouldn't get the i7 3820 since it's a quad. I would go with the 6-core i7 3930k.
 
Well I have finally decided to make the jump. I bought my Lian-Li case last fall on sale, thinking I would move my rig into it. But never wanted to take the PC down long enough to make the move. When I saw Microcenter have great deal on an ASRock Z68 Fatal1ty board and the I5 2500k, I decided it was time. Still need an SSD, but should start building next week. I am going to take my time with this one.

And I will temporarily be using my old 8800GTX in the new build until I am ready for it to swap out the main rig ;) Also going to give the Preview of Windows 8 a go, to avoid buying another OEM of Win 7.
 
Last edited:
Tae said:
Well I have finally decided to make the jump. I bought my Lian-Li case last fall on sale, thinking I would move my rig into it. But never wanted to take the PC down long enough to make the move. When I saw Microcenter have great deal on an ASRock Z68 Fatal1ty board and the I5 2500k, I decided it was time. Still need an SSD, but should start building next week. I am going to take my time with this one.

And I will temporarily be using my old 8800GTX in the new build until I am ready for it to swap out the main rig ;) Also going to give the Preview of Windows 8 a go, to avoid buying another OEM of Win 7.
Click to expand...

I've been rocking the various Previews of Windows 8 in turn as each was posted to the Web (with both the Consumer and Release Preview becoming sole - not merely primary - OS in turn) - and that's with a stock-clocked Q6600.

And as good as 8 RP runs on basically two generations old Intel hardware, Ivy Bridge (and Sandy Bridge) bring a lot more to the table.

1. Despite having a smaller on-die cache than Q6600, i5-3570K (at bone-stock, mind you) will run rings around Q6600. (Naturally, the fact that it's an unlocked CPU, and that all three Z-series chipsets (Z75 for businesses and both Z68 and Z77 for consumers and enthusiasts) are far better than the equivalents of even Yorkfield's day, let alone Kentsfield's day, means that you get far more bang for basically the same amount of buck - i5-3570K is priced identically to new Q6600 pricing as of the Great Kentsfield Fire Sale.)

2. Windows 8 supports Hyper-V (vastly improved desktop virtualization, sourced from Windows Server 2008) - one key feature included with LGA1155 (i3 and above) is Second-Level Address Translation (SLAT), that Hyper-V in Windows 8 requires. Hyper-V with SLAT is definitely better than Hyper-V without it from a performance standpoint.

3. Larger RAM capacities - this is part of the maturation of DDR3 desktop memory. The 8GB DDR3 DIMM module is now appearing in quantity, and at reasonable prices. My biggest quibble with LGA775 is the poor memory *capacity* issue (regardless of whether DDR2 or DDR3, all too many of the latter support a mere two DIMM slots; worse, they don't support 8GB DIMMs at all) - if you have a tower-type air-cooler that costs you a DIMM slot, you will almost certainly want, if not need, 8GB DIMMs if 16GB of RAM is your target.
 
PGHammer said:
3. Larger RAM capacities - this is part of the maturation of DDR3 desktop memory. The 8GB DDR3 DIMM module is now appearing in quantity, and at reasonable prices. My biggest quibble with LGA775 is the poor memory *capacity* issue (regardless of whether DDR2 or DDR3, all too many of the latter support a mere two DIMM slots; worse, they don't support 8GB DIMMs at all) - if you have a tower-type air-cooler that costs you a DIMM slot, you will almost certainly want, if not need, 8GB DIMMs if 16GB of RAM is your target.
Click to expand...

I was very tempted on 2x8gb dimms, very. Unfortunately, I had to cut cost somewhere and going with 8gb memory off the bat instead of 16gb was what got cut. Mainly because that is what I am running in Win 7 now, so starting in 8 with 8gb was minimum. I am guessing that when I go to 16gb, I will go with 2x8gb dimms, mainly because I have had few boards that don't like overclocking with all 4 dimms used.

Thanks for the post, I have been very tempted based upon reviews to just get another copy of Win 7 instead of trying out 8. You have encouraged me to give 8 a go first.
 
Last edited:
I just decided to go with the socket 1155, orderd the GA-Z77X-UD3H Z77 with 8 gig mem and a I5 3570K. My water cooling is getting replaced with the Noctua NH-D14. All in all it was a cheap upgrade for now.:)
 
Robin B said:
I just decided to go with the socket 1155, orderd the GA-Z77X-UD3H Z77 with 8 gig mem and a I5 3570K. My water cooling is getting replaced with the Noctua NH-D14. All in all it was a cheap upgrade for now.:)
Click to expand...

I went from a Q6600 to 2600k and noticed an improvement. I think you made the right choice with IB.
 
Robin B said:
I just decided to go with the socket 1155, orderd the GA-Z77X-UD3H Z77 with 8 gig mem and a I5 3570K. My water cooling is getting replaced with the Noctua NH-D14. All in all it was a cheap upgrade for now.:)
Click to expand...

Grats, get that old stuff repurposed/resold. Are you going to go SSD also?
 
Was thinking of the 520 from intel, but i have to sell my old parts if not my wife would kill me.;)
Will setup raid 1 on 2x500gb discs first, guess it will do for a while.
 
silent-circuit said:
The 9550 is not at all competitive compared even with a modern dual core, nevermind something like a 2500K which would be about the same price, maybe $50 more...
Click to expand...

A q9550 still packs a punch. Mine at 4ghz is not much slower than my 930 @ 4ghz. I wouldn't say it was a waste of money, especially since they still sell for 150+ (and probably will for a long time) and the 680 and SSD can easily hop into the next system...
 
Kty said:
You fat fingered your sig Tae.

*Z68 not X68
Click to expand...

Thanks! I would not have noticed.



Oh, and I did give Win 8 a go, but it had issues with my SSD. Metro kind of blows too, so I went with Win 7.
 
CruisD64 said:
A q9550 still packs a punch. Mine at 4ghz is not much slower than my 930 @ 4ghz. I wouldn't say it was a waste of money, especially since they still sell for 150+ (and probably will for a long time) and the 680 and SSD can easily hop into the next system...
Click to expand...

Exactly what I did, hoping to be able to jump into a fully supported/bugs worked out PCIe 3.0/USB3.0/Windows8 etc. system.

For now SSD/Q9550/GTX680 have been enough of an upgrade for my uses.
 
Last edited:
I've yet to see any good argument to "upgrade" from Win7 to Win8 unless you're into tablets :p
 
leh18621 said:
What I am impressed with is that the OP is still rockin a 8800GTX! I haven't seen one of those in anybody's sig in awhile. That card must be around six years old? Talk about getting your money's worth.

I think if you are looking at "future proofing" I wouldn't get the i7 3820 since it's a quad. I would go with the 6-core i7 3930k.
Click to expand...

I had my 8800 GTX for five years before I upgraded to a GTX 680, It really matter on what PC game made you want to upgrade for and witcher 2 and metro 2033 made me want to upgrade.
 
Up and running, priming now at 1,26v set to 1,28 in bios. Temps with prime stays in the mid 70. Will not run prime at any lower vcore without failing, so how high vcore is safe on these chips in the long run?
 
Robin B said:
Up and running, priming now at 1,26v set to 1,28 in bios. Temps with prime stays in the mid 70. Will not run prime at any lower vcore without failing, so how high vcore is safe on these chips in the long run?
Click to expand...

You're fine if your Prime is mid-70s, are you using Prime95 27.7, small FFTs to test?

It seems like a temperature wall is usually hit by 1.35V (or less), but there isn't clear data on what is "safe" to run 24/7. I believe in some of the Asus videos, they say 1.4V is absolute max, but I see most people running 1.32V or less. Personally, I do not want load temps over 80C in LinX (personal preference) so I am running 1.2V.
 
Yea im running small FFTs, had a reboot after i lowerd the pll voltage to 1,5v. Running with 1,65v now, will see how thats work. No errors in prime so far.
 
MaadDaawg said:
I've yet to see any good argument to "upgrade" from Win7 to Win8 unless you're into tablets :p
Click to expand...

FUD, FUD, and more FUD. (And, quite honestly, I'm tired of it.)

The Start menu has basically been broken since Windows XP - the patches of Vista and 7 were done because there wasn't an alternative out there.

Now there *is* an alternative (with none of the Start menu's faults) - and it's built into the OS. Is it feature-complete? No - no more than the Start menu was with Windows 9x (or even NT4).

I migrated to Windows 8 for the typical reasons one upgrades - it runs my applications better than the previous version of Windows, and I have far less in the way of fiddlework I have to do maintaining it. Besides, I use it on a desktop - that means keyboard, mouse, and no touch. If this were a *tablet OS*, would that even be possible?

Don't fall for the FUD - evaluate it yourself.
 
Win 8 does not run anything "better" than 7, from what I've seen, so I have zero idea what the above poster is talking about.
 
leh18621 said:
What I am impressed with is that the OP is still rockin a 8800GTX! I haven't seen one of those in anybody's sig in awhile. That card must be around six years old? Talk about getting your money's worth.
Click to expand...

My old main rig that contained my 8800GTX was retired to HTPC duty and its still rocking in there. I've had it since launch and up until a few months ago it was on 24/7. :) Very happy with that video card purchase.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top