Upgrading from Q9550 to 2600K, worth it?

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ComputerManiac

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How much performance gain will I see if I upgrade to a core i7 2600k?

I am trying to decide whether or not upgrade to core i7 2600K...

I currently have a Q9550 @ 3.6Ghz.

Spec:

Core 2 Quad Q9550 @ 3.6Ghz
8G OCZ Reaper series PC-8500 (4x2) (1:1)
Asus P5Q deluxe
Asus Xonar D2X
AMD HD5850 1G
OCZ Vertex 1 60G x2 (RAID 0)
Couple DVD drive
Antec 900 with Antec TruePower Trio 650W PSU

Thank you very much!!!

Have a nice day!!
 
its worth every penny, but only if you get another 5850 in crossfire.
 
I have a very similar set-up to you and I took the plunge. Still haven't installed it yet though so I'll let you know.
 
It depends on what you do. Overall of course it'll be a nice upgrade, but it'll be a much bigger upgrade when it comes to highly threaded tasks like encoding because of HT in addition to higher clockspeed+ more IPC.
 
depending on the resolutions you play at i would say the 5850s probably holding you back more. But pick up a second 5850 and a new SB build then it should make a big difference.

For gaming though the 2500k is probably the best bang for the buck. The i7s hyper threading doesn't have much of an impact unless you are folding or doing some crazy rendering.
 
I'll say no, but I did it anyways with a Q6600 running at 3.6 GHZ and 4 gigs of ram. Sometimes ya just have to have fun and spend a bit of money on a hobby. I'm going to upgrade to ivy bridge in 12 months probably too depending on the price of an 8-core. However, I know people keep saying that there will never be anything higher then a quad core for 1155, but I've heard there will be 6 and 8 core variants with the ivy bridge refresh which keeps the same sockets (1155 and 2011) What I need more though is the PCI Express bandwidth 2011 will provide.
 
I have a Similar build. No SSD in raid, but Q9550. I too am wondering if its worth the upgrade. I mostly game. Nothing intensive apps wise.
 
Ok, thank you very much guys...

Here is what I am ordering.

1. 2600K
2. p8p67 pro
3. Corsair XMS3 8GB (4 x2 )
4. Corsair Hydro H70

later on I will get a GTX 580...will use the HD5850 for now....
 
From a Q9650 at 4.2 to a 2500k at 4.8ghz, BC2 feels alot smoother to me. The Q9650 wasnt being maxed out either. Was it worth it? Yeah but i also just felt like upgrading.
 
Z06 said:
I have a Similar build. No SSD in raid, but Q9550. I too am wondering if its worth the upgrade. I mostly game. Nothing intensive apps wise.
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Running the 9550 at stock it may be worth it to you if your sig is correct. I have a 9550 @ 3.65, 8 gigs of ram and a 260gfx and after seeing benchmarks decided the cost wasn't worth it to me for gaming. I am upgrading the graphics card though and in a year or 2 hope to bite on the newest chip out then.
 
Upgraded from a Q9550 (3.6GHz) to a 2600k this week. Getting the rest of my parts tomorrow and will have it put together by this weekend. I'll let you know my experience.
 
PM me if anyone is interested in selling just their Q9K CPU. Trying to upgrade my wifes E8400 as cheap as possible so a new mobo setup is out of the question.

Let me know.
 
Soulmetzger said:
PM me if anyone is interested in selling just their Q9K CPU. Trying to upgrade my wifes E8400 as cheap as possible so a new mobo setup is out of the question.

Let me know.
Click to expand...

Actually I'm selling mine in the nest 10 day's( whenever tax refumd come's) for 150.00 or so.
 
fullvietFX said:
Just sold mine for $175 shipped. Put it up for $190 but got haggled down to $175. :(
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I always sell cheap, I have no patient's so i sell to move. Also even though it go's for 280.00 on Newegg, I cant sell it for much when a 220.00 cpu is so much faster(2500k).
 
grilledcheese said:
I always sell cheap, I have no patient's so i sell to move. Also even though it go's for 280.00 on Newegg, I cant sell it for much when a 220.00 cpu is so much faster(2500k).
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Mine sold within an hour of putting it on here. I still need to ship it out actually.

On another note, taking 45 minutes to convert a two hour movie from MKV to AVI was the last straw for me. I hope my 2600K will be MUCH faster.
 
and the real question for a lot of us is max normal (on air) overclock and how the 2 cpu's compare to each other @ that speed

From what I've seen it's not worth it if you're not going sli, but if you are it is, or if you need one of the various other things the platform brings (usb3/more ram/etc) than it is.

I myself am waiting to see what AMD will bring to the table, nothing really feels slow with my Q9550 @ 3.6ghz with a gtx 460 1gb. My Zbrush work is plenty fast with this setup as well.
 
I still haven't seen any facts, but I'm really thinking a Penryn C2Q @ 3.6+ at 1900x1200 isn't much worse than a 2500k, at least for those who look for performance per dollar. Of course it's better but I doubt you'd see 20 frames more, and if you do it isn't going to be from 30 to 50 fps, the 20 will come going from 120 to 140 fps. In other words, few "real world gaming" differences.
 
butterfliesrpretty said:
and the real question for a lot of us is max normal (on air) overclock and how the 2 cpu's compare to each other @ that speed

From what I've seen it's not worth it if you're not going sli, but if you are it is, or if you need one of the various other things the platform brings (usb3/more ram/etc) than it is.

I myself am waiting to see what AMD will bring to the table, nothing really feels slow with my Q9550 @ 3.6ghz with a gtx 460 1gb. My Zbrush work is plenty fast with this setup as well.
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I felt the same way about speed with my Q6600 (B3) @3.4GHz 8Gb DDR2. It wasn't slow, by any means.

But I wanted something to dick around with again, since it's been over three years since I last fed my OC/system build monkey, and I needed a good excuse to tear down my 3 years-with-no maintenance-other-than-fan-dusting-tap-water-no-additive water cooling setup.

The price barrier to entry for Sandy Bridge was damned low, and I'm damned impulsive when I've got funds, so I went for it, a 2600K, P8 Pro, and 8GB DDR3. I should note that I'd already upgraded to an ATI 6950 a couple weeks before.

This is not a placebo, the entire system runs smoother, loads faster, gameplay is MUCH improved even though frame rates didn't go up all that much in comparison to the old system with the new card. It's hard to quantify, but everything is like butter now.

And it's like butter without an overclock! With an overclock (4.6) it's like melted butter on ice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up... :)
 
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