The "Core 2 Quad" club

[Ken g6]

I still have a Q9400 here, but I never run it because 4GB is just not enough RAM, and it's a cheap mobo so I can't upgrade easily.

 

[nickmania]

I still have a Q9400 here, but I never run it because 4GB is just not enough RAM, and it's a cheap mobo so I can't upgrade easily.

my q6600 is also 4GB. I run Photoshop with scratch files of more than 20 gb from a SSD, also windows page file from the SSD, pretty fast both. I also run cinema 4D, music vst and sequencers, epic unreal engine, huge browser sessions, RAW photos, vegas video...

only problem is my ssd has write 33TB ))

is an amazing machine if you pair it with windows 10 and a modern gpu, mine is RX460 2GB, as my bios cannot work with more than 6gb total.

it idle in windows at 0-9 % at just 2.0 ghz

it also has core parking via reg hack.

and as I have said, with updates like the new chrome browser is simply amazing how this machine performs.

 

[2is]

Personally, I feel C2Q CPU time has passed. It's not really too amazing that they can perform basic tasks, especially when you look at how much power they need to perform those tasks. A basic word processing/youtube box can easily be handled by a modern Pentium processor using the IGP while consuming about 20 watts. vs around 100 watts for the C2Q and discrete GPU.

 

[richierich1212]

All this core2quad talk makes me want to get my 1055T back from my brother (I upgraded his system to 4770K a couple of years ago) and rebuild a system with it lol.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

q6800 here, ran it in the GF's desktop (light gaming/photo work/browsing) until about 6 months ago when I updated to SKL, shifted my i7 950 down to hers. It's now sitting in a box, not quite sure what to do with it.

Still ran WoW and a few other things, albeit not well.. well enough for 1080p though.

 

[Shlong]

I still have a Q9400 here, but I never run it because 4GB is just not enough RAM, and it's a cheap mobo so I can't upgrade easily.

Put a 256gb cheapie Toshiba SSD in my parents Q6600 rig over the weekend. Hard to find DDR2 ram so I just left it at 4GB but what a difference the SSD made in speed. My dad likes playing chess online and on the old harddrive it would take 20-30 seconds to load but now it loads in 2-3 seconds.

 

[Charlie22911]

I'm rocking a q9550s in a pfSense box, that counts right?

 

[VirtualLarry]

It would be interesting to compare a Q6600 @ 3.5, with a G4560, for gaming.

 

[AMDisTheBEST]

I have a PC from the 20th century. It has Pentium 3 and windows 98 on it. How's that for ancient? Core2 quad to a kaby/Ryzen is like a middle age man to a 18-25 years old. They are beyond their prime but still gets the tasks done.

 

[Valantar]

It would be interesting to compare a Q6600 @ 3.5, with a G4560, for gaming.

My Q9450 runs at 3.52, do you have anything resembling a Fury X to compare with? If so, we could run som parallel benchmarks. I have a kill-a-watt too.

Edit: I might be able to get my hands on a GTX 970 in a few weeks too, if that's more attainable.

 

[Billb2]

Core 2 quad Q9400 (2.66 > 3.0 GHz @ 1.150 v), Samsung 840 EVO, WD Blue 1 TB, and Nvidia GT 610 in a Dell Optiples 755. Yes, you can overclock a Dell.

 

[hojnikb]

It would be interesting to compare a Q6600 @ 3.5, with a G4560, for gaming.

http://www.techspot.com/article/1313-intel-q6600-ten-years-later/ thats the closest you can get. I3 6100 is a tiny bit better, so you get the idea.

 

[richierich1212]

Core 2 quad Q9400 (2.66 > 3.0 GHz @ 1.150 v), Samsung 840 EVO, WD Blue 1 TB, and Nvidia GT 610 in a Dell Optiples 755. Yes, you can overclock a Dell.

Pad mod? I remember sticking a tiny piece of tape over one of the pads in a Dell prebuilt and it raised the bus speed effectively overclocking it. Can't remember if it had a Q6600 or Q8300.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

im one gen newer, rocking a i7930@4.2Ghz for last 7 years.

On its third GPU now.

I'm right there with you. It's a great system. Unfortunately my i7 930 won't do 4 ghz anymore at the same voltages I had written down 7 years ago. I've had to downclock to 3.8 to get stability.

I'm still on an ancient AMD 7850 but I guess that's fine for Dota2. I don't play anything too intense.

Also the i7 930 is actually somewhat new. The 930 wasn't launched until almost a year and a half after the original 920. I remember buying mine in around May 2010 after I got a nice performance bonus at work that year, and my friend who built an i7 920 system at launch told me "see you should've just built when I did and you would've been enjoying a much faster system for over a year now." In fact I just looked it up and the 930 was the last Bloomfield processor released. I remember I built the system so late that I was so shocked when Sandy Bridge landed and the performance per $ was so much better.

 

[Billb2]

Na, just SetFSB. Can't get over 3.2 GHz stable so I may try the BSEL mod.

If anyone is interested the PLL for a Dell Optiplex 755 (Dell 0DR845 motherboard) is CV193CPAG.

 

[rbk123]

Actually a Q6600 starts a $12 (OBO) shipped on ebay buy it now listings these days.

Time to upgrade my e2140 to a Q6600 - thanks for pointing this out!

 

[kpkp]

My main desktop is Q9550, most of its life running stock @ 1.08v (the modo doesn't get lower). Over the years, it has been running anything from Windows XP to 10, from OSX 10.5 to 10.9, various Linux...

Still perfectly usable.

 

[cbn]

Time to upgrade my e2140 to a Q6600 - thanks for pointing this out!

You just made my day. (Glad to see someone able to make use of that info).

 

[Billb2]

Q9400????

 

[nathanddrews]

Q9400????

Despite its higher number, the Q9400 is older than the Q8400. It was mostly used in OEM workstations I believe. The only differences I'm aware of is that the Q8400 lacks VTd and Trusted Execution. Otherwise, same clockspeed, same cache, same everything...

Peep this handy list.
https://ark.intel.com/products/codename/26553/Yorkfield

 

[Makaveli]

I'm rocking a q9550s in a pfSense box, that counts right?

That is one power hungry setup to use as a router that will be on 24/7

 

[TurtleCrusher]

My main computer is a Q8300 purchased 7.5 years ago on a $499 Dell computer deal. It has handled everything that I have thrown at it without problem until recently (it doesn't like the Dominion card games and Excel open at the same time).

I've been eyeing an i5 7600, but none of the large OEMs use it in their builds. For example, Dell uses the i5 7400 chip which is 500 MHz slower base (600 MHz slower turbo) for only $40 less. I'd gladly pay $40 for 500 MHz more speed. Thus, I'd have to build one myself (no time) or go to a custom builder ($1000 minimum). To get what I'd want I'd have to pay nearly double what I paid for a Q8300 computer and would barely get a bit more than double the performance on the CPU intensive tasks that I have (mostly integer-based code that I wrote). I'll cave at some point this year, but that Q8300 was such a good value that it is hard to move on.

I only upgraded from my Q8200 when I was able to get the fx8350/Mobo/ram for $250, which was about what I paid for the C2Q components. If it wasn't for the NBA 2K games rumored to need threads for a smooth 60fps (it was true) I'd still have that setup today. My laptop APU, where I do most of my gaming now, is around the same performance as my old CPU and still good for most tasks. If you're able to find a good buyer, the upgrade only cost me a net $100.

 

[slashy16]

I wanted to build a new system but, after I watched some of these side by side comparisons from youtube I felt there was no need.
I have a 2600K and have no reason to upgrade. I have bought a new GPU every couple years.

 

[SPBHM]

Despite its higher number, the Q9400 is older than the Q8400. It was mostly used in OEM workstations I believe. The only differences I'm aware of is that the Q8400 lacks VTd and Trusted Execution. Otherwise, same clockspeed, same cache, same everything...

Peep this handy list.
https://ark.intel.com/products/codename/26553/Yorkfield

Q8xxx had 2MB of l2 x2, Q9x0x had 3MB x2 so there was a performance differential there, also I think newer revisions of the Q8xxx CPUs also had Vt-d enabled.

That is one power hungry setup to use as a router that will be on 24/7

for a router sure, it's power hungry, but that's a 65W C2Q and low CPU load power usage on C2Q was fine, the main problem was with motherboards and other components, my E5420 (80W) can idle at around 40W with a G31 MB, I think it's possible to have a C2Q even lower than that,

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

That is one power hungry setup to use as a router that will be on 24/7

Heh, I have a PII X6 1045T @ 3.7GHz that's probably worse
In my defense, it is a seed + additional VM hosting box.
DD-WRT x86 runs inside its own VirtualBox VM.

Back on topic, the only C2Q I still have left in active service is a Q8400 in an IBM ThinkCentre M58p w/ 8GB DDR3, LP 5570 and 256GB SSD. Works perfectly well for a mom box