Upgrade my e6600 to What?

[maddogatc]

I am currently overclocking my e6600 to 3.06 on an Asus P5B Deluxe motherboard.
Thinking of upgrading my cpu but don't know the most cost effective one to get (quad or dual). Want to keep my p5b (bios 1236) as accounting (the wife) will not approve both motherboard and cpu as I am also upgrading to an ati 4870 512mb card from an 8800gt. I us the computer for gaming video encoding and general all-round use.

Prices in Canada

Q6600- $239
E8500- $250
Q9550- $387

 

[TC91]

q6600

 

[taltamir]

q6600

 

[rudder]

Do you have any software thats getting bogged down? Seems you like gaming since your getting a 4870. 2 more cores will not help out a whole lot in gaming right now. eventually more so... but by then you can convince the wifey to let you get an i7 when motherboards and RAM for those are more reasonable.

For encoding you would have to factor in the performance increase with say an E8400 and SSE4 extensions. But there is an encoding program out there that uses ATI stream. This technology is maturing fast and cuold easily negate any increased performace of going from a dual to a quad.

 

[hclarkjr]

Q6600

 

[maddogatc]

Yes I do like gaming however I use my computer for everything else as well. Looking for all round performance boost for least amount of money. Thinking about an Q6600 and overclocking so I get best performance bang for buck. Will probably wait a year to upgrade to the i7 when they are more affordable.

 

[JustaGeek]

Originally posted by: maddogatc
Yes I do like gaming however I use my computer for everything else as well. Looking for all round performance boost for least amount of money. Thinking about an Q6600 and overclocking so I get best performance bang for buck. Will probably wait a year to upgrade to the i7 when they are more affordable.

Same here... :thumbsup:

 

[Comdrpopnfresh]

e7200 or e8400 and get the 1gb version of the 4870 instead. The accounting department can be swayed for the 1gb 4870 because the 45nm e7200 or e8400 should save on electric + AC bills.
unless your doing hardcore video encoding while gaming, or folding like a fiend, there's not much of a reason to go quad (for general use + gaming). That, and once you go quad, there's not much reason to go i7 unless you like seeing higher scores on synthetic benches, and getting a 30% performance boost in few uses. Getting the new gfx card should help w/ encoding, right?
Why not get a cheapo case/psu/board and reuse the half of a system you'll be upgrading from? unless you're going to sell them...

 

[Acanthus]

Honestly you wont notice much of a difference with anything, EXCEPT if you go with a quad for encoding.

Very few games support quad core, and very few are CPU limited nowadays.

Id just get the 4870 and store the rest for your future i7 upgrade.

 

[noinimod]

If you upgrade pretty often, like 6 months to a year, get the dual. It's the best priced at this moment, unless you find a quad for real cheap

 

[brencat]

Wait on the CPU upgrade. Enjoy your new graphics card.