Is anyone still gaming on a Q6600?

[TomRHooper]

This CPU had a killer reputation back in the day and every time a new generation was released, I was surprised by the number of people choosing to stick with it. Is anyone still using one today not because they can't afford to upgrade, but just because it's still good enough?

[stawte]

Quite interesting question.
I never had an Q6600 but I stil do have an Intel Core 2 Quad Q9505 (upgrade from Q9400-upgrade from E8400) system with HD4870x2. But I hardly use it. I am however going to keep it just for the nostalgia sake. For the same reason I sill have my I5 2500k system.
I guess I am the kind of person that likes to hang on things that gave me happines in the past.

[Zak33]

I had one as a spare PC 18 months ago... it was genuinely slow. It's truly not up to the job any more. And it burned electricity like no ones business.

the "old" cpu that still does a gaming job is the Phenom II range from AMD - my old 6 core is being tormented by MLyons for a kiler overclock at the mo.... . Not as old as the Q6600/6700 obviously, but looong in the tooth compared to new tech.. but still capable.

[tombaker]

And it burned electricity like no ones business.

[[GSV]Trig]

I had the Q6600 before I went to the i7-3770, dont game anywhere near as muc as I did back then, not sure if I still have the CPU in one of the kids rigs tbh, neither of them use them though, ones all about the XBox the other has a Surface...

[DanceswithUnix]

Seems unlikely. A Haswell era Pentium can manage twice the frame rate, and even a hefty overclock doesn't really help.

Edit: ISTR having trouble with a CPU from that era not being able to upgrade to Windows 10 as well. Sounded like it was the BIOS not enabling some CPU feature, but with no BIOS updates for kit that old such things can be the end of the road.

[cptwhite_uk]

Anyone gaming on a shoestring should be looking at the i5-2400 as a baseline. They can be picked up for £23.50 delivered from CEX with a 2 year warranty, and offer around 85% of the 2500k shown in that graph. So you could hopefully expect around 65fps avg. FPS, relative to the graph above.

A more modern build with a slightly higher budget should look at the 9100F (4 core) @ £65, or Ryzen 5 1600 AF (6 core 12 thread) (with model number YD1600BBAFBOX). This performs similar to the Ryzen 2600, and can be had for £85-90, they are available if you shop around not not readily available yet.

[TomRHooper]

Quite interesting question.
I never had an Q6600 but I stil do have an Intel Core 2 Quad Q9505 (upgrade from Q9400-upgrade from E8400) system with HD4870x2. But I hardly use it. I am however going to keep it just for the nostalgia sake. For the same reason I sill have my I5 2500k system.
I guess I am the kind of person that likes to hang on things that gave me happines in the past.

My last real gaming PC (back in 2011) had the 2500K. That was a monster of a CPU - it hit a real price/performance sweet spot and overclocked like nobody's business. I got a Corsair H100 when they first came out and had it running at 5.2GHz. I guess that was a true heir to the Q6600 in many ways

I had one as a spare PC 18 months ago... it was genuinely slow. It's truly not up to the job any more. And it burned electricity like no ones business.

the "old" cpu that still does a gaming job is the Phenom II range from AMD - my old 6 core is being tormented by MLyons for a kiler overclock at the mo.... . Not as old as the Q6600/6700 obviously, but looong in the tooth compared to new tech.. but still capable.

Had a X4 955 Black Edition before my 2500K. Another great one

Anyone gaming on a shoestring should be looking at the i5-2400 as a baseline. They can be picked up for £23.50 delivered from CEX with a 2 year warranty, and offer around 85% of the 2500k shown in that graph. So you could hopefully expect around 65fps avg. FPS, relative to the graph above.

A more modern build with a slightly higher budget should look at the 9100F (4 core) @ £65, or Ryzen 5 1600 AF (6 core 12 thread) (with model number YD1600BBAFBOX). This performs similar to the Ryzen 2600, and can be had for £85-90, they are available if you shop around not not readily available yet.

The only price I've actually seen for the AF is on Amazon where it's almost £130, which I assumed was down to its scarcity at this moment in time. I hope Scan will stock it.

[PC-LAD]

Ryzen 5 1600 AF (6 core 12 thread) (with model number YD1600BBAFBOX). This performs similar to the Ryzen 2600, and can be had for £85-90, they are available if you shop around not not readily available yet.

Amazon regularly sell the 1200 for £40, which for the zen platform is pretty great. Still not going to get the ddr3 prices of the haswell and earlier processors

[DanceswithUnix]

Gamer's Nexus did a budget build using an Athlon 3000g which is £47 on Amazon for a 2 core 4 thread CPU but gets you on an AM4 motherboard. Even with the integrated graphics that would make a sweet Minecraft PC for youngsters.

[cptwhite_uk]

While I'd agree if you have budget a Ryzen 1200 is the way to go

Ryzen 1200 = £40
A320 mobo = £35
16Gb (2x8Gb DDR4 3000) = £60

Total £135


i5-2400 = £23.50 (CEX)
CPU Cooler = £10.00
Intel DH61WW mobo = £25.00 (E-bay)
16Gb DDR3 (2x8Gb DDR3 1600) = £30.00 (CEX)

Total £88.50 (or 65% the cost)

Yeah it's not as versative, or upgradable, but if you're building where every £1 counts, it's a good difference which could be put towards a graphics card upgrade.

[thewelshbrummie]

I'm keeping my Q9650 based rig for games that still need Win XP/32bit - for anything modern, it's simply not good enough any more. According to userbenchmark the 9900K is 374% faster that the Q6600 (I assume at stock). I think the post above mine regarding Haswell based Pentiums is evidence enough that it's time to move on from the Q6600 if it's in your main rig, especially as IvyBridge and newer have things like Sata 3 & native USB3 support (missing from every LGA775 motherboard).

[[GSV]Trig]

I found my 2 old rigs the other day and powered them on with the intent of selling them both on the cheap as they're plenty good enough for kids to do homework on and the likes, ones a Core 2 Duo 7200 or something, and the other is a Q6600, both with 4Gb RAM and 500Gb spinners, are you suggesting that these aren't worth anything lol...

[scaryjim]

Interesting thread. I'm in the middle of clearing out old kit before a house move, and was considering offering up my old Q6600 + mobo if it was of any use to anyone.

Seems unlikely. A Haswell era Pentium can manage twice the frame rate, and even a hefty overclock doesn't really help.

Edit: ISTR having trouble with a CPU from that era not being able to upgrade to Windows 10 as well. Sounded like it was the BIOS not enabling some CPU feature, but with no BIOS updates for kit that old such things can be the end of the road.

From this it looks like it'd have to be a *very* specific situation for it to be of any use, though. Perhaps it's time to send it to the big ol' recycle bin in the sky.

[DanceswithUnix]

Interesting thread. I'm in the middle of clearing out old kit before a house move, and was considering offering up my old Q6600 + mobo if it was of any use to anyone.



From this it looks like it'd have to be a *very* specific situation for it to be of any use, though. Perhaps it's time to send it to the big ol' recycle bin in the sky.

I believe there are charities around that will take old PCs for third world countries were they are still better than no PC at all.

But for the likes of us, it depends how much you value your time. I felt really bad when my daughter upgraded from a Phenom II quad core (3.2GHz 955 BE) to my old FX 8350 and found that transforms she was performing in art packages went from a go make a drink 5 minutes to a few seconds and a preview feature turned up that she had never seen before. Her software must have really needed those later SSE and/or AVX extensions.

[scaryjim]

I believe there are charities around that will take old PCs for third world countries were they are still better than no PC at all. ...

Will have to do some research. I've got at least three old subsystems lying around that are all (afaik) functional to some degree, but pointless for me to move again (given I've also got 2 more recent desktops for HTPC duties and my audio work).

istr someone (CAT, maybe) posting a link to a review that showed a quad core bay-trail atom getting close to the performance of a Q6600, so I knew it wasn't up to much - but at the time my windows tablet was running on a QC bay trail and 2GB of RAM, so I also knew it could make a perfectly functional office/surfing machine...