QUAD 6600 OR i3 ??

[wazi]

is it time for me to replace my trusty GO salcr Q6600 ASUS p5b wifi ap ,4gb ocz reaper HD 4850 system and go for the budget i3 ?? would i get more bang per buck ?? im not sure if i can afford the sandy core i5's ?/
big dilemma as i want to upgrade and sue DDR3 etc... would there be a improvement in multi tasking etc...

[GoNz0]

save up more money, that seems likea bit of a sideways upgrade to me.

[nibbler]

or an amd hex core?

[wazi]

ive got a amd quad 9600 be £25 and decent mobo , which i intend to build up soonish just to test out or make the kids yet another pc
but wanted something a bit meatier for myself
looks like i will hav

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I have a Q6600 at 2.67GHZ and an overclocked HD4830 512MB and TBH it is still fine with most games I play at 1440X900 and 1680X1050. The HD4830 512MB will probably be replaced this year with an HD6850 1GB as some modern games are more graphically demanding but CPU will still do the job IMHO.

A Q6600 running at 3.24GHZ is comparable to a Phenom II X4 in many games and is probably not that far behind a Core i5 750 at stock clockspeeds AFAIK.

AMD Bulldozer is being released in April according to rumours and I would probably wait until then to see how it performs.

ive got a amd quad 9600 be £25 and decent mobo , which i intend to build up soonish just to test out or make the kids yet another pc
but wanted something a bit meatier for myself
looks like i will hav

I would get an AM2+ motherboard as it means you can use an AM3 processor in it.

[scaryjim]

Q6600 to i3 would be an upgrade in single threaded tasks but a downgrade in multi-threaded tasks (if you hunt out reviews an i3 has similar performance to a 2.5GHz Phenom II 905e in multi-threaded tasks, which I'm pretty sure would put it behind a stock Q6600). I personally wouldn't bother from a performance point of view, although you might be able to get a little bit of a power draw saving from moving to a newer architecture.

As it is, I would guess that your Q6600 is still performing adequately on a day to day basis (I know mine is ) and would therefore strongly recommend you follow CAT's advice and wait until after Bulldozer (and potentially Llano) based CPUs are released later this year...

[c.ruel]

Couldn't resist having a little look on anandtech cpu bench because I think this is quite an interesting question and unsurprisingly the results are pretty interesting.

Q6600 vs i3 530

What I noticed was in all the benchmark suites the i3 did considerably better than the Q6600.

However in alot of the "real world" non gaming applications that people might use a pc for like photoshop or encoding the Q6600 does fractionally better.

In a nutshell the Q6600 does significantly better in multi-threaded tasks compared to the i3 which does a lot better in single threaded tasks (unsurprisingly). This is obvious but how it manifests itself isn't, well not to me at least!

as I said the Q6600 did well in stuff like encoding. But in gaming the i3 does better. I find this a little bit surprising becaues everyone is going on about how much more threaded games are becoming. I know the games used by anandtech are old but crysis is supposed to be one of the few old games that benefits from a 3rd and 4th core and yet still the i3 did quite a bit better than the Q6600. I know the Q6600 has a much lower clock than the i3 but still thought it would be closer than that.

Basically I reckon if you can overclock your chip a little bit then do that and save up the pennies for bulldozer (pretty much what everyone else has said!).

[scaryjim]

... in gaming the i3 does better. I find this a little bit surprising becaues everyone is going on about how much more threaded games are becoming. ...

Games are *becoming* more threaded, but most still struggle to use more than 3 cores effectively, and that suits a Hyperthreaded dual-core down to the ground, really. The one game in the Anandtech benches that is unequivocally mutlithreaded is Far Cry 2 - and the Q6600 ekes out a narrow lead in that test

All in all though, there's no real surprises in the test. The only real reason for considering an i3 to *replace* a Q6600 is power draw... otherwise it'd be much better to wait a few months for Bulldozer / Llano and the inevitable price cuts on Sandy Bridge that will miraculously appear

[Uriel]

I would get an AM2+ motherboard as it means you can use an AM3 processor in it.

I won't be recommending AM2+ motherboards from now on (unless it's a hybrid AM2+/AM3 board like mine that takes both DDR2 and DDR3 - there is a reasonably priced ASRock board that does the same thing but it only supports up to 95w CPUs). DDR3 is starting to get significantly cheaper than DDR2 and AM2+ boards are getting hard to find. The difference in price could help fund a CPU upgrade if existing equipment is sold.

You can drop an AM3 CPU into most AM2 boards as long as the BIOS supports it. There will be a few features cripples (HT Link runs slower for example) but it's an easy drop in for many boards.

Plus AM2, AM2+ and AM3 appear to be dead-end upgrades. Looking very much like you can't drop in Bulldozer later.

[Domestic_Ginger]

If the AM3+ boards were available and wit the price of ram atm it would be my choice.

However the AM3+ boards are not available. I would stick with the Q6600 until something came along that really prompted an upgrade.

You could pickup up some budget ram in preperation of price rises?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I won't be recommending AM2+ motherboards from now on (unless it's a hybrid AM2+/AM3 board like mine that takes both DDR2 and DDR3 - there is a reasonably priced ASRock board that does the same thing but it only supports up to 95w CPUs). DDR3 is starting to get significantly cheaper than DDR2 and AM2+ boards are getting hard to find. The difference in price could help fund a CPU upgrade if existing equipment is sold.

You can drop an AM3 CPU into most AM2 boards as long as the BIOS supports it. There will be a few features cripples (HT Link runs slower for example) but it's an easy drop in for many boards.

Plus AM2, AM2+ and AM3 appear to be dead-end upgrades. Looking very much like you can't drop in Bulldozer later.

The problem is that the Phenom 9600 only has a DDR2 memory controller otherwise your advice is sound. At least an AM2+ motherboard will mean the current Phenom II processors can be an upgrade at some point.

[wazi]

I got a ASUS M3N78-EMH HDMI which i paid £15 , so will get this running and then wait for the BULLDOZER and sandy price drops, i have been fairly happy with Q6600
i had an E6600 which felt more flexible and more responsive than the quad iv clocked both to 3.2ghz and apart from 3D MARK scores in real world havent seen the big diffrence ( apart from encoding digital video )
so i plays the waiting game

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I got a ASUS M3N78-EMH HDMI which i paid £15 , so will get this running and then wait for the BULLDOZER and sandy price drops, i have been fairly happy with Q6600
i had an E6600 which felt more flexible and more responsive than the quad iv clocked both to 3.2ghz and apart from 3D MARK scores in real world havent seen the big diffrence ( apart from encoding digital video )
so i plays the waiting game

The Q6600 is basically a pair of E6600 dies in an MCM package.

[Uriel]

The problem is that the Phenom 9600 only has a DDR2 memory controller otherwise your advice is sound. At least an AM2+ motherboard will mean the current Phenom II processors can be an upgrade at some point.

You can drop recent Phenom II and Athlon II AM3 CPUs into many old AM2 boards. Example: http://www.asrock.com/mb/cpu.asp?Mod...veXFire-eSATA2. They just need an up-to-date BIOS.

Some up-to-date boards will take the 9600 and DDR3, just not at the same time: http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=N68C-S UCC

Depending on usage older Phenom X4s trade blows with current Athlon II X2s and get a good thrashing from X3s (never mind Phenom IIs or X4 CPUs) (see http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/23?vs=114 and http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/23?vs=112). I would just get rid of existing and drop in a cheap Athlon II if money is tight. Could be effectively be a free upgrade, by the time the old CPU, motherboard and RAM have sold.

Having said that: no need to stick to AMD if changing platform (but they are currently good value at the lower end).

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

You can drop recent Phenom II and Athlon II AM3 CPUs into many old AM2 boards. Example: http://www.asrock.com/mb/cpu.asp?Mod...veXFire-eSATA2. They just need an up-to-date BIOS.

Depending on usage older Phenom X4s trade blows with current Athlon II X2s and get a good thrashing from X3s (never mind Phenom IIs or X4 CPUs) (see http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/23?vs=114 and http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/23?vs=112). I would just get rid of existing and drop in a cheap Athlon II if money is tight. Could be effectively be a free upgrade, by the time the old CPU, motherboard and RAM have sold.

Having said that: no need to stick to AMD if changing platform (but they are currently good value at the lower end).

Yes,I know but I would still take an AM2+ motherboard due to the newer southbridges they tend to use.

The OP has just bought a Phenom 9600 and it seems they got an 8200 motherboard too for a total of £40. This is for another PC for their kids and not their main computer.

[Uriel]

Well - 8200 based AM2+ board should be fine (barring the expensive RAM issue).

I saw the OP had a motherboard ready to go and replacing it seemed like a lot of faff for little gain unless he was going to replace some other components too.

I've been holding onto an old AM2 board ready to drop in the spare rig but just realised that I could get a better, more upgradable, spec by getting rid and buying new low end components once you factor in 2nd hand DDR2 prices etc. If I went close to like for like I would probably have change left over.