Upgrade to q6600 or go to AMD Phenom II 965?

[revol68]

Hey long time since I've posted but it's for my annual upgrade inspired by Battlefield 3.

I've currently got a E5200 running at 3.3ghz and it deals with most things except for Bad Company 2, my gfx card is a 5770 which I also plan to upgrade closer to BF3 time.

My concern for the moment is my cpu and I'm wondering if spending 80-100 on a Q6600 or something similar would be better than upgrading to a AMD Phenom II BE 965 with new mobo and ram, giving me more money left over for a gfx card come october for BF3?

Will the q6600 be likely to handle BF3 on high settings if put with a 6950 or 6970?

thanks

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

A Q6600 would probably be the most cost effective upgrade IMHO. However,I would wait until Battlefield 3 is released as there should be articles on CPU and GPU performance scaling IMHO. AFAIK,Battlefield 3 is an AMD sponsored title.

[revol68]

Cheers, is the q6600 going to be much of a bottleneck on a 6950/70 at 1080p?

The reason I'm tempted by the q6600 is cause it would be a cheap stop gap till oct and if it turns out to be not up to the task of bf3 I could resell it for not much of a loss and more than likely made up by drops in component prices.

Basically I'm wanting a green light to give myself a relatively cheap upgrade treat but just want to make sure its not a terrible decision.

[Jay]

I rebuilt my PC around my 2 year old Q6600 not long ago. New board (second hand), more RAM, new case, SSD, newish graphics card, Windows 7 Pro, H50.

I was going to go i7 but as the Q6600 does all I need I didn't see the point of an upgrade that would cost 3 x as much.

[Behemoth]

Just lump on a Q6600 and away you go mate, no need to splash the cash on all the other kit.

[watercooled]

I personally see a Q6600 as more of a sideways move unless the game can properly utilise >2 cores. It does have more cache but runs at a lower clock speed than your current CPU i.e. might be faster/slower depending on the application. If you want to stick with LGA775 I'd probably rather go for a 45nm quad or better still just put the money away for a more worthwhile upgrade nearer the time. Another option would be to overclock your current CPU, the dual core Pentiums tend to be good overclockers.

[revol68]

Just won a q6600 on eBay for 60 quid which is a bit of a bargain.

The reason for wanting to get the quad core is cause bad company 2 uses it and battlefield 3 will certainly need one. Already overclocked the e5200 to 3.3.

[planet436]

OC that 6600, BC2 is extremely CPU dependent. Question about graphics is hard to answer until the game comes out. As always though, wait for as long as humanly possible before upgrading your graphics card as prices will invariably fall.

[kingpotnoodle]

Q6600 has been enough for me, and still is really, overclocked to at least 3GHz though. Still pretty fast processors, probably pretty close to the Phenom at the same clock speed.

If you got a G0 stepping then you should be able to hit a good overclock without much extra voltage.

[revol68]

What sort of oc could I expect on non GO step chip with stock cooling? I got my e5200 up from 2.5 to 3.3, do you reckon 3.0 is do able?

[Jay]

yes with a B0 I expect 3Ghz should be possible with decent airflow

[revol68]

Right the Q6600 arrived yesterday and to my amazement is a SLACR one, quite a bargain at £58 quid including postage, I'd imagine it would have went for a good bit more if the seller had listed it as a SLACR, so lucky me.

Got to go buy a cooler for it and was wondering what sort of OC I can expect on air from a half decent hsf.

also if I fail to get one in Belfast tomorrow can the q6600 be ran using the e5200's stock hsf as a temporary solution?

[Bagnaj97]

also if I fail to get one in Belfast tomorrow can the q6600 be ran using the e5200's stock hsf as a temporary solution?

The Q6600 shouldn't overheat at idle with the e5200's hsf so you'll be able to boot to check the temps. Then, depending on temps, slowly load it up and keep an eye on things.

[shaithis]

Depending on the cooler and mobo, 3.2 to 3.4GHz fully-stable should be possible. Maybe a bit more with a lot of tweeking and a bit of luck.

[revol68]

Well I've got it running at just over 3.00ghz on air but I can't get the fsb to go above 344 (x9), I want to pump more voltage into it cos it's running cool but my crappy ASUS P5KPL-AM mobo only lets me chose between a v core voltage of 1.2 or 1.3. Does anyone know if a BIOS update would give me more voltage options.

[kingpotnoodle]

Well I've got it running at just over 3.00ghz on air but I can't get the fsb to go above 344 (x9), I want to pump more voltage into it cos it's running cool but my crappy ASUS P5KPL-AM mobo only lets me chose between a v core voltage of 1.2 or 1.3. Does anyone know if a BIOS update would give me more voltage options.

That's not a bad result with no extra voltage. Have you got Speedstep, VT etc still on? Have you set the RAM multiplier down so it's not over-gunning the RAM speed?

Probably not on the BIOS upgrade.