3.28ghz Q6600 upgrade options

[Golden Dragoon]

Was thinking about replacing my Q6600 with something a bit more energy efficient whilst still keeping the performance in folding and other apps, was thinking about going for a phenom x4 to start with and upgrading in the future to an x6 or piledriver fx based cpu, I have looked about abit and have seen that a decent AM3+ mobo isn't that expensive, nor is DDR3, but I would like to know which phenom processor would give me a reasonable performance boost, I am running a water loop and do intend to over clock the chip, so if there are any that are known to be bad overclockers I can discount them.

Anyway my idea was to get this gigabyte mobo:
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigab...e-20-(x16)-atx

And either 1600 or 1866mhz ram:
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/8gb-(...9-9-24-xmp-15v
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/8gb-(...-9-27-xmp-150v
Would I see much improvement going with 1866 ram, or would it just get me a bit more headroom when overclocking?

Also as a side note, how much could I reasonably ask for my current setup, I have a G0 Q6600 that can clock to 3.6* at least when I had 2 sticks of ram, it won't get much past 3.3 with all 4 slots though, a gigabyte GA-X48-DS5 and 2x 1gb Giel PC2-6400 ram and 2x 2gb Kingstone PC2-6400 ram?

*(max I ever got was 3.8ish but the power draw at that level is immense it uses almost 150w more at the wall for an extra 200mhz due to the large voltage increase needed to run past 3.6)

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

What is your budget and what are the main uses of your computer??

ATM,the Intel CPUs are usually better for power consumption.

However,Scan do sell the 95W Phenom II X6 1045T for around £97.

[Golden Dragoon]

My budget is fairly flexible but although I can afford a 2700K+mobo+ram I can't quite convince myself of the cost-benefit ratio, I would rather spend less for good performance than top £ for the "best" performance.
I do a fair bit of video editing, and reasonably often compile with GCC and play a number of games, so I would like to stay with a quad+ due to the editing, the compiling tends to only load a single core fully, I know you went from a Q6600 to an i3 and didn't notice any real slowdown, but I think you also said that you don't do much that requires the extra cores.

Edit: what is the 1045T like for overclocking?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would have a look at this CPU:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/intel...tio-80w-retail

It cannot be overclocked that much and lacks Quick Sync but is basically a lower clocked Core i7 2600.

Edit!!

The Xeon E3-1230 also has a lower 80W TDP too.

A cheaper alternative is the 95W TDP Phenom II X6 1045T:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/amd-p...che-95w-retail

However,like with Bulldozer,SB has AVX abilities unlike the older CPUs which should prove useful for video encoding.

[abcsom]

I have 2 systems atm once which has a AMD Phenom II X4 with a gigabyte AM3+ mobo with 8GB ram and a Core i7 2600k with a evga z68 FTW mobo with 8GB RAM and there is a significant different between the 2 the AMD box now just runs as a linux slave as it was poor for gaming and editing videos for youtube. I upgraded to the Phenom II X4 from a Q6600 @ 3GHz and i felt that i was better with the Q660. That made me get the i7 2600k.

I was extremely disappointed with the AMD system but am over the moon with the intel one ...

[Golden Dragoon]

I like the xeon, but from what I can see there is basically no chance of overclocking a decent amount, it's a pity they don't do a K version of it, AVX isn't that important right now because as far as I know vegas movie studio hasn't added in support for it yet.

Edit: I can only feel a small difference in my Athlon system @ 3.2 and my Q6600 @ 3.3 when editing with the same amount of ram, so I'm not sure why you would feel a Q6600 is better than a phenom 2, the difference is a lot larger when I have the full 6gb ram in my c2q though, as the athlon system is mostly a htpc I only gave it 2gb of 1333mhz ram.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Bagnaj97 went from a Q9300 running at 2.5GHZ to an Athlon II X3 running at 4GHZ and it was a decent improvement in virtually all his games and that was with an HD5850 1GB.

Here are some threads on overclocking the 1045T although YMMV:

http://www.overclock.net/t/1210990/f...om-ii-x6-1045t

http://www.overclock.net/t/1192454/o...om-ii-x6-1045t

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/s...d.php?t=667951

I suspect single thread IPC will be comparable to your Q6600,but there are 50% more threads.

However,looking at this article,a Core i3 2100 looks significantly faster in Sony Vegas 10 than a QX6700 and nearly as fast as a Phenom II X6 1090T:

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1501/15/

However,the review does not state the size of the file encoded and what profile was used. At least what is starting to be seen, in the new HandBrake thread, is that the encoding profile used can change the relative performance ranking of CPUs when compared to each other.

[Golden Dragoon]

Looking at my options I am going for an x6 system with a view to upgrading to piledriver when it is released, assuming I win my ebay auction I should have a Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 to plug everything into and am thinking the 1045T @ £100 is a good deal, if I dont win the 990FXA-UD3 I will prob get a GA-990XA-UD3 from scan as well and most likely the vengeance 1600 ram set I linked to before, coupled with my gtx460 and ssd I can see this being a pretty powerful upgrade from what I curently have and it should consume no more power that my machine currently does, even a bit less.
Of course if you can see any problems with this plan then let me know

Looking at the costs that would be:
CPU: £100
Mobo: £90
Ram £44
Total: £234 ish

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I am not sure how good PD will be for gaming,however what I expect is probably improved IPC with much higher clockspeeds for a given TDP. Of course I am uncertain how it will do against SB and IB.

OTH,the AMD 990 series motherboards are great value for money. The Gigabyte 900 series motherboards do have a throttling issue with BD but AFAIK a newer BIOS version solves the issue.

[Golden Dragoon]

Well I just won the GA-990FXA-UD3 for £89 inc postage, and it's from novatech rather than some random company so it should be perfectly ok, I have always been a bit worried about getting parts from ebay.
Was looking about for a BE x6 but they seem to go for silly money, I assume they are no longer produced.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

None of the Phenom II X6 CPUs are made anymore. What cooler are you using with your Q6600?? Even AM2 coolers should be fine with AM3+ motherboards.

[Golden Dragoon]

I have a water loop with a LRWB Storm G5, I may need to drill new holes in the mounting plate for the AM3 holes as I got it before AM3 came out but it will be fine, it keeps my Q6600 at 45-50 C at full load depending on room temp.

Edit: Looking at it I may need to lay this G5 out to pasture it was designed when dies were only 150-200mm^2 tops, and the phenom is 346mm^2 and my current Q6600 is 2 x 143mm^2 although there is a couple of mm of space between the dies, which if you include it brings the Q6600 to about the same size as the X6 so it might be ok, if not I will just get the EK supreme that I have been thinking about for a long time.

[Golden Dragoon]

Irritatingly when I got home today to order the 1045T from scan it seems that they have gone out of stock and are displaying as pre order, same with the 1055T

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

You could always get a 95W FX6100:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B005UBNKW...SIN=B005UBNKWO

Here is a detailed review:

http://ht4u.net/reviews/2011/amd_fx_6100_4100_review/

Performance in a few games should improve by upto 6% or thereabouts with the hotfix.

The other alternative is to get a 95W Phenom II X4 960T BE and try unlocking it to a six core.

[Golden Dragoon]

The 960T can be had from ebuyer for £97 so it is an option, but I will wait and see if scan are going to get any more in, in the near future, other than that I may just have to go for a bulldozer, I was wanting to get a phenom and wait til piledriver, but if I have to I will do it.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I meant to say unlock to a six core!! Doh!!