Upgrade from 775 socket machine

[Boon72]

looking to update the old PC, the current spec is below, I've been looking at a Skylake upgrade to a 6600K but over night its gone up again to £208, I currently don't have my machine overclocked but never say never

thinking is it actually worth the 'K' premium over the 6500 or 6600 standard which are £30-£50 cheaper?

need a CPU, Motherboard & Ram suggestions.

old PC

Q9550
ASUS P5Q-E
4GB DDR2 Dominator

[Domestic_Ginger]

Guru3d ( only site I checked) overclocked their 6600k from 3.9 to 4.6 ~20%. Scalability is good in the tests they ran.

Unfortunately ocing is a bit dull these days. Maybe wait for it to come down again unless you need it.

[AGTDenton]

thinking is it actually worth the 'K' premium over the 6500 or 6600 standard which are £30-£50 cheaper?

Only reason I've opted for the K in the past is the resale value tends to remain a lot higher than the non K counterpart, but as that's never guaranteed the sensible me would suggest not to bother with the K variant, unless you actually intend on full scale overclocking.

Let us know what you would plan to use a new system for and budget, then we'll be able to recommend something based on your needs.
Looking at your system spec I'm guessing some gaming but not at full pelt.

[scaryjim]

... Let us know what you would plan to use a new system for ....

This, tbh. I imagine, having been a high end machine in its day, that your current rig isn't exactly slow. What's it struggling with that makes you want to upgrade?

[Boon72]

No it's not that it's slow, I'm looking to get a bigger screen (27") and with my birthday n Xmas this month and not much I can think of for them I thought an update from the 2008 machine was in order

[gupsterg]

The 775 platform IMO is perfectly good for everyday use, still use mine. You've said it's not that slow, so guessing the Skylake is not being warranted for gaming?

[EndlessWaves]

No it's not that it's slow, I'm looking to get a bigger screen (27") and with my birthday n Xmas this month and not much I can think of for them I thought an update from the 2008 machine was in order

Upgrading before you need to tends to be a waste of money. Go and buy a 3D printer instead.

[Agrippa]

My old system was a Q9550 on an Asus P5-something and it overclocked easily to 3.6Ghz. Give that a go and if you get at least part of the way there you can ask Santa for a hefty graphics card to run that srubbishrubbishrubbishrubbishy 27" screen instead.

[Heimanyip]

You could overclock with non k skylake a with a few of the z170 motherboards as well if you want to go that route.

[Bonebreaker777]

You could overclock with non k skylake a with a few of the z170 motherboards as well if you want to go that route.

Agree. I think it's now rather useless to stick to K-class CPU. Just go for the CPU you wish for (dual core only like Pentium, dual core with four threads like i3 or quad core like i5) and one of the motherboards from the overgrowing club of 'OC non-K CPUs'.

[Boon72]

well I have just completed my upgrade, in the end I got the following :-

Thermaltake F31 case
Intel i5-6500
ASRock Z170A-X/3.1
8gb DDR4 Corsair Vengeance LPX 2666mhz

and after swapping it all out I started up and the old Windows 10 install booted ok and installed the new drivers and also activated with my old Windows 7 key all online with no issues.

I was quite amazed at the Windows part as I was expecting to erase it all.

just need to find some money for the old HD 6950 upgrade :-)

[scaryjim]

Good stuff

What did with you do with your old CPU/mobo/RAM (he asked for no reason at all )?

[Boon72]

Good stuff

What did with you do with your old CPU/mobo/RAM (he asked for no reason at all )?

it's all currently still in my old case, as i just wiped out the PSU, GFX & drives out to put in the new case

[scaryjim]

Any plans to sell it? It could be relevant to my interests...