Q6600 still viable?

[rjbarker]

^^^ The only reason the E8400 was mentioned is because they can be OC'd (most anyhow) to 4Ghz, I have no experience with the Quad Core Qxxxx Series, but would guess they wouldn't get to 4 Ghz speed as easily.

 

[yycraven]

I would not upgrade your Q6600 as of yet. I am running a X3210 @3.5GHz and still running all the new games with no issues .
Wait till the i5 or i7 come down in price before the upgrade.

 

[rjbarker]

Wait till the i5 or i7 come down in price before the upgrade.

^^^ Iwouldn't hold your breath and any big price drops, even with the new release of I9......have a look at the price of the "old" Q9550" oe E8400....I paid $229 for my E8400 3 yrs ago...think its now around $190....thats a reduction of $40 in 3 yrs.......
You could be waiting a very long time for the I7's to drop in price.

 

[Empty_Quarter]

Yep, still running my Q6600 here, at stock too! Runs and plays everything I need it for without a hiccup. I see no reason to upgrade just yet.

 

[lemonlime]

Couldn't agree more. The Q6600 was and still is a great chip. I have one in my day-to-day main rig that serves me very well at 3GHz. It's never had a problem with anything I've thrown at it, and with an SSD the rig feels super quick.

If anyone is trying to get a bit of extra performance out of their P35/P45 rigs, be sure to take a look at the performance level - or Trc - you are running in the BIOS. The "Auto" setting is usually way too high and memory latency suffers as a result. I was surprised at the performance boost I was able to get decreasing performance level from 9 to 5. Latency went way down. You can use "MemSet" to find out what your performance level is in Windows.

 

[b1lk1]

You don't even NEED a Quad yet. I run a E6750 OC'd to 3.3GHz and it still runs everything I throw at it with ease. 4GB of memory is more important than 4 cores.

 

[zc1]

I just posted some benchmarks with my Q6600-based system running Dirt 2 with 1x vs 2x 5870 Vapor-X in an Eyefinity setup. The processor did very well. It was adding the second 5870 that made the difference:

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/video-cards/30097-5870-vapor-x-dirt-2-q6600-cfx-vs-non-cfx.html

 

[Elton]

I'm running an E8400 with 0 problems so far. So I'd say the Q6600 has quite a bit of life in them still.

In fact I've been debating on whether or not to get a Q9400, they're quite cheap these days.

 

[b1lk1]

When it really comes down to it, my kids P4 661 still does quite well with most games with a HD3650 on a 20" LCD with 1680X1050 resolution. I mean it isn't a powerhouse and you need to be mindful of using higher settings and such, but most of us are running machines FAR more powerful than needed. Quads are still not needed by 90%+ of present users.

 

[zc1]

Quads are still not needed by 90%+ of present users.

I agree completely.