e6550 cpu upgrade ideas ?!

MrOneTwo

I wanted to upgrade my pc. Unfortunately I'm still using 775 socket. Thought about upgrading from e6550 to q6600.

My specs:

Intel e6550 (oc'ed to ~2.8ghz)
P5k Pro motherboard
2x2gb Corsair Ram (800mhz)
Nvidia 460 gtx 1gb

Don't know if I should spend money on 775 or just save and jump to newer mobo... Is there any benefit from quad cores (q6600)? I saw that many people here know a bit about this stuff so I await any ideas. Mostly cg and gaming pc.

Mongrelman

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/01/20/which-cpu-to-buy/

Mio

get new mobo....


q6600 is quite old for nowadays.


http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/53?vs=287

EarthQuake

Well here's the passmark CPU benchmark numbers:

e6550 - 1454
q6600 - 2966 - $190 new on ebay, ~$75 used on ebay

I5 2500/K - 6745 - $210/$220
I7 2600/K - 9095 - $300/$325

So the Q6600 would be a decent upgrade if you're short on cash, but the 2500K at ~$200 plus a $100 mobo and $50 for 8gb of ram would be a much better value, and the 2600K at ~$300 is still very good value for the money, you could probably go 4-5 years with the I7 before you have to think about upgrading again.

Quad core cpus show huge benefits in apps that are properly multithreaded, you'll see the biggest benefit with a quadcore cpu when doing things like rendering ambient occlusion in max/xnormal(maya still may be single threaded). You wont notice a big difference in all apps, but in the future more and more apps will be multithreaded. A lot of games are only optimized for dual core cpus, but again in the future more will take advantage of multiple cores.

To me the boost in baking/rendering time is well worth having a quad core.

If you really need a quick upgrade, buy a cheap used Q6600 off ebay for now(used is ok, its not going to be a long term investment). I wouldn't buy a new one though, just save up for a I5/I7 instead.

MrOneTwo

Thanks guys. I should know better. Its always same story with upgrading pc. Spend small amount of cash and you invest in hardware without future. Unfortunately I'm not cash-ready for new mobo + cpu. Maybe will try q6600 if I will find one with nice price. Thanks for the advices. I know what I should aim for.