Q6600 performance

[aza13]

Hello,
I'm going to be upgrading to the Q6600 within the next couple or weeks, i curently have a pentium D 2.8ghz atm. What i want to know, is what kind of performance increases should i expect to see? Also, i would like to hear any stories of those who've upgraded to the Q6600, and what they experienced after the upgrade. Thanks for your posts in advance.

 

[NarwhaleAu]

Stuff should run twice as fast.

The real benefit will be seen if you have a heap of applications open.

However, after a while your XP / Vista installation will fill with cruddy code that will slowly bring your system to its knees.

...time for a reinstall!

 

[Grimmy]

My upgrade path makes it hard to describe.

The only thing I can say, my system seems to be more smooth then anything, but then I'm running Vista 64bit on my quad.

Taking a look back, I was on a northwood P4 3.0ghz HT system, XP Home, to a E4400 system, which was faster, night and day analogy. Then upgrade to Q6600 on XP, then to Vista within a couple of weeks. Between the E4400 and Q6600, I didn't really notice speed since I had my E4400 OC, and my Quad wasn't. :lol:

But like I said before, the system runs smoother, without too many hiccups or delays when running allot at once. Game wise, its basically the same as my E4400... well, I should say better, since I using a better video card (8800GTS-g80 to 8800GTS-g92).

 

[aevm]

It depends on what you do. For example compressing DVDs might take 11 minutes instead of 30, and so on. Very often the quality of your hard disk will be essential - I find that my own Q6600 usually waits on the HDD and rarely gets to 100% usage.

In games, your video card will often be the limiting factor. If you have a very good video card and your old CPU was bottlenecking it then you should see an improvement with the Q6600. If not, you won't get much.

If you play FSX you will probably get 3 times the fps now because that game uses all cores.

 

[Steven Bancroft]

I went from a P4 3.0ghz Hyperthreader to the Q6600 and have absolutely loved it. Now you wont see an increase in EVERYTHING, because not all apps are able to use multiple cores. Video encoding, games that support multiple cores, etc etc you should see a definite benefit.

Do you plan on overclocking? The Q6600 overclocks from 2.4ghz to 3.0ghz very easily on stock voltage, but it may run hot. A 3rd party cooler is recommended for anything over a mild overclock. I use the Arctic Freezer 7 Pro, but many people recommended the TRUE or a Xiggy.

I think you will be pleasantly surprised with the upgrade. The Pentium architecture is very outdated, the Core 2 Duo is much more energy efficient, runs cooler, and overclocks like a dream.

Happy upgrading.

 

[aza13]

I would like to OC but i may stay with its stock clocking speed, at least until i get better cooling. I just put a 8800gt 512mb, which has put more heat in the box.

 

[aza13]

Is there anyone running the Q6600 that is curently playing "Age of Conaan"? If so, what kind of fps are you getting?

 

[Steven Bancroft]

Post the specs of your new/upgraded system so we can have a look at what you're working with and where its headed. But sure to list what you currently have (Mobo, proc, video card(s), power supply, hard drives, etc etc) and what your plans for the upgrade are. This will give us a better understanding on what sort of performance boost you can get and what your budget is.

Also let us know what the computer will be used for. Gaming? Video Editing? Or General MS Office/surfing.

 

[aza13]

I have a dell XPS 410, pentium D 2.8ghz, 4 gigs of ddr2 from OCZ, 320 gig hdd, 8800gt 512mb. Can't think of the mobo atm, but it is proprietary. And yes... i can make this upgrade. This machine is mainly for gaming.

 

[Kraynor]

I run a Q6600 and think it's a great little chip, however if your main goal is gaming you'd be better off buying a dual-core CPU with a higher clock speed. Games are only now starting to really take advantage of 2 cores, 4 is still a bit of a pipe dream for gamers. That's the whole reason behind the AMD Tri-Cores, 2 used for games/apps/whatever, and the 3rd used for the OS.

 

[aevm]

Sounds logical, yet somehow the Q6600 sells a lot more units than those Tri-Cores.

I agree with you Kraynor. The only game that uses a quad properly these days is FSX, AFAIK.

 

[Kraynor]

I never said the tri was a good CPU, just that it's a good idea

FSX and Universe at War are the only quads I know of, though it is nice throwing all OS-related things on Core 3 while games can hog 0 and 1 all they want, leaving Core 2 for Folding@Home cause I like thinking I'm making a difference

 

[aevm]

Never heard of Universe at War. I looked it up on wikipedia and I'm tempted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universe_at_War:_Earth_Assault

 

[Slobogob]

Games are only now starting to really take advantage of 2 cores, 4 is still a bit of a pipe dream for gamers. That's the whole reason behind the AMD Tri-Cores, 2 used for games/apps/whatever, and the 3rd used for the OS.

Actually the truth is they don't want to ship them to the next landfill, so what are you going to do with all those broken quad cores? The most suspicious thing about the tri-cores is, there are no server counterparts.

 

[Steven Bancroft]

Arnt the tri-cores the Quadcores that didint make the cut?

 

[jsc]

Pretty much. AMD undoubtedly figured that it's better to sell a crippled quad core for whatever they can get for it than to just dump it somewhere.

 

[aevm]

I think nVidia does something of the sort (or plans to) with its video cards. I read some article about it a few months ago. Sorry, no link, don't remember where it was. It's a smart strategy IMO.

 

[Slobogob]

I think nVidia does something of the sort (or plans to) with its video cards. I read some article about it a few months ago. Sorry, no link, don't remember where it was. It's a smart strategy IMO.

Actually every manufacturer does that. Nvidia sold their defective 8800gts as 8800GT or even (if it was broken beyond reckognition) as 8800GS. The Same happend with the 8800 GTX that came as a 8800 GTS. The 7900 Series knew GTX variants whereas the broken chips ended as 7900GT and even as 7900GS. Intel sells their broken 8000 series chips as 7000 series or pairs them up to sell a Q9300. The story goes on and on. It has been done since first faulty chip was produced.

Most manufacturers include a safety net so even if some parts of the chip don't work it can be sold. Even putting some redundant transistors on the chip is not unheard of - like a few extra clusters of cache that come in handy if there is a fault in another unit. It all depends on the manufacturing process, the chip size, yield rates and end price.

 

[aevm]

Cool! Thanks, that's quite interesting.

So, I guess, we'll see 7-core CPUs too at some point? Can hardly wait to see how the marketing guys explain that

 

[Steven Bancroft]

Actually every manufacturer does that. Nvidia sold their defective 8800gts as 8800GT or even (if it was broken beyond reckognition) as 8800GS. The Same happend with the 8800 GTX that came as a 8800 GTS. The 7900 Series knew GTX variants whereas the broken chips ended as 7900GT and even as 7900GS. Intel sells their broken 8000 series chips as 7000 series or pairs them up to sell a Q9300. The story goes on and on. It has been done since first faulty chip was produced.

Could you be a little bit more specific with your comparison? Ar you sayingthat broken GTS 320MB, 640MB, or 512MB became the 8800GT? Now im pretty sure you're referring the to G92 8800GTS 512MB, but with NVidia's naming scheme please be a bit more specific.

 

[Slobogob]

Could you be a little bit more specific with your comparison? Ar you sayingthat broken GTS 320MB, 640MB, or 512MB became the 8800GT? Now im pretty sure you're referring the to G92 8800GTS 512MB, but with NVidia's naming scheme please be a bit more specific.

The GTS 320 and 640 were simply broken 8800GTX (G80). The 8800GT are broken 8800GTS (G92).

A friend of mine has a Laptop with a 8800GT M. That chip has 64 shaders but sure as hell is no 9xxx series spin-off which leads me to believe that it is a totally fragged up G92 chip. It's amazing how they salvage those things.