Q6600 > Q9450... worth the upgrade???

Wait for the next round of price cuts. Because the 9450 has a default 1333 fsb you have to overclock the P5K MORE to surpass the Q6600's performance. A friend had to switch from a Q6600 to 9450 and could see no difference.

Any Idea about the next round of Price Cuts. Might not even be worth it if i don't see a performance boost. Also read just now about a possible manditory bios update for the p5k to get it to work with thew CPUs

no...

the next round of price cuts won't matter... its not worth the upgrade period....

the new nehalem cpus use a different socket... lga 1366 I think... and its on the x58 platform... the only noticeable difference you'll get from the q6600 s a nehalem quad core at 3 + ghz.... other wise its pointless to upgrade

Anybody know of a benchmark that directly compares q6600 to q9450, with and without Overclocking?

Thanks in advance...

I've been tossing the idea around myself. I'm trying to decide on a new CPU now or wait for Nahelem. Someone swapped their processor between the 2 and posted their results at:

http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/t297297.html

Some ways it is faster, sometimes alot faster. Sometimes a little bit slower. Overall, I'm probably gonna end up spending the money on the new CPU since I got the money to spend on whatever I want. But the logical choice would be to wait for Nahelem in my opinion.

There is no reason to go to a 9450 period. Skip the thought.

What is wrong with the q6600 you have? is it broken?
I know it has no problem running anything there is out there.
a 9450 is a waste.

wait for the next gen to become cost effective and do that.
You'll be more than fine until then, even with a core2duo.

why dont you just treat yourself to a 4870 or even 2 4850's if your board supports it

If you want some more free performance do a little bit of OCing.

I wouldn't upgrade if I was in your position, but I tend to hang onto hardware for a while.

i upgraded from a Q6600 to a Q9450, just cause my friend needed a processor so i sold my old Q6600 to him, but otherwise, i wouldn't spend an extra 320$+ on it. Just OC your Q6600 to 3.0ghz+ and you're good  

i agree with cal8949, treat yourself to a 4870 instead.

Don't move to the Q9450 from the Q6600. Its an almost lateral move. I'd say if you have less than 8GB of RAM now, put a little bit of money their and move to a 64bit OS if you're not already there. That'll give you more of an all around performance boost than paying for the Q9450.

hmm... it would depend what apps you were using... even so, the Q6600 would perform almost clock for clock... Nelhalem is another socket, sorry...

Plus new stuff is really expensive... hold on until the Q9450 is in bargain bins...

Well...my logic is this. In my experience Ubunto 64 and Vista 64 are quite fast. Vista 64 with 8GB of RAM being noticably faster (subjectively, yes) than Vista 32 recognizing 3.2GB of RAM.

For the small cost of getting to 8GB from even 2GB I think it'd be a better investment than trying to find that supposed 10-12% performance increase some speak of when comparing the Q9450 over the Q6600. If you're gonna use Vista might as well go to 64bit.

I really don't think there are many situation for even us pro-sumers where we would want 8 gigs of RAM.

I have three gigs and I wouldn't mind going to four, but I don't have a need beyond 4 gigs.

you stick with q6600

treat yourself

I think i will hold off on the q9450. The only way it would be worth while is if i could get an extra 20% or so. Thank you for all the advice. I may go for the 4870 x 2 treat however!

I have a q9450, so my natural instinct is to go OMGOMG GET ONE!!11
But honestly, i woundent make the move. that would be like going from the 8800gtx to the 9800gtx.
Simply not enough of a performance increase to justify the cost, wait for a huge price drop or the next gen.

TC, if you even get into 64bit Windows computing (and witness the liquid-quick performance) or use virtualization (i.e., running Ubunto or XP inside of a Vista64 host) your viewpoint on using 8GB of RAM may change. ...but that's for another thread.

I actually upgraded from 4 to 8 gb ram and did notice a difference. Especially when running 6+ apps at once. No slow down. Another weird side effect si that Readyboost no longer worked. I used to use a 4GB thumb drive for Readyboost, but after i maxed out the ram, it no longer functioned. I guess that could be another thread post as well.

Per earlier info here or somewhere, the Q9550 will drop to $350ish in about 2 weeks, and the 9450 will be dropped.

q9450 will be dropped? I wonder if you will be able to scoop one up on the cheap when they quit making them. Any link to an article about the future price drops?

I'd agree. It would be a waste of money...

However, if you could sell your Q6600, and break even, then that would be another thing.

Why not just OC the Q6600 to 3 or 3.2 Ghz? Alot of people on average gear get to 3Ghz with that chip and on a P5K board, you should have NO problems. Wait till Nehalem pops it's little head out and then keep and eye out for a QX chip, no we're talking.

I have mine clocked at ~2.9 on a Zalman Cooler. Have not tried to push it beyond that. Perhaps the q9450 is a mute point.

If that's the case and you want another 1Ghz+ why not look around for a QX chip? Or maybe a RAID array? Or bigger monitor? From a certain point forward, perhipherals are what make computing more enjoyable. My next purchase for example will be a 27" or 30" monitor.

i like the idea of 30" monitor. I currently have 24... 30 would be NICE. At the end of the day the q6600 sure is a sweet CPU. I don't really have anything to complain about, except that i have upgrade-itus.

Or just spend all your cash so you can't upgrade to anything.  

What Zalman is that? 9500 or 9700? I have a Q6600 with a 9700 and have it OCed to 3GHz lower than stock voltage (1.225 compared to 1.325) and it runs as cool as its stock 2.4GHz speed.

As for upgrading, unless you have a B3 Q6600 the Q9450 is not worth much except about a 10-15% performance increase in some apps, lower voltage/power usage and cooler running.

Zalman 9500, running at 2.96 Ghz, with the ASUS board controlling the voltage. Not sure what cool is, but it runs in the mid to high 50's usually (is that good?). I have the GO stepping on my Q6600. 10-15% probably not worth the hassle or expense. I will just wait for the Nehalem CPUS and do a full build.

Is that load or idle? Mine runs 32c (+/- cuz I live in AZ so it gets hot some days) idle and maybe 55c load. G0 stepping is nice. I would suggest trying to put the FSB to 333MHz and then putting the voltage to about 1.3.

Then use Prime95 to test for stability and if all goes well (say it runs for about 8 hpurs no errors) then lower the voltage a bit to say 1.275v. Repeat and rinse. What this will do is not only save you power but also lower the temp of it. The lower the better.

But my overall suggestion is to stick with the Q6600 unless you can get a Q9450/Q9550/Q9650 for sub $150. Then wait about 1 year and get a Nehalem when they are at a good price. That will guarantee a much better performance boost compared to Penryn.

For me personally I let the software I run dictate the upgrade or new system build and I overclock anything and everything. There is enough test software out there to know what needs to be upgraded like cpu-z for example, I mean if you can't load all your cores, why are you buying a new cpu? It's like when people go on about RAM with vista, I have 4GB and have yet to use more than 70% of it at any one time even with the complex modelling and games etc that I use, so why go and buy another 4GB? And yes it's 64 bit Vista. If your not fully loaded there are other great things to spend your money on, like my lycosa keyboard or a 30" monitor. There are only 3" larger but there is a bizarre difference between a 27" and a 30" screen, hard to define but when your looking at something that big, its all encompassing and hard to be distracted by anything else, which is wierd because when you have a 27" you admire it for along time but never feel like it's all encompassing.

That bizarre difference is not bizarre at all. A typical 30" has a native resolution of 2560x1600...stunning...cavernous...addicting, while 30" is large enough that you don't need a magnifying glass to use that resolution comfortably. I use a 30" Dell at home (along with a 21" Samsung) and use a 24" Samsung at the office. 1920x1200 does not compare to 2560x1600...it even can feel cramped. Oh, there I've gone...off topic.

my q6600 runs idle at about 57c. clocked at 2.97 GHZ. think that is too hot?

Um if thats idle then yea. Mine only runs in the very low 30c area and I have mine OCed to 3GHz. I would suggest trying what I said and manualy setting the voltage lower to see if it will help lower the temps too.

As I said start with 1.3v and use Prime95 to test it for stability. If it makes 8 hours then lower the voltage another step and repeast the stability test. Keep going until you reach the lowest voltage thats unstable. Then move it up to the last lowest stable voltage possible.

My systems is only been up around 12 mins.

Tcase is 26

Cores - 29 30 28 29

Ambient room temp is 26C

Q6600 @ 2.880, but runs 1.920 idle.

So I agree with jimmysmitty.. idle temp is quite high.

I havnt started tweaking the FSB yet, but i did just clean a ton of dust off the front 120mm fan filter, and that dropped the temp to 46 Idle... Damn, i need to keep that thing clean. My case is not also the best for air flow... its pretty but not great for cooling. That probaby makes a big difference. My system temp is 41. Probably on my next build will get a new case, but this one i have really liked a lot. Its a silverstone, all aluminum.

I also am thinking that 2.880 is plenty and may help keep the temp in check.

Thanks

Grimmy, what is the TjMax value shown for your Q6600?

Interesting, thanks for sharing. I can see needing that much for virtualization. I had VMware slowdowns on a work machine that was an E6600 with 3 gigs, 32-bit.

I use a Dell XPS M1730 with 4GB at the office with Vista64 and 2 virtual machines constantly running. Its dual-core and 4GB of RAM noticeably limit it and that's one of the most powerful laptops available. My home machine's Q9450 and 8GB is much better suited to the tasks.

Well since Intel doesn't publicly specify what the Tjmax is suppose to be, the core temps are irreverent. And since people say real temp seems to be more accurate, those temps I posted are at the Tjmax of 95C. I've also changed my CoreTemp and SpeedFan to show the same temps.

Edit:

And I forgot to mention, I'd rather go by the Tcase temp, since that is specified by Intel. For a G0 stepping, the max thermal spec is 71C. I think its just easier to go by it.

I know that Intel doesn't specify the TjMax but I've been trusting that for the newer 45nm chips its the 95C that Realtemp indicates (as the load temps for the cores seem quite believable ). I say that because is 95C is a more accurate TjMax value for the 45nm chips I'd think the TjMax might be a little lower for the 65nm chips. However, you're dead on, its all guess work.

Tcase is more reliable in this respect.