Going from purchasing a E8400 to a Q9550

[kalchi08]

The titles says it all. Just when i was about to purchase the E8400, 4GB of Kingston ValueRAM and the Gigabyte G41M-ES2L mobo for $313 altogether at my local Frys Electonics, i suddenly had a change of heart after laying my eyes on the price tag of the Q9550. So i didn't buy anything, instead I drove home and thinked about this Q9550 deal allot because of how cheap it gotten. They were selling it for $224, i guess the Phenom II X4 955 brought down the price with the on going price war between AMD and Intel. I never knew about these price reductions. Thank god for AMD/ATI lol.

So what setup would be beter for gaming; here are my two options, and my budget is $330. I'm asumming there is a $10 tax to each of these items here, so i added $10 to the cost of each item here.


Q9550 + Gigabyte G41-ES2L Mobo = $309


or


E8400 + Gigabyte G41-ES2L Mobo + 4GB Kingston ValueRAM DDR2 800 = $313


...and a couple of more questions is the Q9550 beter clock for clock then the Phenom II X4 955? And is the Q9550 just two E8400's mushed together, it looks like it. And If i go the Q9550 route I would be running it with 2GB of DDR2 800 Ram that i already got. So would the Q9550 work well with 2GB of DDR2 800 ram? Like can i overclock it to 3.0GHz with this cheap ram and this Gigabyte G41 mobo, if not then the stock 2.8GHz is just fine.

Heres what my setup look like if i go with the Q9550 cpu:

Q9550
2GB(2x1GB) of DDR2 800 (already got this)
ATI Radeon HD 4890 (already got this)
Gigabyte G41M-ES2L Mobo

I'm trying to make the most out of my money.

 

[swifty_morgan]

I wouldn't waste my time or money on a dual core any more. I have that processor and I love it. With the right DDR2 800 memory you can get it running at around 1000 with no voltage increases. Check out neweggs pricing.

 

[kalchi08]

Yeah that processor looks very amazing, sorta like the "E8400" of quad cores.

 

[englandr753]

You need to go to microcenter and get that cpu!

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0299412

This has been on sale a while so you better hurry. I got mine there and OC'd it right out of the box to 3.6 only disabling some features in the BIOS and not touching any voltages.

I'm impressed with it and for the price I found it for its a no brainer.

Also, the Q9550 and the AMD 955 are very close in performance so the price makes the Q9550 a winner hands down.

I have an AMD 940 X4 so Im not an Intel fanboy, I just go for the best deals and get AMD when it makes sense...

Hurry, hurry super scurry... =)

 

[kalchi08]

Omg thats even cheaper. I thought $220 was cheap lol. Looks like the Q9550 is amazing after all, time to get the Q9550! I'm not a fanboy of ether side also i got a HD 4890.

 

[neon neophyte]

assuming the stepping on that q9550 is E0, its actually better than that e8400, equal to a newer e8500. (but with 2 more cores.)

 

[englandr753]

The stepping is E0. I got mine from there and it is...

 

[neon neophyte]

ya E0 stepping is nice, with the proper setup you can push 4ghz+. in some cases, very plus.

 

[fausto]

I GOT THAT DEAL FROM MICROCENTER,E0 STEPPING

it's at 200 now. was 180 2 weeks ago.

 

[saaiello]

I GOT THAT DEAL FROM MICROCENTER,E0 STEPPING

it's at 200 now. was 180 2 weeks ago.

LOL this post is from almost a year ago what a noob!!!

 

[jsc]

But it's still less than $200 including sales tax in Texas.