Tom's Hardware > Forum > CPU & Components > CPUs > E6400 to Q6700 for gaming. Worth the upgrade?

E6400 to Q6700 for gaming. Worth the upgrade?

Forum CPU & Components : CPUs - E6400 to Q6700 for gaming. Worth the upgrade?

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I currently have a Core 2 Duo E6400 in my rig and was considering jumping up to the Q6700 but after looking at prices and the CPU charts I'm not so sure. I have an XPS 700 without the upgraded 720 motherboard so the Q6700 or QX6800 are the highest I can go and have them be compatible. I'm ordering a GTX260 Core 216 and 4gb of Corsair memory soon so if anything I would expect my CPU to be the bottleneck in the system.

Has anyone done a similar upgrade and have you seen big results in actual gameplay or are the two close enough for most games that I can get away with saving money and sticking to the E6400? (I normally game at my monitor's native resolution which is 1920 x 1200).

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the best option would be a total system upgrade.
Get a new mobo, get i5/i7,DDR3 ram.This will be a worthy upgrade.But if you don't have the budget then drop this idea.

First overclock your proccy .If you are satisfied then stay with it.If you still wanna upgrade then get the q6** quad core.

Reply to shubham1401

I would love to build a new i7 system but I can't swing the cash right now so the idea is to get a little extra oomph into this one and hopefully build a new one next year. Unfortunately the XPS 700 is only overclockable through ntune which is horrifically buggy, that's what I get for not building it myself though (bought this one used for less than I could have built it for). If you know of any other way to overclock these than ntune I would be ecstatic to hear about it.

Reply to AltairDusk

setFSB... all you have to know is your PLL chip number and input that in, and set your FSB... and done... you have to do it every time your restart though, thats the only downside

------------------------------ http://www.speedtest.net/result/511560750.png
E6600 @ 3.6, 2 X HD4850(680/1150), OCZ 4Gigz
Reply to xc0mmiex

I went from a 3ghz E6300 to a Q6700 @ 3.2ghz and really in gaming theres no difference. I mean if you play something quad intensive like GTA4 yeah, but the games I play I have seen no difference. (Cod4, playing STALKER:CS right now)

Honestly I haven't seen any difference in anything. I went with the Q6700 cause it was the best my board could take also. I picked it up for $174 and figure it will hold me over for a couple more years.

Reply to zipzoomflyhigh

Thanks for the input guys! I think I'll move ahead on the video card and ram upgrade and look into giving setFSB a try on the e6400. :)

Reply to AltairDusk
Tom's Hardware > Forum > CPU & Components > CPUs > E6400 to Q6700 for gaming. Worth the upgrade?
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