Q6600 Upgrade for gaming

[halls]

Hello!
I have a Q6600 that I bought when they were fairly new; it is a B3 version.

It is getting a little long in the tooth, and is not very OC-friendly (seems anything higher than 2.52 GHZ and it doesn't want to post consistently). For all intents and purposes, assume that this chip is running at its stock speed (2.4 GHZ).

In addition, my other specs are:
Geforce GTX 460 1GB
4GB DDR2 800 MHZ
Asus P5QL/EPU motherboard (I'll admit, I am hesitant to overclock on it as I don't normally do that, though I will continue to try)
Latest Drivers
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
I play all of my games on an HP w2207 monitor at 1680 x 1050.

I am starting to notice that I can't quite keep up with the highest settings on some games anymore. I am thinking about replacing it soon, possibly in February, and was wondering which chips you guys would choose to replace it with, if any in the 775 socket - what do you think it would take to see an improvement in gaming specifically? Would it be more cost effective to ditch the socket and go with something else?

Thank you for your time!

 

[Maziar]

Well,GTX 460 can handle all games perfectly fine on your resolution,but resolutions like yours benefit from a fast CPU,so if you can afford Core i5/i7 CPUs,then go for them(you have to change your CPU,RAM and Motherboard),but if you can't,then although socket 775 CPUs are EOL,you still can find them.
A CPU like Q9650 will give you a good boost in performance
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115130

 

[sportsfanboy]

The B3 Q6600 isn't as good as the GO stepping at overclocking but it still does a pretty good job. Perhaps your doing something wrong, even the B3 should be able to do 3.0ghz no sweat.

 

[halls]

sportsfanboy - I have heard that before, and I am certainly going to keep trying.

Maziar - thanks for the input. I looked at the price for the Q9650 and was shocked to see it was still so high! I would be hard pressed to buy an upgrade that expensive and pass up a Core i5 instead.
It's good to know I still have options on the 775 socket though.

 

[sportsfanboy]

Another option if overclocking isn't working out is pick up a q9550 on ebay and sell your q6600. That will be an upgrade for around a hundred dollars after you sell the Q.

 

[Maziar]

Yep,Q9550 is also good and its cheaper than Q9650
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115041

 

[CsG_kieran_2]

actually you can find "used" Q9650 on places like ebay i wouldn't recommend myself but it sounds good for low price/high power