basket687

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I have a system with Pentium Dual Core E5200, and I want to upgrade to a quad core, and I can't really justify buying a Q9550 when the i5 750 is cheaper (even though it requires a new motherboard). My question is: What is the best upgrade for an LGA 775 system? Is the Q9400 worth its premium over Q8400?
 

ares1214

Splendid
ur probs not gonna like the answer, but for 160-200$, both are a massive waste. think of it like this, somebodies grandma is 100 years old, and needs life support. shes fine with dying, but you will end up paying thousands and thousands of dollars just to keep her alive a bit longer, thats what your doing. socket 775 is DEAD, its "son" is DEAD, its grandson is almost dead (775, 1156, 1366). it is a mssive waste to pour that amount of money into it, when you can buy a AM3 (most future proof and best value) quad core and a brand spankin new mobo for 160-300$, like this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.394170

thats 159$! you may or may not need new ram, but even still its only a bit more expensive for an entirely new and better setup.
 

basket687

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Do you consider the Athlon II X4 635 to be a better processor than Q8400/Q9400?
 
The Athlon II X4 635 will be at par with Q8400.. The Q9400 might be slightly better than.. However, if you intent on keeping the current platform, i'd recommend the Q9500.. Its clocked same as the Q9550 (2.83 GHz) but priced & has L2 cache same as the Q9400 (183$, 6 MB L2).. ares1214 has given a nice suggestion and the pricing is sweet.. Although he has forgot to mention that you'd require DDR3 RAM along with that which would take the pricing to above 200$ easily.. Your call..
 


he wouldn't need DDR3 ram for the Athlon II, he would just have to find an AM2+ board that can support the Athlon II's

MSI 790XT-G45 AM3/AM2+/AM2 AMD 790X
this would work, and it supports crossfire (don't know what GPU he has though)
 


I mentioned the DDR3 point based on the motherboard that was mentioned in the provided link.. Should have provided the DDR2 existence info with specific motherboards supporting AM3 CPU's though.. My mistake..
 


actually, there are fewer and fewer boards as the months roll on (especially with the 8 series chipsets from AMD)

personally, if you can get a good processor for the current board (9400 or better), it should last a while
 

ares1214

Splendid



how is it future proof? thats the worse thing to do to be future proof. and the 635 is a quad core, and it happens to be a bit faster, and 100$ cheaper as a cpu.
 
There is no point in buying an AM2+ board when AM3 R2 is coming in the next 6 months. If going Amd go with AM3 and buy DDR3 memory.

ares1214, this is why it wouldn't be as worth it for a DDR2 board, and $200 for mem/cpu/mobo is not going to happen (at least with decent parts)
 

ares1214

Splendid
right, but think, you pay 180$ now, it might get some what faster, will probably get bottlenecked by something, then 6 months or a year from now, your in the same situation as before, need an upgrade. better to get that upgrade over with now, then wasting extra money later. if it was me, id spend the 260$ for the full upgrade now, then upgrade to bulldozer when its relatively cheaper.
 

Haserath

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I don't get what people mean by "future-proof". AM3 will support the next bulldozer, but with the "future-proof" mindset, why upgrade to bulldozer since the socket it dead? Even if they keep AM3 past bulldozer, you could have their next gen processor at a cheaper price then upgrading all of the components. "Future-proofing" just doesn't make sense, unless the new motherboard/RAM actually makes a difference in performance.

The Q8300 is even cheaper then the 8400 while having the same amount of cache, just a slightly lower multiplier. If you overclock the 8300 to 3.0ghz, it would be good enough for anything you throw at it.
 


By that time hamburger (or whatever) will be about to release and the whole cycle of statements will repeat themselves.. And its not even sure that bulldozer will be definitely supported on the current socket.. May not be desperately but AMD is in need of an architecture makeover to become competitive.. If that'd require a socket change then i guess AMD will (and should by all means) go for it.. Coming back to the thread, IMO the Q9500 will be a justifiable upgrade and should stay safe for at least a year.. Furthermore, overclocking will keep it competitive even more which brings me to the query as to which motherboard does OP possesses..
 


There is no point in getting a new AMD build when he can just upgrade his 775 CPU. The high end 775 Quad CPUs perform equal to the high end PhenomIIx4s

A Q9400 is actually significantly better than an AthlonIIx4 635.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/76?vs=122
 

ares1214

Splendid
overclocking can be done with anything, so that isnt much of a plus. and bulldozer is on am3. and future proofing is more about amd vs intel as far as sockets. intel likes to release a new socket, that is NOT backwards compatible with the last every year or so. amd doesnt release them as often (lately atleast) and makes them so that they ARE backwards compatible. So while people are right future proofing is never "future proof", by buying an am3 board now, you make sure you wont waste money now AND later. why spend 180$ on a cpu now when you will have to spend 275-400$ later, instead of paying 260$ now. not only that, but the 635 is faster, cooler, and a cheaper cpu, so why waste your money on some that is overpriced and obsolete.
 

jimishtar

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read again: 4 cores is enough for years to come. thats what I ment. if he already has 775 board, I dont see a point of gettin amd + new mobo, q9400 is more than enough for him. he will need to change the entire rig in 3-4 years anyway.
 
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Well if you pay the 260$ now, the next CPU upgrade will cost in at least a good 150$ and above which brings the whole equation to square 1.. And moreover, current generation AMD is barely able to match the last generation Intels (spare the upper end phenom's).. With bulldozer matching the current gen Intel's, there will be more better solutions available for upgrading at the Intel camp.. Opting for AM3 now, OP will be stuck to upgrade from the AMD camp only no matter what the performance difference compared to Intel.. Also, the LGA 775 is still no slouch and considering that, Intel CPU's seem to have a better lifespan as of now..
 

ares1214

Splendid


are u kidding?! ok, as of now, 1156, and 1366 are both about to be replaced with 1155 and 1365, so no way does intel have better lifespan. also, the 635 is faster than the q9400, so i dont care if its a slouch or not, why would u buy a 180$ cpu thats slower than a 100$ one, no matter the future proofing. with buying a q9400, you wont be able to use any of the parts later, but if u buy the am3 board, you can use the ram, and the mobo, and buy one of amds new offerings at the time. if u waste 180$ now, then you prolong the upgrade, maybe a year. i dont think an already obsolete cpu is worth that much money. and what you just said is not right. "amd is barely able to match the last generation of intels (spare the upper end phenom's". thats like me saying intel can barely compete with amd as far as performance, spare the i7s. and lets see, amd wins in the value market (intel can barely get a cpu under 100$, amd can get quad cores under 100$), ties in the mid range sector (i5 750 beats 955/965, but not by too much, and costs 50-100$ more as a platform.) id even say amd ties in the high performance sector, as the 1090T and i7 930 are very closely matched overall, yet the 1090T as a platform is cheaper. so how exactly is amd soooo far behind?

 
The 1090T is AMD's highest end desktop offering.. Are you realizing you are petting it against Intel's entry level i7 offering..!! Anyway, AMD won't have been cheap or in other words, Intel won't have been pricey had there not existed that level of performance difference.. The socket replacement from Intel is arriving after a good 2+ years so longevity is evident here.. Now. if the same scale of improvement is achieved in both the camps with their respective releases, that keeps Intel again ahead of AMD.. Call me skeptical but who wants a product declared inferior before its release itself..!! Perhaps the reason that Intel is not having sub 100$ products is because it doesn't needs to have..
 

ares1214

Splendid
thats dumb, why would i compare the 980x to the 1090T? im comparing by price range, so obviously the i7 and 1090T go together! and u have no proof they will be here in 2 years, and they will be here sooner. and the fact intel doesnt have a 100$ sector DOESNT make them SUPERIOR, it makes them INFERIOR.
 


I never meant you to compare the respective top end models.. My point was to just present an overview of the strength of the Intel architecture.. And considering that a hexa core is competing with a quad is dumb itself..
 

Confused Stu

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Getting back to the original poster's question, if I may, he has asked which is better for an LGA775 upgrade - the Q9400 or the Q8400. Both run at the same speed and are the same generation, the only difference is the amount of cache they have. From looking over a few comparison benchmarks (e.g. http://hothardware.com/printarticle.aspx?articleid=1332) it looks like the difference is only in a few applications. In most the CPUs are neck and neck.

Just checked ebuyer and there is currently a £20 difference between the two CPUs (£132 for Q8400 and £155 for the Q9400). Personally, unless you use a program that really benefits from the extra cache of the Q9400, I wouldn't have said the difference is worth the money, so go for the Q8400.

By the way, I have the Q9400 and am currently running it overclocked to 3.8GHz, which in the case of my chip is nice and safe (it's running at 1.25V and stays under 50C in stress tests) because the PC is used everyday. Whichever CPU you go for, it should overclock nicely if your motherboard is stable enough, so make sure you try getting it to at least 3GHz or above. Once you've got a quad running at those kind of speeds, 90% of people will find that quick enough for 90% of the things they do - the only exception are overclock junkies who always need to shave 0.1 second off that benchmark! :)
 

ares1214

Splendid


if the quad core and hexa core are the same price, how is that not fair? its intels fault they cant get a 6 core cpu for under 1000 bucks.
 


Let us settle for a truce for now.. We are really diverging from the matter as suggested by others.. There's another thread going on with the whole 1090T vs i7 930 thing so may be we can carry our opinions there..

Now the price difference among the two is not drastic so settling for the Q9400 is the better choice.. But the Q9500 is at the same price point so better to opt for it..