Is it wise to get this Q9550?

[Blacktric]

So someone from a trusty forum I know is selling a couple of Q9550's for about 150 dollars each and claims they're new. When I asked him to explain, he said he got them straight from HP and they come in unopened packs but do not have stock coolers. Do you think it is okay to buy one? I am thinking of upgrading my CPU (an E5200) for a while now to play Battlefield 3 at reasonable settings and I currently don't have enough money to upgrade to an i series processor and to get both a compatible motherboard and DDR3 rams, so getting a quad core 775 is currently my only option. And my question is, since he claims they are from HP, do you think they might be inferior to the regular retail ones in any way?

 

[13thmonkey]

If I hadn't gotten the upgrade bug, I'd still be on my Q9550. If you can trust the buyer then do it. I'd go down to $125 though.

 

[Blacktric]

they are OEM CPUs, large vendors like HP, DELL, gateway buy them in bulk. if you trust the buyer then they should be fine and no different then a consumer CPU that comes in a box with a cooler.

it's a good CPU and a very good upgrade for you. a little pricey but all socket 775 are pricey.

Thanks a lot for the answer. But what do you think could be the worst case scenario when it comes to its difference with retail ones? Way worse overclocking capacity or overheating problems?

 

[baddad]

First make sure your motherboard can handle that kind of upgrade, some early motherboards don't.

 

[Blacktric]

First make sure your motherboard can handle that kind of upgrade, some early motherboards don't.

It's a Gigabyte X48-DS5. I'm sure it will handle it very well. Also, another question; could a high quality 500W PSU would be enough to handle the Q9550 with HD5870? Currently, my system works fine without any problems ever since I got the HD5870 a week ago but of course there is a huge bottleneck because of the E5200. But would adding the Q9550 can cause problems?

 

[newbcakes]

There was a chart here on TH that showed where the cpu/gpu bottleneck starts, I'll have to dig for the link, it's a tad old, but that cpu was probably in it.

regarding the wattage and your PSU, simply look up how many watts each draws, I would suspect, off the hip, that it's going to work just fine.

 

[Blacktric]

worse case scenario; sometimes the OEM units are not well packaged when shipped so pins may get bent. just ask him to make sure the CPU is packaged well. there is no difference though, they are the exact same CPU. it's like getting 16oz Coke soda bottle or having someone pour you 16oz of Coke into a glass from one of those huge 64oz Coke bottles from BJs.

Thanks a lot for the answer again.

Also @newbcakes, thanks. Don't worry about finding it. Your reply was enough. I think I will get it... Again, thanks a lot to everyone for their answers/thoughts.

 

[geekapproved]

You could get a i3/mobo/8GB ddr3 for $200 bucks, it would be more efficient, and it would be an upgradable platform.

 

[Blacktric]

You could get a i3/mobo/8GB ddr3 for $200 bucks, it would be more efficient, and it would be an upgradable platform.

Thanks but I do not think the i3 I can afford could beat a Q9550 in most if any of the games I play. Also like I said, I am buying the CPU to play Battlefield 3 which requires a quad core, not dual. Not to mention the motherboard and ram I buy would again, be horrible in comparison to what I have right now.

 

[Ubrales]

These are 'tray' CPUs; sort of like OEMs, not retail packaging. I see no problem using these.

I have one desktop which has a Q9550. This CPU runs hot. In spite of re-seating the CPU/heatsink twice using Arctic Silver 5, the CPU runs at around 51 degrees C idling at less than 10% load. Installing a new CPU fan did not lower this temp.

On prime 95 at 100% load the temps were 68 degrees C.

Just wanted you to know that this is a hot running CPU. Great performance!

Will I buy the Q9550 again? YES!

 

[jaguarskx]

The Q9550 is still a pretty decent CPU despite it's age. It's more or less has the performance of a Phenom II X4 965. At $150 it's not a bad deal at all. A used Q9450 generally sells for around $150 while a Q9550 is around $200 on ebay.

My OC'ed Q9450 @ 3.0GHz temperatures are pretty good with an idle temp of 41C and when encoding a video and playing a game it gets up to about 58C. I use Arctic Silver 5 and a Tuniq Tower heatsink. Average room temp is probably around 68F or around 20C.