CPU Upgrade question...

[moirae]

Hey guys,

I've been running an C2D 8500 for about a year now. Been a brilliant chip, rediculous OC ability, with rock solid stability. I must say I have been very happy with it and to be honest, it could go for another twelve months without any dramas.

But I'm giving some serious thought to upgrading to a quad chip. Probably a Q9550 or a Q9650.


I have my 8500 running at 3800MHZ, which is plenty enough for me. I have it under a Thermalright 120 with temps under full load around 45 degrees. I think that is pretty solid. I've had it at 4.0 stable, but I wanted the whole thing to be a bit cooler. I recently put it in an Antec 1200 case, which has rediculous airflow...I also have a GTX280 card that runs stock under rediculous load @ 55-57 degrees. I am more than happy with those temps. Especially on the GPU.

I multibox World of Warcraft. I see the real benefit in moving to a quad is being able to set core affinity to create a better running experience when running five instances of the program. Its a long story.

Is a 9650 worth the extra $$ over the 9550? Granted you get an extra .17Mhz out of the box, but is that worth the extra?

On top of that, Under air, say OC'd to 3800 or so, with BOTH of those chips, what could I expect the idle & load temps to be?

Also, any opinion on the performance of these quad CPU's would be appreciated.

I know the 8500/8600 dual core chips are dead set OC demons. I'll be upgrading an older box with my tried and tested 8500...Thats for sure.

Any assistance would be appreciated.

 

[thepizzaman]

hm....... how much are you wanting to spend on the upgrade?....

 

[moirae]

Just wish to upgrade the CPU only. We are talking $450-550 max.

Will probably upgrade the whole kit to an i7 or comparible in another twelve months. When I can justify the cost.

My graphics are good, memory is fine, drives are fine, mobo is fine.

 

[thepizzaman]

well...... for $400 you could get a really nice mobo and a phenom II quad core @3ghz and they overclock really well we are talking 4+ on air and 5+ on water
and is very comparable to a i7 better than most of the core 2 quads

 

[skunksmash]

i'd stick with the 9550 if i were you, there's no real improvement to be had with the 9650, especially if you OC anyway....

we are now moving into a time where 2 cores (OCed to the hilt they may be) are just not performing as well as a quad, due to S/W being coded for 4 or more cores, the C2Ds have been ''SHOW STOPPING'' but the age of the C2Q fast approaches.....


the 9550 seems to be sitting @ 4ghz is most places, the 9650 is an ''E0'' stepper & the 9550 appears to be ''C1'', im sure i've read ''E0'' is better.... but not sure if its worth the extra if you can get the 9550 to 4ghz

a 24/7 4ghz quad is plenty powerful enough for everything...





SK

 

[thepizzaman]

i'd stick with the 9550 if i were you, there's no real improvement to be had with the 9650, especially if you OC anyway....

we are now moving into a time where 2 cores (OCed to the hilt they may be) are just not performing as well as a quad, due to S/W being coded for 4 or more cores, the C2Ds have been ''SHOW STOPPING'' but the age of the C2Q fast approaches.....


the 9550 seems to be sitting @ 4ghz is most places, a 24/7 4ghz quad is plenty powerful enough for everything...





SK

yea but the phenom is better :P haha

 

[thepizzaman]

something like this.......

MSI K9N2 Diamond Motherboard - NVIDIA nForce 780a SLI, Socket AM2+AM2, ATX, Audio, PCI Express 2.0, Dual Gigabit LAN, USB 2.0, Firewire, eSATA, RAID, HDMI support at TigerDirect.com

AMD Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition Quad Core Processor HDZ940XCGIBOX - 3.00GHz, 6MB Cache, 1800MHz (3600 MTs) FSB, Deneb, Quad-Core, Retail, Socket AM2+, Unlocked Multiplier, Processor with Fan at TigerDirect.com

or a slightly cheaper mobo.....

 

[moirae]

Thank you for responding guys. Appreciate it.

To be honest, at this stage I dont want to switch setups to an AMD...
A few reasons to justify that, mainly It would leave me with an extra PC floating around. I already have three running at the moment, which all get used every day. For the health of my marriage, another PC would just inspire me to get another case, another desk, more HD's...memory etc.... However, the missus wouldnt see it my way LOLS!

More interested in upgrading the cpu on the 45 board, and upgrading another pc with the redundant E8500. Which suits me fine.

If I can run a Q9550 @ 4ghz stable, I would be stoked. Absolutely.

****Edit****

Went ahead and picked up a Q9550 on the way home. About $AU400. Pretty happy with that. Got it to 3.6 at the moment. Struggling to get it further- which is just me fumbling with it...

Thanks for the response guys

 

[thepizzaman]

haha your welcome and i can see how that is..... i have been inspired to get everything but the mobo and processor so far.... still working on it enjoy your new cpu

 

[moirae]

I think it was a case that once I got the idea in my head....it was gonna happen regardless.

However, onto the next issue.

I think my mobo may be holding back my OC. (GIGABYTE GA-EP45T-DS3R ) I have it running at 3.6, 8hrs prime stable. Thats with 6g ram....@ stock timing.

Temps are absolutely rediculous. 8hrs prime testing had them at 50,45,45,45 degrees. Thats almost best case scenario for me...Its what I was hoping for.

I cannot...CANNOT get it to load windows any higher than that.I can get it to post, but then it hangs on the splash screen.

I dont think my mobo is open enough to handle anything higher. That said, I only spent maybe two hours on it. I'll put up some further details later tonight.

My raid set up makes overclocking hella tedious. Adds maybe a minute to a restart. Doesnt sound like much...but pffft...its ages when your watching it lols..

 

[moirae]

Just for the sake of telling someone who is remotely interested
(My mates think this stuff is hella tedious)

Purchased a new mobo also. The old one just could not cut it with this chip.

Got a gigabyte EP45-UD3R. (basically, this should do me until the next upgrade, when I deem i7 to be value for money).

Pretty easily managed to get the Q9550 to 4Ghz.
Actually, it was stupid easy.
Absolutely rediculously easy.

I'll post some details later in the week. (Ambient temps here are hovering around the 28 degrees C range. In Oz....summer suxxors for OCing.

Regardless, under full load, three hours prime stable, @ 4GHz was hovering around the 60 degree mark. Let it off after that. When I take maybe 10 degrees ambient off that, it looks like some nice times ahead. That is under air with a True 120, 8 case fans going flat knacker due to the ambient air temps.


When the weather cools down, I'll do some proper benching.

3.6Ghz is doable at stock volts of 1.25v
3.8Ghz is doable at stock volts of 1.25v
4.0Ghz took it to 1.3v.
idle temps did not change much. The 4ghz mark was only around 3 degrees warmer @ idle. I would honestly think that load temps @ 4ghz would be around the 48-50 degree mark with better conditions. If not less.

Anyhoo....looks like some fun times ahead getting the best out of this cpu.

 

[patio]

Intel to introduce new CPUs, drop prices on existing lineup - TechSpot News If you can wait a while...

 

[thepizzaman]

hmm.... shoulda got the phenom II like i said :P lol hope you like it all though