Q9550 or E8400?

Well, thanks to The Fitter (http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=303526) and his thread "Q9550 CPU with XFX 680i LT mainboard" (http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=303526) I'm thinking about upgrading my E8400 to a Q9550.

It seems that with the latest BIOS update the XFX 680i LT supports the Q9550 - which was not possible beforehand.

It's either this Q9550 or no upgrade for at least a year, since I'd have to get a whole new system (motherboard, CPU, RAM).

I already did some research whether it actually makes sense or not, but I would like to hear your opinion, too, though.

 

Well since more games are going to be multi core and it would help scale your SLI set up better.

I can't see a reason not to.

Maybe you would want a better HSF

dunno what one you have right now.

 

I have the Zerotherm Nirvana NV120. It does a pretty good job with the E8400.

 

why not the q9650 then atleast if u dont oc u dont have a loss for games and apps that dont support quad

 

I found nothing that shows that the 680i LT supports the Q9650. Even the Q9550 isn't officially supported, but I found several posts (including the one I mentioned above) stating that the 9550 works with the latest BIOS - even though it's still not officially supported.

(http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=280843)

 

Yeah well I'm currently reading a review and it keeps a Q6600 @ 3.1Ghz 55c load

So i would think it would do ok for a Q9550 up to say 3.4-6 then i dunno.

Really depends whats possible on your board and what your aims are.

 

3.6 GHz would be nice - since it then should be more or less the same as my E8400 expect for the additional two cores, of course. :nerd:

 

Get the quad it will overclock to about 3.8 easy though you could push 3.9 or 4 with good cooling plus it is about 0.2 infront of mine and mine is stable at 3.7 (from 2.6) so i do think you could get 3.9 easy enough

 

I wonder if I could slap a Q9550 in my evga 680i and get lucky too. Microcenter is a couple minutes away and it could breath new life into my 680 too.c1:

 

I vote on the 9550 as well.

deltatux

 

Thank you for all your input so far, guys. :thumbup:

However, I'm still not 100% convinced, tbh.

I don't doubt that the Q9550 is the better CPU, but I'd like to know if it really makes sense in my situation.

The E8400 is currently running at 3.6 GHz and I can run all current games (I don't have Anno 1404 or GTA IV which are heavily CPU dependent), except for Crysis of course, just fine.

My question is: does it make sense to upgrade to the Q9550 in a few weeks (around December) or should I just save the money and buy a complete new platform (X58, i7, DDR3) in December 2010?

In other words: does getting the Q9550 provide me with a noticeable poerformance boost all around and justify spending ~ $200 so that I might not have to upgrade for at least another year?

 

I never run synthetic benchmarks, but I "think" my q9550 makes a difference over my old e8400. I definitely think cpu hungry apps like Photoshop & avi/dvd converting software benefit from it. I was like you, I didn't want to build a WHOLE new rig just to go quad. I honestly don't see a need to move to a new platform when I use the current one mainly for gaming & many games don't support quad cores yet. You can easily bump the q9550 up to 3.6 or close to it. It is a nice feeling to know I have the cpu power there if I need it.

 

It makes sense

but will you notice the difference now ?

probably not.

 

go for it, if it really supports it with new bios.

 

Thanks, dshramek and kylzer.

I think I've made my choice now and will go with the Q9550 instead of a whole new platform next year.

I hope the info in this thread (http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=303526) is reliable, as I've read it elsewhere too, that the Q9550 runs on the XFX 680i LT with the latest BIOS.

(I do have the exact same board, so it really should work. Fingers crossed. )

 

Yep go with the Q9550 and OC it.

 

hey Cybermancer ive just done what your going to do except it was with a q9450. at first i sort of regreted it, but now im glad i made the move.

 

I think he will. There are more and more games which supports 4 cores, and he should notice a small increase in FPS and a large decrease of hitching / microstutter or whatever you'd like to call it, in games that utilize all cores. And there really aren't many newer games which do not support quad-cores any longer.

Good luck, Cybermancer.

 

Hmmm well lets hope so cause i'm getting stick of console ports uke2:

 

^^ Deathspank your mobo is an P35 or P38( cant remember offhand )

My 2 cents worth is the problem with the Q9 series on 680i mobos was with overclocking and temp reading( i.e. a hardware fault due to intel providing the incorrect schematics or something ), i had an evga 680i and just got a Q9550 and used it with my cheapy second mobo from my media rig( Asus P5K pro ) instead. The Asus P5N32-E SLI mobos( 680i mobos ) would with a bios update as they werent reference models.

Cyber, PM the guys from that thread and just make sure temp reading is ok and that it 'easily' overclocks with low voltages to the OC you desire. Also make sure you get an E0 Q9550( wayyyy better for overclocking than the D0 ). I was running 4Ghz with 1.27vcore and temps were ~60C with a scythe mine cooler( i couldnt overclock more due to my old memory not supporting higher than 945Mhz which was pretty good for 800 ram ), sold it to a mate and he runs it at ~4.3-4.4Ghz

The Q9550 overclocked to 4Ghz on my Asus mobo, there was 0 difference in gaming between it and my i7 rig @4Ghz( maybe 5FPS extra in the most cpu intensive game - GTA IV, i.e. 55FPS->60FPS avg )