hi all merry christmas to u all im thinking of changeing my cpu at the mo i have a q6600 and was thinking of changing it for a AMD Phenom II X4 955. i use the pc many for gameing downloading, sulfing the web and sum viedo encodeing but mostley gameing i have 4 gig of ddr3 1066 and a 512mb 9400gt video card. any help would be great
and judging from the spec im reading, a gfx upgrade would most likely be better Ph4zed, have you got that set to a macro yet?
Since you're mainly in it for gaming, upgrade your video card. That's the weak spot. Your processor still has plenty of life. Instead of spending that ~$150 on a Phenom II X4 955, I'd recommend that you look into an AMD Radeon 5770 or NVIDIA GTX460 or something similar.
upgradeing the video card was on my list of things to do so by what you are all saying i just as well upgrade it first. i was looking at a gt450 as in on a budget of around £130 or £180 if i dont get a Corsair H50 as i would like to make the pc a bit less noisey
Good luck. The GTS450 is quite a bit weaker than the GTX460 and instead I'd go for a GTX285 or an ATi card in between. I did find one GTX460 going for £138 if you can stretch a tiny bit. Hope this helps. Either way, good luck to you.
Don't bother...going from a Q6600 to a Phenom II X4 is like 'sidegrading' (not upgrading). You next step up in terms of platform is either i5 760 now, or Sandybridge in January, or whatever AMD's offering for their next gen platform...but that's not gonna be out until at least 2nd half of 2011. I'm recently bought a MSI 5850 Twin FrozeR for just £125 (price gone back up to to £150 yesterday) upgrading from a 9800GTX+ 512MB. Managed to overclock the core clock from 725MHz to 975MHz, memory clock from 1000MHz to 1100MHz and it would run Heaven Benchmark 2.1 with dx11, moderate tessellation, 1920x1080, 4xAA, 16xAF averaging at 31fps, and around 2-4 times the frame rate in BFBC2 than before with my 9800GTX+ 512MB at 1680 res and HBAO disabled. Really impressed with the result and it's the best £125 I've spend in a while for a PC upgrade (well, besides the £105 BenQ G2222HDL 21.5" LED monitor I bought couple days ago). But since that card's price has gone back up, you should look for a GTX460 1GB or 6850 instead. Oh, and you should overclock that Q6600 if it is at stock speed. Most motherboard should be able to clock it to 3.0GHz no problem with minimal voltage increase, so even the stock CPU cooler would handle it fine.
^^^listen to this, this man knows what he is talking about just get a decent gpu and overclock the Q6600 for a very decent jump in performance
Simply put...overclock Q6600, keep it for a few years, and get a GTX460, which can be had for £120 now if you look at the 768MB version. That said, what motherboard do you have at the moment? Whether you can overclock or not depends on this; because of the spec, it sounds like one of those eBay systems that has rather odd component choices...if you have a motherboard that is capable of overclocking, then you might want to look at cooler next (though if you're only going for a 3-3.2GHz overclock, you should be okay with the stock cooler if it's a G0 stepping, as you'd be able to get those speeds at not too far above stock...). If you want quieter, simply get better fans, again, four of them will cost you about £15-£16, if you went for Xilence Red Wings.
Ah, you won't have any problems there then I forgot to add before, power supply? And...are you using the stock cooler currently? Possible you could give us the revision of your processor? Download CPU-Z here, then see what it says under "Revision".
More details on the power supply? Make/model? If it's a G0 processor, you should be okay at 3.2GHz on the stock cooler to be honest
Okay, I wouldn't do any upgrades at all until you get a new power supply. Generic branded power supplies can be downright dangerous. Something like the Antec High Current Gamer series would probably work for you (rated at 80 Plus Bronze, but no reviews...should at least be a pretty good power supply).
Yup. What a great CPU that people can still recommend keeping it as gaming chip 4 years on. Bit of a bargain To be honest. http://www.scan.co.uk/products/550w...i-crossfire-eps-12v-120mm-fan-5-year-warranty I persume you are playing at 1080P?. Do you have a good Heat sink?
will change psu at the end on jan. as for heat shink im on stock at the mo changeing to a Corsair H50 cooler at the end of feb
