Well I want to start streaming some games. I've attempted it on my current PC (in sig), but the E8400 just isn't up to it. I stream fine but my games lag/drop FPS. A quad core should be able to fix this as others who do it use quads but don't know the ins and outs. Just know they use quads and their PC's can cope with streaming and playing fine at the same time. So what is the best Quad Core for a Socket 775 mobo, the P5Q Pro. I've tried looking in lists etc. but can't for the life of me actually understand which is the best. Are any quads even affordable new now? Or are they all stupidly expensive? I know upgrading mobo to SB would be better, but I intend to keep this PC anyway when I go IB. So a quadcore wouldn't go unused. Help appreciated.
I have a Q9550S at 2.8GHz. It was mistakingly ordered at the place I worked and I figured that since it had the same clock speed with a lower TDP it must be, essentially, binned, plus it was faster than my Q9450 (which went into my file server). For day to day use it is much faster than my media center system with the same motherboard with an E8500.
You can get a QX9650 for about £90ish I think (it's how much I paid for mine). Keep an eye on the market place as mine will be up for sale when IB comes out...
The 'best' was the QX9770 @ 3.2GHz stock & 12MB of cache, but they still go for £380 used on eBay... You may be able to find a cheaper (no more than ~£200 top wack on eBay) QX9650 @ 3GHz stock & 12MB of cache, though in my experience they were less able to o/c... ...well, i had one of each before building my P67 rig & the former would easily do 4.2 (it could actually do over 5 but i wanted 24/7 voltages i was happy with as it was damn expensive) whilst the latter wasn't happy over 3.6 no matter what (reasonable) voltages i put through it - though that could have been the luck of the actual cpus. The other one to look at is probably the Q6600 @ 2.40GHz... Simply as these tended to be very overclockable - most people could get an easy 3.2GHz+ & are a lot cheaper... ...again, i did have one of these before i got the 9650 & it was really easy to o/c.
I'm more or less in the same boat. I ended up with an extra P8P67 Pro after a bit of a hiccup with boards for a customer... now I'm waiting for Ivy Bridge reviews to determine whether or not it's worth it to pull the trigger on i7-2600K or it's Ivy Bridge replacement.
I think a more affordable upgrade would be to find a 45nm C2Q like the Q9450 and overclock, if you can't find a decent price on a QX9650.
Was just thinking that because of diminishing returns above that point, even when they were new, the Core 2 Extremes were mainly purchased for e-peen. I'd rather have a Yorkfield Xeon over the QX9xxx now that I've thought about it a little.
Can anyone recommend an AMD that will outshine my ageing Q6600 ? I managed to get a good deal on an asus amd motherboard but really I don't have a clue about amd stuff. I just grabbed the board because it was so cheap.
Heh, thanks for the heads up Pete, but waiting 'til IB is a little long. ;P I'm going to be going IB/SLI Kepler in June/July. I'm in need of a Quad right now. I think the QX9650 would be perfect as being the cheaper of the extremes. I'll see if MP has any going. The Q6600 I think wouldn't be much of an improvement. I'm not intending to overclock the quad I get. Which the Q6600 was known as a beast because it could be clocked well. Hence I want a CPU that is great at stock. Cheers for the help guys. Gonna have a look around at the ones you've said. And as I had to run out, theres been even more replies! Cheers peeps. Well i've put thread up in MP asking if people have any of the suggestions. Thanks for the help
