Upgrade dilemma, Q6600 vs. Q9650 on 680i mobo

So ive got an EVGA 680i motherboard and an OC'd Core2Duo E6600 @ 3ghz on water (was on air but it gets hot here where i live and i got uncomfortable bumping 65c). My water cooling system is a Corsair H50. Battlefield 3 is testing the limits of my system and although its perfectly playable, it leaves a little to be desired and im looking to get maybe another year out of this rig. I want to beat my last system's lifespan (5yrs). Anyone remember the Epox 8RDA+? Yeah boiiiii!

anyways, prices for CPUs are weird to me right now. On ebay, used Q9650s are going for $250ish-$300. Maybe some go for less but not alot. On the flipside, Q6600s are going for $100ish or cheaper.
The Q9650 is hit and miss for my mobo from the research ive done, for some people it boots fine. For some people they have to overclock it a little to get it to boot (weird), and for others it doesnt work at all. It seems to hold its value well so i figure if it doesnt work, either sell it back on ebay or get a compatible mobo.
Then the Q6600 is hiding back there. Easily overclockable to 1333mhz/3ghz just like my E6600, and overclockable well beyond that. Im fine with that, i got water cooling im good to go for maybe 3.2 with ease i think....

but ive also heard my mobo isnt too great for OCing quad cores. What kinda advice can you guys give me on what to do?


edit: found this. May prove helpful woot.
http://forums.hexus.net/pc-hardware/124416-q6600-overclocking-680i-how-56k-killer.html

It comes down to how much you want to spend. The 680i was garbage, coming from personal experience. The cheap option is to get a P45 based board.

+1 680i is a bad overclocker for quad cores.

If i have to buy a new motherboard then im not going to bother with a new processor and just stick with what i have. What about the 680i makes it bad for overclocking? Just not stable?

If I'm not mistaken, the Q6600 is two dual cores on one die, where the Q9xxx are on a different process, and are true quads?

I have not verified any of the above, except that I think the Q6600 is 65nm and the Q9650 is 45nm....At 45nm the Q9650 should run cooler than the Q6600 which is notorious for running hot. Does the 9650 have the same or more cache mem? that would make a big difference.

q6600 65nm 8mn L2 cache
q9650 45nm 12mb L3 cache

i think

I had an ASUS 680i with my Q9450, not sure what it is like now but back then when the 45nm quads were new it didn't recognise the CPU properly. I just about had it working at stock, let alone having an overclock. I got a 780i so that I could overclock.

Anyway, I think you will be much better off saving towards a SB cpu/mobo, ddr3 RAM is very cheap now too so it shouldn't cost too much more than the Q9650.

i5 2500k - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072
2x4GB 1600MHz - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231428
MSI P67A-G43 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130583

This comes to $374, not sure if tax is included or anything and shipping needs to be added, but it should destroy the Q9650, especially if you overclock it. You probably can find even better deals (and I am not sure on what is the best mobo for 1155) as I was only using Newegg, not sure on what others there are as I am from the UK.

Helgaiden said:

What about the 680i makes it bad for overclocking? Just not stable?

Click to expand...

I don't know why it was bad, I just know it didn't overclock well.

I had an evga 680i with a q6600.. I had a hard time getting it to run at *stock* speed, let alone the huge 100mhz oc I was able to achieve after the release of its second bios. I sold the board and went with a P5K Deluxe

It seems to be hit and miss with some people.. most of the time the combo wont work, but then you get the odd time where you get someone who owns the combo say theres nothing wrong with it

In the experience of others here, as well as myself, I would say pass and get a different board for that q6600.

Ah thats cool. Not interested in buying a new mobo or mobo+cpu. If i wanted to rebuild, when i do it i will do it right. "Incremenetal" rebuilds/slight upgrades like this do not interest me. Besides, I think evga fixed alot of issues with more BIOS updates, which im on the latest on my board. Anyways, resolution determined here: 680i no good get something else.

I may just try a q6600 and take the chance, however. The guide in my 1st post seems pretty promising. If it doesnt work ill just sell it and deal with what ive got until the summer.

Tough call I can give you the direction I went. I have a x38 board and a x3350 (q9450), and AMD 6850. I was able to play BF3 on high (no AA) with the processor clocked at 3ghz @ 1920x1200. 30-40fps

I wanted to play on ultra so I got another 6850 and overclocked the processor to 3.4ghz. Getting a steady 60fps on multiplayer on ultra with AA off. At this point my x3350 is running 100% on all four cores. The processor can't push the crossfired cards anymore it seems.

I don't know how much of an improvement you will see with 2 more cores and the 8800 card, could be minimal. You could look for q9450 and x3350s also they should be cheaper than the q9650s.

oops the 8800 died. Im using a radeon 5770 now, with an nvidia 9600gt in my 2nd PCE-E slot and patched to run PhysX processing even though i use a Radeon as my primary card.

Im figuring 3ghz-3.2ghz and 2 more cores (realistically, 0-200mhz difference if you take away the 2 cores gained from the q6600 since i already have the e6600@3ghz) might be enough difference. Or no? I run BF3 on High at 1680x1050

I would strongly recommend not upgrading your existing setup. If you save your money there are better deals to be had, i am running a 9650 on a 790i and hit 4ghz with a lot of tinkering. Yet at 4ghz it performs exactly the same as my htpc i5-2300 stock in linkpack tests. However that 12mb cache is amazing, they are amazing chips but now is good time to save for newer hw. Also fwiw the upgrade will be moot with that mobo, since the 9650 is a strong overclocker.

Also a gpu upgrade would be a better route imo. Or a cheap 6600.

cheap 6600 is what im browsing ebay for. 5770 isnt good enough for Bf3? I do plan on saving, but by the time i have the amount of $$$ i want, I will most likely be looking at a 3rd gen I5 or I7. Upgrading to 2nd gen I5 or I7 right now doesnt seem like the greatest move for me right now considering 3rd gens are right around the corner practically. Ivy bridge right?

Helgaiden said:

cheap 6600 is what im browsing ebay for. 5770 isnt good enough for Bf3? I do plan on saving, but by the time i have the amount of $$$ i want, I will most likely be looking at a 3rd gen I5 or I7. Upgrading to 2nd gen I5 or I7 right now doesnt seem like the greatest move for me right now considering 3rd gens are right around the corner practically. Ivy bridge right?

Click to expand...

Considering what you are running right now, you would be completely blown away by the power of say just an i7 960. Anything up from there is literally just gravy. When all is said and done, I.B. should be about 65% faster clock for clock to a first gen i7. You can wait as long as youd like, but really, you are missing out. Money is one thing, if you dont have it you just dont have it. But holding out just for the sake of holding out just seems silly. A stock 2600k would make you think you are useing alien technology, thats how disgusting things have gotten since s775 was laid to rest

Well I figure that but no, don't have the money to spend on a whole new system. Just got a new job, might be a few months before I can convince myself to spend again on my pc. $100 isn't a big deal that's why I'm looking at a q6600 but $300-$500 isn't anything I want to jump in right now. Im likely to get a new graphics card too when I upgrade so tack on another $200-$300 and now my wallet is hurting.

freeagent said:

When all is said and done, I.B. should be about 65% faster clock for clock to a first gen i7.

Click to expand...

Do you have some links to back that statement up.

There is 13 fps gain from Q9550 to i7 2600k

LINK:http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sandy-bridge-core-i7-2600k-core-i5-2500k,2833-18.html

I see you jumped to the Q6600 @ 3GHz. How do you like it? I have been running it at 2.83GHz and find it quite zippy. I'm trying to justify the move to the Q9650 and overclock it to 3.6GHz, but honestly I have not found an app that dents this setup. Maybe I need to buy BC3?

bc3 was fine with the q6600 stock. at 3ghz its still doin great.

wingman99 said:

Do you have some links to back that statement up.

There is 13 fps gain from Q9550 to i7 2600k

LINK:http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sandy-bridge-core-i7-2600k-core-i5-2500k,2833-18.html

Click to expand...

Of course I dont.

If sb is roughly 35% faster then a bloomfield, tand Ivy is supposed to be what 30% faster then that?

Theres the 65% I came up with. My numbers are probably all wrong, math was my worst subject.