Q9550 or E8600 for P5N-E Sli?

[AlfBaxter]

Hi all,

I have a P5N-E, just upgraded to a GTX 460 and am worried my Q6600 @ stock is bottlenecking it. I can't OC the Q6600 with this mobo and don't want to change mobo as I don't have the time. I've narrowed my upgrade options down to a Q9550 or an E8600. The former will be stuck at stock speed due to my mobo but I could probably OC the latter to at least 4GHz.

So my question is, will the extra cores make up for the difference in clock speed? I'm thinking not and am tempted by the E8600. Is the Q9550 @stock likely to be a bottleneck? Not sure whether it's the 266 FSB of my Q6600 or its low stock speed that's holding things back.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

 

[RGone]

IF you only have a single video card then get a cpu you can clock up.

 

[Duner]

The P5N-E SLI doesn't support Yorkfields. Q9550 isn't an option. I doubt that it would even run at stock speeds on that mobo.

 

[RGone]

"Duner" is spot on...

I doubt the Yorkfield would even boot since the microcode would not be in bios and that is Intel type mobo.

Q6600 thru QX6850 are the only quads supported. However the Later core 2 Duo the E8600 is said supported on Asus site.

 

[AlfBaxter]

Hi, many thanks for your replies. Although the P5N-E doesn't officially support Q9550, there are plenty of reports of them working fine together. You just have to manually set the multiplier and core voltage.

And yes, I'll just be using one video card. So assuming both CPUs work, but the Q9550 won't OC anywhere near as well on this board, you would recommend the E8600?

 

[Duner]

It's your choice if you want to gamble with the q9550. I had a P5N-E SLI and it wouldn't run my Q9300 even at stock. It booted fine, buy I had to down clock to 1066 FSB just to make it stable.

I also think that the E8600 would be a better chip at stock for gaming than the Q9550 at stock anyways for most games. I don't think the P5N-E SLI would have any problems overclocking the E8600 either, which is another bonus.

 

[AlfBaxter]

Thanks for your reply. I was heading towards the E8600, for the reasons you suggest, until someone on OCUK pointed out that if I sold my existing gear I could get a decent core i5 2500K setup for only slightly more cash. I think I'm going to give up on socket 775 and upgrade.

 

[RGone]

Thanks for your reply. I was heading towards the E8600, for the reasons you suggest, until someone on OCUK pointed out that if I sold my existing gear I could get a decent core i5 2500K setup for only slightly more cash. I think I'm going to give up on socket 775 and upgrade.

That is likely the 'best' idea for sure since you are trying to upgrade. Upgrade the whole platform and you will see better gaming is my guess.

 

[SupaMonkey]

The 8600 is a lot of money for what you get. $300 on Newegg.

When bulldozer comes out you should be able to get the bottom of the range (quad core) processor and a new motherboard for that.