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Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 Vs Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400?

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I like that idea the best, the "Server" Grade Quads are lower wattage and can also OC insanely! and thats a great price, even from Ebay.

Personally any upgrade to LGA775 is beating a dead horse(or socket :p ) because of the release of i5, your spending the same amount of money on a LGA 775 socket as you would on the i5 socket, though the i5/i7 is vastly superior in everyway.

Unless you're for some reason DYING for a quadcore that you MUST absolutely must have for video encoding, or some other that requires more cores. I'd say avoid it, AVOID it all together, spend your pennies else where or save for next year and upgrade the mobo/cpu/ram to i5/i7

There's really no reason at all to switch to core i5 if he can get similar performance for cheaper. He's running a 24" (and most likely 1080P monitor) so for games a new processor wouldn't make much of a difference between the two quads.

If he wants to go SLI/Crossfire, he's limited to 8x/8x, a problem that doesn't necessarily plague all LGA775 boards. You'll see equal issue with both systems (graphics-wise) being bottlenecked in the next few generations, but the 775 platform may end up being faster (perhaps not noticeably) than the i5 system due the LGA 1156's bandwidth limitations being about half the full potential of what the 775 sets have to offer. Considering this, is there any reason to may more? I can see i7 being justified a little better.

Not sure if these assumptions are correct, but I thought they should be considered as possibilities.
 
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There's really no reason at all to switch to core i5 if he can get similar performance for cheaper. He's running a 24" (and most likely 1080P monitor) so for games a new processor wouldn't make much of a difference between the two quads.

If he wants to go SLI/Crossfire, he's limited to 8x/8x, a problem that doesn't necessarily plague all LGA775 boards. You'll see equal issue with both systems (graphics-wise) being bottlenecked in the next few generations, but the 775 platform may end up being faster (perhaps not noticeably) than the i5 system due the LGA 1156's bandwidth limitations being about half the full potential of what the 775 sets have to offer. Considering this, is there any reason to may more? I can see i7 being justified a little better.

Not sure if these assumptions are correct, but I thought they should be considered as possibilities.

But right now he is using a Gigabyte P35 DS3L which means his CF options are only 16x and x4 PCI-E 1.1a and seeing as he is only using a single GFX card LGA 1156 wouldnt be a hinderance at all.

But he wants a 1366 which is an entirely different beast, my advice to the OP is if you want 1366 your going to have to spend a lot more $$$ the cheapest i7 is the 920 which is $300 and most motherboards run about 200-300 depending on what brand/feature set you like and Tri-memory channel kits 6GB run another $200

CPU/MOBO/Memory
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115202&cm_re=i7-_-19-115-202-_-Product
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131359
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104132
 
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Ignore what I say I guess lol. I'm the kind of person that usually ends up buying the stuff they originally attacked. (E2xxx series, intel/nvidia combo)
 
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The cache makes a decent difference, even stepping from my q9400 - q9550 made a pretty decent difference.

Personally I would spend the few extra bucks, at the cost of the Q8400, I would jump ship and go AMD and get a Phenom II x3 and try to unlock the 4th core, out of over 10 I have done, everyone has unlocked and clocked pretty decently.
 

CorsairX

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But right now he is using a Gigabyte P35 DS3L which means his CF options are only 16x and x4 PCI-E 1.1a and seeing as he is only using a single GFX card LGA 1156 wouldnt be a hinderance at all.

But he wants a 1366 which is an entirely different beast, my advice to the OP is if you want 1366 your going to have to spend a lot more $$$ the cheapest i7 is the 920 which is $300 and most motherboards run about 200-300 depending on what brand/feature set you like and Tri-memory channel kits 6GB run another $200

CPU/MOBO/Memory
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115202&cm_re=i7-_-19-115-202-_-Product
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131359
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104132

Those are some good upgrades but I will not go that route yet. Anyways, there is no game out there that requires so much specs. I mostly play FPS games such as (BF2142, MW2, Crysis) in max settings.

Since my mobo and cpu are about 2 years old, that is one of my main reason for upgrading to something better and newer.

Are these better than what the mobo and cpu I currently have now? Is it worth it?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.293017

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.293014
 
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Are they better? Yes. Worth it? CPU wise, I think so, but you would definently see a larger improvement getting a q9550. Motherboard wise, not unless you want to run crossfire in the future. Unless you want to run crossfire in the future, I wouldn't bother replacing your motherboard until you do upgrade to I5 or I7 or beyond.
 
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Are they better? Yes. Worth it? CPU wise, I think so, but you would definently see a larger improvement getting a q9550. Motherboard wise, not unless you want to run crossfire in the future. Unless you want to run crossfire in the future, I wouldn't bother replacing your motherboard until you do upgrade to I5 or I7 or beyond.

Ya, I agree, I'm still running my old P5K-E and it will take this q9550 over 4ghz, I just hate to see it run so hot so I don't.

I was constantly thinking about getting a P5Q-E or Deluxe but it's just not worth it.
I'll upgrade to an i5 or wait until the power consumption drops a bit on the i7s.
 
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