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Should I get this upgrade?

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My friend is offering me his old gear because he's just upgraded. I wasn't originally going to upgrade and had no intention to but he's offering me what i think is quite a good deal!

His:

Abit I35 Pro (2-3 years old)
Intel Q9550 OC@3.60GHZ (6 months old)
4GB Corsair XMS2 DHX 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX Dual Channel (1 1/2 years old)

For: £200

I'll be upgrading from my rig, which you can see in my System Specs tab <------

My question is, will i notice much difference and is it worth the upgrade? Should i just keep my mobo/ram and get his processor? He has the thing overclocked hence why he's offering me the whole setup to maintain it all.

Thanks for your advice.
 
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For 200 quid? No wai. Only the proc is somewhat of an upgrade.
 
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what can you get just the cpu for?
 
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I don't see why you should upgrade to that spec. You don't need to. The performance gain will be very little.
 

JrRacinFan

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Upon looking at both, your specs and those provided, you may just want to look at both cpu and ram. Now reason mentioning the ram is that your not having a problem running 4 sticks and it looks as though you keep your sticks at stock, without overclocking. If you run all 4 sticks together you might be able to get 6GB working and running flawlessly. Don't really like running mismatched sticks but if it works.

But will ask, what is your current daily usage? Do you really need a quad?
 
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I use my PC for gaming and multi-media editing, especially video-editing. I wouldn't like to mix and match the ram but thanks any way.

Will i not notice a big difference with the Q9550 in gaming and editing over my E6600? The E6600 i have is quite old now'a days and i have a feeling its beginning to bottle-neck my gaming experience.

I will likely be able to sell my motherboard, ram and CPU at about £50-80 to my old man, meaning the upgrade will only cost me around £120 total. Maybe ill just take his CPU and overclock it myself with the P5Q Pro (although i don't know much about OC'ing CPU's).

Any more advice welcome.
 
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dual core at 2.4ghz vs quad at 3.6ghz,, HUGE difference definitely get it,,and maybe u could combine some ram together :)
next upgrade after this is the video card and then u r set for loooong time
 
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If your editing software will use all 4 cores: yes.
In gaming, I dunno.

The P5Q is better than the Abit mobo imho. And the RAM should help if you can combine the 2x2 with another 2GB of your own sticks.
 

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Its not too bad, but its not a stellar deal either. Upgrade if and only if you must. Your system will still last you a year or so.
 
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I use my PC for gaming and multi-media editing, especially video-editing. I wouldn't like to mix and match the ram but thanks any way.

Will i not notice a big difference with the Q9550 in gaming and editing over my E6600? The E6600 i have is quite old now'a days and i have a feeling its beginning to bottle-neck my gaming experience.

I will likely be able to sell my motherboard, ram and CPU at about £50-80 to my old man, meaning the upgrade will only cost me around £120 total. Maybe ill just take his CPU and overclock it myself with the P5Q Pro (although i don't know much about OC'ing CPU's).

Any more advice welcome.

If you are editing media, then yes, quad core will provide approximately 100% increase.
In gaming, you won't notice much, if any, performance increase unless you are running benchmarks (for epeen, sorry couldn't resist :rolleyes:).

You can also OC your current E6600 as well, but for editing media, there is no brainer. Quad core is the way to go, or even i5 or i7 with hyper-threading (8 logical cores, that's the bomb).
 
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Thanks for the extra info peeps.

Apparently though the i35 makes overclocking the CPU much easier, i've seen the interface and its much more straight forward. However, if you guys think there's no real performance gain to be had maybe ill just take the proc + 2gb ram and overclock it myself.

Where can i learn about running 2 different sets of ram together?
 

JrRacinFan

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Where can i learn about running 2 different sets of ram together?

You just have to note what each kit is rated for. Say the 2x2GB is 800 5-5-5-15 1.8v and the 2x1GB is 800 4-4-4-15 2.1v. You will then need to specify timings and voltages manually in CMOS/Bios setup. Say for instance, you may want to match them with 800 4-5-4-18 2.0v. Oh and you may want to bump the NB votlage up a notch,, but I doubt you will need to it will just help stable everything out a little.
 
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hey man anytime,,
but again , im sure u will definitely c performance increase in games and applications
myself went from athlon x2 2.8ghz to phenomII x4 3.0ghz and saw noticable increase in games FPS
 
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Considering the proc retails at 160ish and ram prices are still high, I would try gbet him down to £180 and I would say that would be a nice buy, offset it by selling your current rams and cpu and it will have cost you £100 to upgrade to a q9550 and 4gb of nice ram.

I would keep your p5q pro over the abit though also, flog that on ebay with your cpu/ram

That ram retail at £85 too
 
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i would just buy the CPU and ram your motherboard is still great.
 
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Thank you all, you are too kind. You have been most helpful! :)
 
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your friend PC still "Rocks" your friend didn't need an upgrade.

he can spend his money to something useful.
 
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Abit closed and don`t support their mobos any more. I`d be careful about that mobo..
 

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You should just get the CPU from him. Rest of stuff you don't need.
 
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Get the CPU from him, that's it. Memory costs next to nothing, unless he is willing to give your the 2gb x 2 for a cheap price.
 
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Get the CPU from him, that's it. Memory costs next to nothing, unless he is willing to give your the 2gb x 2 for a cheap price.

£85 for 4gb isnt next to nothing considering it used to be around the £40-£50 mark for 4gb
 
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i think its a good deal.... you currently have a non overclocked E6600 @ 2.4ghz
The quad @ 3.6ghz will be loads quicker... pretty much the fastest you can get on the 775 platform without spending £400-600 to go i5 / i7.

If you do video encoding etc it will definately be much better than the dual core and will futureproof you for longer than your current rig.

The Q9550 chip on its own is just under £200... I have a Q6600 which is great but cant clock it anymore above 3.4ghz so i was looking at buying one myself as im not going i5 / i7 yet...

I say its a good deal... high clocked quads walk all over dual's... i have both in my 2 systems and the quad wins hands down ;)
 
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