# Finally able to upgrade! Buy now or wait for Sandy Bridge!?



## dhdude (Sep 20, 2010)

Hey guys,
I should finally be coming into some money in the next couple of weeks, and I'll finally be able to scratch that terrible upgrade itch!

I'm on a bit of a budget, but have several options;

A) Upgrade to 45nm, 12mb L2 Core 2 Quad, keeping existing parts, but maybe buy some DDR3 to go with it that I could possibly carry over to my next rig

B)Upgrade to new mobo, cpu and RAM; thinking 1156 i5 760 or Xeon X3440

C) Wait till Sandy Bridge in Q1 2011?

I'm feeling the inadequacy of my current CPU, previous circumstances forcing me to downgrade from a Q9550 to this, and my uses benefit from those extra threads!

So what do you think?


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## dhdude (Sep 20, 2010)

Sorry I mis-posted in the wrong section, if a mod could move it to the system builder's advice section that'd be great? Really sorry!


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## mudkip (Sep 20, 2010)

A) Upgrade CPu/Mem then wait for sandybridge


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## blu3flannel (Sep 20, 2010)

It's only going to be about 3-4 months, I'd suggest holding out until Sandy Bridge and upgrading then.


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## p_o_s_pc (Sep 20, 2010)

just grab another stick of ram so you can have 4gb and dual channel and wait.


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## (FIH) The Don (Sep 20, 2010)

get a used q6600, q9550 or similat, it will be  a massive boost, and as pos said, get another stick of memory


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## Peter1986C (Sep 20, 2010)

Wait for AMD Llano/Intel Sandy Bridge.



(FIH) The Don said:


> get a used q6600, q9550 or similat, it will be  a massive boost, and as pos said, get another stick of memory



IMHO that only makes sense if he can upgrade the RAM to DDR2-1066 (DDR@-667 is probably a huge bottleneck for a C2Q)


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## dhdude (Sep 20, 2010)

p_o_s_pc said:


> just grab another stick of ram so you can have 4gb and dual channel and wait.





Chevalr1c said:


> IMHO that only makes sense if he can upgrade the RAM to DDR2-1066 (DDR@-667 is probably a huge bottleneck for a C2Q)



Yeah, if I do upgrade to a Core 2 Quad, Ill buy some DDR3 (I have a board that has 4xDDR2 and 2xDDR3 slots) that I can carry over to my next build


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## LAN_deRf_HA (Sep 20, 2010)

I'd say wait for sandybridge. New cpus/sockets seem to last a bit longer than other parts these days.


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## Achilles1600 (Sep 20, 2010)

Is sandybrige going to be a new socket.?


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## (FIH) The Don (Sep 20, 2010)

yes 1155


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## Achilles1600 (Sep 20, 2010)

Dang it i just got my 1156 socket 2 month's ago.


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## dhdude (Sep 20, 2010)

Achilles1600 said:


> Dang it i just got my 1156 socket 2 month's ago.



Sorry Achilles 

Just a quick update guys, I found a brand new Q9450 for £150, so I snapped it up! Considering the Q9550 goes for around £230 over here, and the Q9650 for £260ish, I didn't think I got a bad deal, did I?
I'll grab 2x4gb DDR3 sticks over the next couple of months, so I can overclock, and also maybe carry those sticks over to a new rig further on down the line.

Now I've bought this, I'll prob hold out till the Sandy Bridge replacement for 1366 comes out near the end of next year. 

What do you guys think, if I do some mild OC'ing will my new CPU good enough to last another year without bottlenecking any single GPU cards out now and in the near future?


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## f22a4bandit (Sep 21, 2010)

You'll be fine doing what you're planning. The RAM is what would hold you back on the performance more than the CPU you just picked up.


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## mtosev (Sep 21, 2010)

C)

spending money now is pointless as new gen cpu are coming in 4mounths time


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## Hayder_Master (Sep 21, 2010)

no way, sure best thing is sandy bridge, you can pickup used cpu and good solutions are search for xeon x3210-x3220 or core 2 quad q6600-q9500-q9550

for me cheap used quad core will be very useful, like q8400-q8500 and it can run everything until today


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## Bjorn_Of_Iceland (Sep 21, 2010)

A Q9650 / Q9550 E0 with a low vid. That would bring you a lot (If you add overclocking in equation). Then wait for sandy / bulldozer


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## puma99dk| (Sep 21, 2010)

Achilles1600 said:


> Dang it i just got my 1156 socket 2 month's ago.



it's running on a upgraded version of the P55 Chipset called v2 that's what i have heard but what's more it's should be LGA1155 as The Don says but we will see what Intel have done when they release it.


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## dhdude (Sep 21, 2010)

Thanks guys, as I said I scored a brand new Q9450 (rare now I know) for £150 here in the UK, which is pretty good considering Q9550s are £230 now, so I'll be OC'ing shortly, just need some new ram first, that'll come over the next few weeks.

Still wanna get Sandy Bridge but this should hold me out for the next year, from what I read it looks like a big improvement over existing i7s; if anyone's interested Anandtech have a preview of the Sandy Bridge with benchmarks


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## Hayder_Master (Sep 21, 2010)

dhdude said:


> Thanks guys, as I said I scored a brand new Q9450 (rare now I know) for £150 here in the UK, which is pretty good considering Q9550s are £230 now, so I'll be OC'ing shortly, just need some new ram first, that'll come over the next few weeks.
> 
> Still wanna get Sandy Bridge but this should hold me out for the next year, from what I read it looks like a big improvement over existing i7s; if anyone's interested Anandtech have a preview of the Sandy Bridge with benchmarks



ok i know some sure things about sandy bridge
1-it's overclocked at 4.9ghz on air
2-when it's run on stock speed with turbo boost on it's beat all core i7 1156 which 860 and 870, also it's beat almost all core i7 1366 with 4 cores and beat core i7 980x in some tests
i will try search again to give this links but im very sure i see this tests in respectable sites.

you going to live in haven man keep dreaming and wait for it


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## overclocking101 (Sep 22, 2010)

sandy bridge will be good if you he a K cpu otherwise you will not be able to overclock it at all due to intel locking the blck, i will not be getting sandy bridge unless the 1366 replacement has bclck changing possibilites. imo locking the base clock was a bad move. budget buyers buy for overclocked potential for cheap not to be at a set speed. I would hold out with what you have (q9450 and some quality DDR3) until the next gen comes out


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## hat (Sep 22, 2010)

overclocking101 said:


> sandy bridge will be good if you he a K cpu otherwise you will not be able to overclock it at all due to intel locking the blck, i will not be getting sandy bridge unless the 1366 replacement has bclck changing possibilites. imo locking the base clock was a bad move. budget buyers buy for overclocked potential for cheap not to be at a set speed. I would hold out with what you have (q9450 and some quality DDR3) until the next gen comes out



People have been saying this sort of thing since before 775 came out. If Intel did that, they would end up handing AMD a good chuck of the enthusiast market. I certianly won't be paying $300 for a cpu with an unlocked multi so I can overclock... I want to overclock the $100 cpu just like we have been able to for ages.


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## crazyeyesreaper (Sep 22, 2010)

its been proven Hat intel wants users to pay $50 to unlock there cpus  it will be cracked in days of release and what not but point is they DID do it this time


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## Bjorn_Of_Iceland (Sep 22, 2010)

Q9450 is good. That would edge out @ 3.6ghz stable for 24/7 realistically


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## <<Onafets>> (Sep 22, 2010)

Achilles1600 said:


> Dang it i just got my 1156 socket 2 month's ago.


Just break off a pin!


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