# Cheapest effective upgrade of Q6600 ?



## Fif23 (Feb 21, 2014)

Hi there ! I am looking to change out my Q6600/DDR2 combo for something newer, probably used but still significantly faster than Q6600. 

I have no real complaints, I can run Diablo fine and browse the web pretty fast. So I do not want a new expensive combo. The problem is the motherboard lost it's audio capabilities, the CPU fan died,  so I figured I would just get something else.

Any specific suggestions ? Perhaps a Phenom II or AMD FX ? I7 940 ?


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## Bo$$ (Feb 21, 2014)

AMD FX would be a good upgrade my bro went from a Q6600 to a 8320 and is loving every second. but a 6300 series would be good too!


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## FreedomEclipse (Feb 21, 2014)

if the PC is still fine for your use the just by a soundcard and carry on.

grab a Xonar DG which is dirt cheap or a Creative Sound Blaster Z/ZX/ZxR  which are on the more expensive side of the scale if you wish to throw more money at it.

If you really wanted a complete overhaul though but are on a tight budget, i recommend going the intel i3 4xxx (Haswell) route. I built my dad a similar set up with a i3 4130 and even though its far from an enthusiast grade CPU, it has performance in buckets 

It totally pounds your Q6600 into the ground


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## FreedomEclipse (Feb 21, 2014)

Bo$$ said:


> AMD FX would be a good upgrade my bro went from a Q6600 to a 8320 and is loving every second. but a 6300 series would be good too!



I think the 4130 is a better option if on a budget

It 'Almost' trades blows with the AMD FX8320

The only test the FX8320 really takes off is in multi-threaded performance otherwise everything is more or less identical


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## ST.Viper (Feb 21, 2014)

First of all. How much are you actually willing to spend together for cpu and mobo?


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## Fif23 (Feb 21, 2014)

Thanks !
Wow 200% upgrade for the i3.... 

I have a guy here selling *Asus Rampage Extreme LGA1366 + Core I7 960 *for 220$. From what I can see in your linked comparison website the I3 and that I7 are pretty similar. 
Should I get the I7 combo with the great board and OC the hell out of it ? Or would you still get a new I3 ?


By the way, for my uses I should look at Single Threaded Performance, correct ? 
MT is all that 3D Studio and the likes, ey ?


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## buildzoid (Feb 21, 2014)

FX 6300 + 8GB 1600 ram + GA-970A-UD3P. My friend has a HD 7970 paired with that and plays Planetside 2 maximum settings @ 1080p with 0 overclocking and gets at worst 40FPS.


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## FreedomEclipse (Feb 21, 2014)

you can if you wanted to but IMO that i7 960 is old tech, There is no upgrade path for it beyond what it is.

If you have a bit more cash though the you can buy into a i5 4440 and a cheap $100 motherboard if you dont care for overclocking. for a mobo, CPU & RAM combo it shouldnt cost you above $400 for a decentish setup so long as youre not too demanding.


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## vega22 (Feb 21, 2014)

2nd hand 2500k and a z68 mobo all day every day.

dont say this too loud as there are amd fanbois everywhere! but an fx4 aint much of an upgrade from a q6600.


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## TomJane (Feb 21, 2014)

A lot has already been advice. My simplest suggestion would be to go either for Q9400 or Haswell. 
Q9400  is next generation and it works at par and is cheap too. If you have a little increased budget 
than going with later is a better choice.


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## vega22 (Feb 21, 2014)

if you want to stay 775 only get a 9x50 chip as those had all the cache, those without the 50 did not :thumb:


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## FreedomEclipse (Feb 21, 2014)

TomJane said:


> A lot has already been advice. My simplest suggestion would be to go either for Q9400 or Haswell.
> Q9400  is next generation and it works at par and is cheap too. If you have a little increased budget
> than going with later is a better choice.



waste of money. The Q9400 isnt a much of a step forward in terms of performance


The i3-4130 is better than the Q9400 & the Q6600

At the end of the day it comes down to budget.... but i would not get that Q9400 over a i3-4130. It might be a Quad but Haswell is just so much more efficient.


If it had to be a C2Q chip though, id be looking for a Q9550 or Q9650 chip and those arent cheap as they are still very very capable CPUs


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## Fif23 (Feb 22, 2014)

Guys thanks ! Great options here.
What's a good OC board to take an FX-4 or Phenom II 980 high in the sky ? Again, within 100$ used.
By the way, is the AM3+ socket still active and under development ? If so, may be worthwhile for me to get a new, good OC board for that, with a cheap used Phenom 965 and just enjoy it.

I see good AMD boards are generally cheaper.. And the used CPU's on ebay are also really cheap, as long as it's mainstream and not FX-9 and other useless stuff like that.


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Feb 22, 2014)

Am3 + is unlikely to last much longer but that doesn't matter if you understand intels near yearly socket swap malarky ie neither has much upgrade potential beyond more cores later so id suggest a decent am3+ mobo like a gigabyte ud3 (cheap but capable) and an fx4300 .you will see a decent amount of improvement over a q6600 in part due to ddr3 and could get a cheap 8 core fx in a few years off ebay etc


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## Easy Rhino (Feb 22, 2014)

Honestly, as someone who has a q6600/8 gigs ram/ gtx 570 I would simply buy a new cheap cpu fan and a cheap sound card. That is $60 in total cost for you and you get to continue using an amazing CPU. I am not upgrading my rig for a long time.


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## Mussels (Feb 22, 2014)

if you want better single threaded performance, an i3/i5 is your best bet. trust me, i went from a 6 core AMD to my i5 and i'd never go back for gaming.

for video encoding and such the AMD hexcore works great, but sadly games are still dominated by single threaded performance.

personally i say fix up your PC to get another 6 months out of it (CPU fan + cheapo soundcard, hell maybe even ebay a $10 USB one?) and save up for a whole new machine that kicks the pants off it.


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## rhino (Feb 28, 2014)

Surely *but surely* for your needs you can't go wrong with a nice little AMD FM2 A8 with an ASUS F2A85-M. 200 bucks and if you ever want more graphic performance you can bung in a further G card or two.
I don't recommend buying anything 2nd hand. There is nearly always a reason why the current owner has upgraded from it.
However, as has been mentioned, a quick patch up and saving up for a quantum leap sometime in the future won't be disappointing either.


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## Aquinus (Feb 28, 2014)

Before any recommendation can be made with any sort of reasonable accuracy I think a couple questions are in order.
A: What about your current platform are you unhappy with if anything (other than components failing)?
B: What do you use your computer for? You mentioned Diablo (3?) but that doesn't really tell us what the entirety of the machine is used for. Is it just for gaming?
C: How much are you looking to spend?


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## Hood (Feb 28, 2014)

Easy Rhino said:


> Honestly, as someone who has a q6600/8 gigs ram/ gtx 570 I would simply buy a new cheap cpu fan and a cheap sound card. That is $60 in total cost for you and you get to continue using an amazing CPU. I am not upgrading my rig for a long time.


You sound just like my brother - he's been bragging on his Q6600 rig for years.  Three weeks ago I built an i3-4130/MSI Z87-GD45 Gaming/8GB DDR3-2400MHz/840 Pro 128/GTX 460 rig, and I let him borrow it for a week to try it out .  He hooked it up as an HTPC/music server in his living room, and he was blown away by the speed and the graphics quality on his 55" flatscreen TV - so I sold it to him for what I had in it (~$500).  He still uses his old system for work and general office duties, but he's really taken with the new rig.  He was also stuck on Win XP 32 bit, and now he's finding out how much better Win 8 Pro 64 is.


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## ZenZimZaliben (Feb 28, 2014)

Fif23 said:


> Thanks !
> I have a guy here selling *Asus Rampage Extreme LGA1366 + Core I7 960 *for 220$. From what I can see in your linked comparison website the I3 and that I7 are pretty similar.
> Should I get the I7 combo with the great board and OC the hell out of it ? Or would you still get a new I3 ?



If this system comes with DDR3 and good cooling for the I7 that is a good deal and will be a huge performance gain.


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## rhino (Feb 28, 2014)

Nooooooooo!
Must be new.
Why spend 200 hundred bucks on 2nd hand when you can get a funky new rig for the same?


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## ZenZimZaliben (Feb 28, 2014)

rhino said:


> Nooooooooo!
> Must be new.
> Why spend 200 hundred bucks on 2nd hand when you can get a funky new rig for the same?


Because while you might get a Funky new rig, it won't out perform the i7 9xx series at $220. An i3 is not going to beat an  i7 9xx series which have plenty of potential even if it is a little older. Those are all high-end parts. the i7 9xx series has a min of 8mb Cache and the top of the line i3 has 3mb. The only thing the i3 does better is take less power.

I am not saying the lga1366 is a future proof socket..lol. Its dead. But there is still plenty of performance that can be delivered from this socket.


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## rhino (Feb 28, 2014)

If the gear is good.........


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## rtwjunkie (Feb 28, 2014)

rhino said:


> Nooooooooo!
> Must be new.
> Why spend 200 hundred bucks on 2nd hand when you can get a funky new rig for the same?


 
I've never gotten any used computer part off ebay that had any problem with it.  Most are for sale because the owner upgraded, not because anything is wrong with it.  It's a very smart way to shop for upgrades if cash-flow is short.


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## rhino (Feb 28, 2014)

Help, help. The i7 mob is ganging up on me.
Well, if it works you won't be disappointed.


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## Aquinus (Feb 28, 2014)

The big issue with skt1366 is that if the motherboard fails, you're going to have a hard time finding a decent motherboard that's reasonably priced to replace it. Dead means replacement parts will be used and harder to come by. It also consumes more power than a more recently released CPU will. If you do go with skt1366, treat that board like royalty and hope it doesn't fail.

What's the budget?


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## Hood (Mar 1, 2014)

I am a firm believer in building with new parts these days, unless I'm just throwing something together with donated used parts.  Too many times I've plugged a different video card in an old motherboard and it refused to output video ever again, through the PCIe slot or the on board iGPU, maybe fried a capacitor or two.  Also a few that never booted again after a thorough cleaning, possibly from a tiny static discharge.  When you consider how many small electronic components there are on your average motherboard, it's amazing how long some of them last.  But caps age, resistors change values, corrosion takes it's toll, and any little component failure can render the board unbootable.  I'd say that any board 5 years old or more is a candidate for failure at any time, even though some last 10 years or more.  LGA 1366 had a 3 year run between late 2008 and late 2011, so those boards are getting up in years now.  Also, most of the new boards have better ESD and voltage protection, fused ports, etc. and are just built better.  Those used parts would have to be very low-priced before I'd take the plunge.  By the way, an i7-960 performs only slightly better than a Haswell i3 at stock clocks, and any Haswell i5 will easily leave it behind.


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## Mussels (Mar 1, 2014)

Hood said:


> I am a firm believer in building with new parts these days, unless I'm just throwing something together with donated used parts.  Too many times I've plugged a different video card in an old motherboard and it refused to output video ever again, through the PCIe slot or the on board iGPU, maybe fried a capacitor or two.  Also a few that never booted again after a thorough cleaning, possibly from a tiny static discharge.  When you consider how many small electronic components there are on your average motherboard, it's amazing how long some of them last.  But caps age, resistors change values, corrosion takes it's toll, and any little component failure can render the board unbootable.  I'd say that any board 5 years old or more is a candidate for failure at any time, even though some last 10 years or more.  LGA 1366 had a 3 year run between late 2008 and late 2011, so those boards are getting up in years now.  Also, most of the new boards have better ESD and voltage protection, fused ports, etc. and are just built better.  Those used parts would have to be very low-priced before I'd take the plunge.  By the way, an i7-960 performs only slightly better than a Haswell i3 at stock clocks, and any Haswell i5 will easily leave it behind.




you're the opposite of me. my current system came from a plastic box with no lid at the tip - yeah, my 1155 mobo was found at the tip. also found three AM3 boards and one FM1, and every last one worked.


second hand parts are perfectly fine, if you can verify they work fully before you buy


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Mar 1, 2014)

Aquinus said:


> The big issue with skt1366 is that if the motherboard fails, you're going to have a hard time finding a decent motherboard that's reasonably priced to replace it. Dead means replacement parts will be used and harder to come by. It also consumes more power than a more recently released CPU will. If you do go with skt1366, treat that board like royalty and hope it doesn't fail.
> 
> What's the budget?



Its possible to find the odd brand new mobo I paid amazon 89  quid for a new saphire black x58 , it didn'tttake that much looking either


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