# Upgrading Q6600 -> Sandy Bridge: which one?



## shakaxd (Mar 11, 2011)

Hey folks,

My Q6600 is 3.5 years old and is showing no signs of aging, but I want to upgrade before its value drops to below the point it's worth selling to buy a new rig. The idea is to buy new CPU+RAM+MOBO, and maybe a 2TB Samsung HDD. 

Budget is tight, $500, maybe a little more. I use PC mainly for racing games (GTR², rFactor, F1 2010), flight simulator X and video rendering. What would be the best bang for buck, improving from the overclocked Core2Quad?

- H67 + i5-2500 + 8GB RAM + 2TB HDD
- P67 + i5-2500k + 8GB RAM
- H67 + i7-2600 + 8GB RAM
- P67 + i7-2600k + 4GB 


Thanks for opinions


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## JrRacinFan (Mar 11, 2011)

shakaxd said:


> P67 + i7-2600k + 4GB


I don't have any other input for you but I would go this route myself.


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## stevednmc (Mar 11, 2011)

I agree with JrRacingFan..you can always add more memory later.


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## Anusha (Mar 12, 2011)

stevednmc said:


> I agree with JrRacingFan..you can always add more memory later.


and a hard drive too.
better not regret getting an i5 or a non-overclockable i7 later.


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## BraveSoul (Mar 12, 2011)

im with everyone on i7 2600k overclocks through the roof, + extra threads will probably come handy in future
_______________________





antec1200 filter mod | 4x4 Best off road games


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## Frizz (Mar 12, 2011)

If you only game

P67 + i5-2500k + 8GB RAM

If you do encoding etc for hyper-threading

P67 + i7-2600k + 4GB RAM


I'm sure you can reach 4ghz without changing voltages and while using stock cooling.


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## Over_Lord (Mar 12, 2011)

randomflip said:


> P67   i5-2500k   8GB RAM



8GB for encoding and photoshop, 4gb for games. you got it mixed


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## puma99dk| (Mar 12, 2011)

no H67 if i wanna OC they ain't build for that only P67 and Z67, and remember to take a K model.


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## Frizz (Mar 12, 2011)

thunderising said:


> 8GB for encoding and photoshop, 4gb for games. you got it mixed



lol no, the choices are 2500k or 2600k, obviously the better choice for video rendering or encoding is to go with the 2600k + 4GB RAM as he can always add more RAM later.


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## newtekie1 (Mar 12, 2011)

shakaxd said:


> - P67 + i7-2600k + 4GB



I'd go with this.  You can always add more RAM later, that is easy, and with 4GB kits going for $40, you can probably upgrade to 8GB pretty quickly.


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## CrAsHnBuRnXp (Mar 12, 2011)

> - P67 + i5-2500k + 8GB RAM



Id go that if you game. Just overclock it like hell. You dont need the extra threads for gaming. And if you really need the hdd, get the p67 + i5 2500k + 4GB +HDD if its manageable. Otherwise stick with the quote above.

Get the i7 if you wanna fold and like to bench. Actually, does BOINC utilize all the threads in an i7 2600k? Im curious now.


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## qubit (Mar 13, 2011)

I would go for something that's not on your list:

P67+i5-2500K+4GB+2TB

This is what I'm looking to get, minus the HD, which I already have.


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## yogurt_21 (Mar 13, 2011)

sigh poll, we needs one


but I'd go for



> P67 + i7-2600k + 4GB



just as other have said, add more ram and a bigger hd later. better to have the faster overclockable cpu as that will be much harder to change later.


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## LagunaX (Mar 13, 2011)

P67 + i7-2600k + 4GB 





But if you have budget restraints, i5-2500k...


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## Hayder_Master (Mar 13, 2011)

sure p67 + i7 2600k


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## Zen_ (Mar 15, 2011)

You could get a an Asrock P67 Pro3, 2500k, 4GB of basic DDR3-1600 and a modest heatsink for $500. Unless you could really use hyperthreading and 8GB of memory for whatever rendering you do I'd say that's the most for your money.


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## overclocking101 (Mar 15, 2011)

P67 + i7-2600k + 8GB + Water Cooling FTW


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## shakaxd (Mar 15, 2011)

Thanks for the advices guys 

I forgot to mention shipping costs are included on the average $500 budget, and the cheapest USPS Intl. shipping to Brazil is about $45.50. That's also the reason it's not worth adding RAM or HDD later when not combined with a larger shopping cart to spread the shipping cost.

I'm more inclined to pick the 2500k, 2TB Samsung HDD, and this Gigabyte mobo + this 4GB RAM kit. That goes for $480 with promo codes + shipping (US first, BR later), setting me back around $550 total.

Is this a good way to spend the cash? Or is there any better (cheaper) option?

Thank ya all!


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## shakaxd (Mar 24, 2011)

Just updating, due to cash constraints, taxes, shipping costs and paypal fees, I had to ask my US friend to place an order slightly different than the options I listed up there. Ended up getting just the 2500k + Gigabyte mobo + 4GB DDR3-1600 CL7 kit. It should be a great system nonetheless and from what it looks a 40~50% performance gain over the Q6600 =)


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## xenocide (Mar 24, 2011)

shakaxd said:


> Just updating, due to cash constraints, taxes, shipping costs and paypal fees, I had to ask my US friend to place an order slightly different than the options I listed up there. Ended up getting just the 2500k + Gigabyte mobo + 4GB DDR3-1600 CL7 kit. It should be a great system nonetheless and from what it looks a 40~50% performance gain over the Q6600 =)



I wouldn't be surprised if you saw a much larger performance gain than even that in some situations.  I had a Q6600\4GB DDR2-800 for quite a while and went for a i5-2500k, MSI P67A-GD65, and 8GB of the same RAM you got and the biggest performance increase I saw was in gaming.  Rift for example jumped from 20fps in Meridian (I have an HD5850) to upwards of 70fps on the same settings, even throwing AA on still kept me steadily above 50fps.  If you do a decent amount of rendering work I believe the Z68 will interest you in the future, so keep an eye out for it.


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## shakaxd (Mar 24, 2011)

Thanks for the tips! Given I'm upgrading pretty much from the same settings you were, including same VGA (5850) I think I'll be positively surprised!

I don't plan on running it higher than 4.0~4.2GHz anyway, I just don't like seeing it running too hot considering it must last 4, maybe 5 years before I get my next CPU 

Is there anyone flying FSX with similar settings? From what I saw on Youtube there's a huge performance gain on that, fps sky high (no pun intended)


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## LAN_deRf_HA (Mar 24, 2011)

FSX will see massive gains with a sandy in the 4ghz range. Like playable on max for the first time.


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## cever89 (Mar 31, 2011)

shakaxd said:


> Hey folks,
> 
> My Q6600 is 3.5 years old and is showing no signs of aging, but I want to upgrade before its value drops to below the point it's worth selling to buy a new rig. The idea is to buy new CPU+RAM+MOBO, and maybe a 2TB Samsung HDD.
> 
> ...



Funny... this is the exact situation I'm in as well! But I think if I were to actually do this, I would have to add an SSD and a new GFX card to my shopping list. My GeForce 7800 just isn't cutting it these days...


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## shakaxd (Apr 16, 2011)

Just got the parts, and WOW! It's impressive, awesome improvement over a 3.4GHz Core 2 Quad! I'm speechless, saw up to 100% gains on FSX / GTR² under stressful conditions. If anyone is still in doubt, the 2500k rocks HARD! Already gave it a mild overclock to 4GHz for everyday, but saw it going fine up to 4.6GHz without much effort! 

Thank you guys!


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## qubit (Apr 16, 2011)

That's great dude. I've heard that these babies can easily run at 5GHz on the stock cooler, so don't hold back.


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## Benetanegia (Apr 16, 2011)

Congrats man. I did the exact same upgrade just 3 weeks ago. Q6600 to 2500K + 8 GB and I'm very happy too, like night and day in games and rendering. My election was a lot easier though, because in the retailer where I get my parts from, the 2500k costed exactly the same as the non-k 2500 (~180 euro) and 80 euros less than what the 2600k costed. 50% higher price for so little improvement could not be justified, even if the 2600k itself demolished any Westmere i5/i7 CPU in price/performance. The ram was an even easier choice since they had a 2x4GB Patriot 1600 Mhz bundle for sale for only 5 euro more than 2x2 GB bundles and I do have a use for so many ram, so...

It's funny but I've seen dozens of people going from Q6600 to 2500k, I don't know if it's because both are/were such a good deal (which they are) or it's just that seing Q6600 and 2500k together calls my attention.


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## PaulieG (Apr 16, 2011)

qubit said:


> That's great dude. I've heard that these babies can easily run at 5GHz on the stock cooler, so don't hold back.



That really is just not true. It's not hard to get about half of these chips to 5.0 on good cooling. Not all of them will make it there stable on reasonable vcore, nor can you run stability tests on the stock cooler on anything but stock vcore. Just don't want people's expectations to go wild.


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## qubit (Apr 16, 2011)

Thanks for the clarification.  I don't know from experience, just from what I've seen people post, on TPU and elsewhere. But it certainly doesn't hurt to try!


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## shakaxd (Apr 16, 2011)

I'm comfortable with the 4.0GHz mark and performance, don't feel I really need more than that for the moment. Considering I'll probably stick with this CPU for 4 years (my usual time between major upgrades), video card for another 1 (usually replace every 2), and I live in a damn hot country (at the time of this post, 32c ambient temp), I don't want to push it too much now, and leaving a good headroom on both CPU and GPU for a late push closer to their replacement sounds like a plan 

F1 2010 for instance, managed to run it earlier today on 91fps max, 70fps avg with 8xMSAA. For me that's already great enough  FSX runs capped to 30fps for better overall performance, GTR² / rFactor are easily over 60fps even under hard conditions, like GTR² rain + night + 35 AI grid at Spa, and last but not least Shift 2 Unleashed is around 60fps avg. Other games, like CoD series, are also over 60fps with all graphics settings I like to have. 

... and no, did not and will *not* test Crysis with it lol.


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## LagunaX (Apr 16, 2011)

Most ppl are hitting 4.6-4.7ghz under 1.4v with the 2500k's.
4.7-4.9ghz with the 2600k's, and greater than 1.4v for 5ghz stability.
You can also drop that 0.1 to 0.2ghz if you disable PLL Overvoltage so that your system can resume from sleep or standby properly without a hard reboot.
Just my $0.02.


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