Upgrade?

Lelisevis

Hi Peeps, need a little advice. I've been closely monitoring this processor http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...d=6&subcat=793 for a while but got the shock of my life when I logged on today, price has been slashed dramatically. Processor in question is the Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600.

Few questions
1) Is this thing gonna be as power hungry as my 5200+?
2) Sticking with that site which SLI motherboard would do it justice (links to boards appreciated) staying in the £80-£100 range.
3)How do these processors overclock?
4)Is the stock cooler sufficient?
5)Does it make sense to upgrade from the system in my sig, IE would I notice it. I know my gfx cards are being held back at the moment.

Cheers for any advice Lel

niceguyrichy

I have no helpfull advice to offer, I just wanted to say I saw that cpu the other day and just couldn't believe the price. if I weren't flat broke, with my kitchen still flat packed in my hallway, and a broken car sat out front, I'd be sorely tempted to abuse a credit card...
interesting to hear what the knowlegable folks here have to say about it

Grace

1) No, it will probably consume even less power under normal usage.

2) Hmmm, this one perhaps?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...d=5&subcat=205

3) Just as well as any Conroe in theory, slightly lower than ordinary E6XXX processors because of the number of cores in act since they multiply the chance of getting a bad core by 2.

4) If you don't mind some noise.

5) Depends on what you will be doing with it.

Lelisevis

Thanks Grace, appreciate the comments.

Read mixed comments on that board you recommended and im wary of sound issues. If im honest one of the reasons i'm even looking to upgrade is because my current setup in SLI does not leave a single free slot which is disgusting on a supposed high end board. Especially when the included on board audio is totally unusable reducing everything to a stuttery mess.
My system is used mainly for gaming and websurfing so ideally I want something that uses minimum power up to the point I fire up a game.

Keep the comments coming.

Grace

It's not the motherboard but the chipset that sometimes creates some issues. And since you want SLI, you are stuck with it. It is the best chipset with SLI support for quads.

I didn't want to recommend such an expensive motherboard but have a look at the Striker or the Abit 32X Max. Maybe these are better for you.

Necrosis

If you all you do is game, and web surf I'd wait. It's not like they're going to raise the price in the meantime. However, I must say I do love mine.

Lelisevis

Processors on a one week only special offer buddy, that's why i'm thinking of picking one up.
Can't make my mind up which motherboard to buy, any opinions on this one http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...odid=MB-222-AS

I'll throw up a link to the selection of boards, requirements are something that supports SLI and has one or two free slots for future upgrades such as physics card if they ever take off. http://www.overclockers.co.uk/produc...id=5&subid=205

I do appreciate everyones comments as I've been an AMD user for the last 15+ years and this is my first foray into intel territory.

What sort of power supply wattage would be ample without going over the top? I was thinking of this 800W BFG model http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...id=123&subcat= but again am open to suggestions

Grace

The Asus is a fine, yet expensive board.

Your current PSU will be just fine. You don't need an 800W PSU. I have no experience on BFG units nonetheless.

Lelisevis

After nearly a full weekend of research i've come to one rather large conclusion and one question I can't seem to figure out.
Firstly my conclusion: Asus really needs to sort out it's board naming department, so many boards with pretty much similar features with indistinguishable names.
Secondly my question: why is it that with it's dominant market position SLI does not have more selection with regards to motherboards. Crossfire has a variety of chipsets yet I can count on one hand the number of people I know with twin ATI cards, on the other hand we have an abundance of people pairing up nvidias cards all restricted to N-force boards. Is this some sort of crazy restriction placed on board manufacturers by the green ones?

temeteus82

Yeah nVidia wants to make all SLI chipsets for the market.

Lelisevis

Ok I have to order tonight. I'm getting the Q6600 but im torn between

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...odid=MB-209-AS
Asus P5N32-E SLi nForce 680 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard - full 680i chipset but with non solid state capacitors

£140



or

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...d=5&subcat=205
Asus P5N32-E PLUS SLi nForce (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard - hybrid chipset combination of 650i and 590 but with full solid capacitors

£117

Help me out people im going insane here. Must order in the next hour

Lelisevis

Well after extensive research I've done it, postman will be delivering some new toys for me on tuesday

Winging it's way to me are:
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "LGA775 Kentsfield" 2.40GHz (1066FSB)

and
Asus P5N32-E PLUS SLi nForce (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

I eventually went for the Asus P5N32-E Plus as opposed to the non plus P5N32-E SLI version as the cheaper 'plus' hybrid chipset board has all the advantages of the 680i chipsets without any of the problems. Reading countless forums it overclocks just as well, runs a lot cooler, has a much higher build quality featuring full solid capacitors (it's actually built on the striker extreme board with a sticker covering the name) and is a fair bit cheaper.
It's a shame that people who are not willing to research miss out on little gems like this. Asus general naming guidelines really need overhauling, it's no longer a case of higher number and price equals better performance.

Be nice to finally unleash the power in these 8800GTS OC's. it's been an odd year for me, after years of loyalty to AMD and ATI i've been left with no option but to consider alternatives. It's upto the red team to win me as a consumer back again but I think they have a hell of an uphill struggle ahead of them.

Tipstaff

BTW, the price drop on the Q6600 starts tonight. Over the next week or so you should see it come down to around $275 US ($290 CAN). I know NCIX is already selling it as a 'sale' price right now, and it should stay that way after the sale.

As for which board to get, one thing to note is that Overclockers has reused the image of the P5N32-E SLI for the P5N32-E SLI Plus, so the image isn't exactly as it shoud be on the Plus. For the Plus Asus replaced all the capacitors with metal caps. They also don't tell you that the P5N32-E SLI Plus is using a 650i/570i combo chipset. While you may think that this sucks, it's in fact a blessing. The board is cheaper, yet still does exactly what the 680i based board does. That means the boards primary PCIE-16x slots run at full speed just like the 680i, and you get the 3rd PCIE-16x slot that runs at 8x, again, just like the 680i. This is thanks to the 570i chipset, btw, which also run the Ethernet side. I also, the 650i/570i combo to be a more stable chipset vs the 680i.

If you aren't sure which to get you might want to give Anandtechs review a read where they did a performance, and component comparison between them. Personally, I'd go with the Plus.

Lelisevis

Yup confirms everything I said. I picked up the Q6600 at the discounted price, it's near enough the same price as the dual core model but with double the cores.
As for the Plus model of the board, that's the one i've picked up, this 'frankenstein' board is even beating the striker in some benchmarks yet is less than half the price.
Just goes to show the advantages of taking your time, researching and not believing all the hype.

I'm over the moon with my choices and can't wait to set this beast up

Lelisevis

Guess I better update my spec list.

Took a half day off work yesterday, just as I was pulling into the front street the delivery guy pulled up behind me. Took delivery of my new toys.
Showing amazing control I left it all boxed and ran my chores before taking my case downstairs and stripping out the old stuff (or maybe not so old, only had the 5200+ for 6 months lol). Cleaned my case up and started the install.

First impressions, the stock mounting method for intels heatsinks is the most horrid unreliable system i've ever seen. Push clips for gods sake, maybe handy for fastening your jacket but to secure something as important as a heatsink. Urghhhh.

Anyway I got it all fitted up and set about routing my cables. Once it was all done I pressed that power button and it burst into life first time. Weirdly Vista booted and set about installing drivers. For all the people who moan about vista it sure is a user friendly system. Anyway being the geeky type I am I opted for the format and re-install.

Vista installation went smooth although for the first time ever with an OS I had to make a toll free call to MS to re-activate it as it picked up on my hardware changes. Staff were quick and helpful and within 2 minutes I was activated. Visited the Asus website and downloaded all the latest drivers (don't like the asus site as much as Abit's) then I went about installing 3dmark 06.

Stock clocks on everything and without any tweaking I ran 3dmark and was greeted with:

Systems far from optimised but not a bad start point.
Time to load up some games methinks!!!