This or That - A Real World First-Hand Answer Please

[GasPipeJimmy]

I have a Q6600 running at 3.2GHz, or I can drop in a Q9550, or I can get a new P55 Motherboard, reuse my RAM, and get an i7-860.

Would any of these options make a difference in how fast or snappy my desktop would feel?

Is a Q9550 overclocked to 2.8-4.0 going to feel any 'snappier' than my Q6600 overclocked to 3.2GHz.

Is an i7-860 going to feel that much faster than the Q9550 overclocked to 2.8-4.0?

I already have solid state drives, just in case anyone was going to suggest I get them first.
I'm not a gamer, but I do a lot of photo editing with PS CS4 and some video transcoding.

I have been wracking my brain over this upgrade for the last month, and I can't come to a conclusive answer if spending all this money is worth it.

[zanzabar]

since u have a POS mb that wont get near 4ghz i would get the 860 and an evga p55. and for video transcoding hyperthreading is great

[GasPipeJimmy]

There are lots of people running my board at 3.8 with the Q9550. That's close enough, if it won't hit exactly 4.0.

Do you own an i7 that you transitioned to after a Q6600/Q9550?
Did you feel any difference?

[zanzabar]

i went for an e6850 with 4.1ghz to an unlocked amd 720be and 3.9ghz. but the benches always show with transcoding a large 50-100+% clock for clock gain in transcoding and encoding with the i7 from a 775

[zsamz_]

get a 920 D0
i got both the 860 and the 920 and the 920 blew me away
i had a q9650 @ 4.3 and my 920 blows that away too

[OC Nub]

I went from a q9550 at 4.25ghz to a q9650 at 4.5ghz to this p55 i7-860 at 4.1ghz. In most things I do I cant really see much difference other than my scores in a few tests however this p55 does feel a bit smoother. If you had a good p45 motherboard I would say try the q9550, I agree with zanzabar with your current board overclocking will be more difficult, but if you think you will be happy possibly reaching 3.8ghz-3.9ghz if you get a good chip then why not save some money. I was able to reach 3.9ghz max with my q9550 on an Asus p5k deluxe p35, but on a gigabyte p45 4.4ghz was my maximum stable oc with the same q9550.

[zalbard]

For video transcoding - yes, other than that - no.

[GasPipeJimmy]

Wow, thanks for the replies everyone!
If I buy a Q9550, and then decide that it's not any real improvement (after a few days) to what I have, how hard would it be to get rid of one without taking a financial beating?

I need to compare that to the risk of buying an i7 and motherboard, and then being REALLY disappointed after I dropped all that money for what turned out to be no better than my Q6600 in my BadAxe2, except for running benchmarks.

[bt_medic04]

Wow, thanks for the replies everyone!
If I buy a Q9550, and then decide that it's not any real improvement (after a few days) to what I have, how hard would it be to get rid of one without taking a financial beating?

I need to compare that to the risk of buying an i7 and motherboard, and then being REALLY disappointed after I dropped all that money for what turned out to be no better than my Q6600 in my BadAxe2, except for running benchmarks.

if you are going the Q9550, your best bet would be to look for a used one rather than a new one if you want to try it out and not get too beat up financially if it doesnt show enough of an improvement for you.

[mecho_gruh]

My personal advice, get the newer technology. For web browsing, skype and other regular task it won't make any difference at all. But for any kind of photo and video encoding get i7 920 and some OCZ Reaper 3x2. I use Asus Rampage II Gene it's cheap and it has all the advantages of his bigger brother. I run my 920 @4 GHz low voltage cool and quiet enough. If you decide to buy an 9550 and then go to i7 920 you will lose more money than directly buying a good i7 platform. One more thing the i7 920 is very hot and the i7 860 even hotter, get a TRUE,IFX 14 or Megahalems. My IFX beats the other 2, but it needs some modification.

Here are some results from FryRender


RESULTS

Rampage II Gene thread

[mikecdm]

Making the "desktop snappy" sounds like it's for basic tasks. Not really benching or doing anything cpu intensive. IF that's the case, might as well save your money. For the basic things I do, a stock clocked dual core serves me well. I basically browse forums all day, check my email and that's about it. My stock clocked E6600 can do that just as good as my i5 750 at 4.3ghz.

[ajaidev]

preferred combo's p/v:

785 + amd x4 620
P55 + intel i5 750
x58 + intel i7 920


BTW if anyone says i7 860 is better than the 920 for any reason "Other than slightly better stock performance" they are lies. The i7 920 is from hell but 860 is from the sun, it gets very very hot when you OC the little F****. If you have the cash get the i7 920 if you want similar but degraded performance get the i5 750 but it you want totally value oriented performance get the x4 620 "For $99 its a total steal "

[deachus]

I went from a Q9450 @ 4Ghz to Q9650 @ 4.2Ghz to my current i7 920 D0 @ 4Ghz @ 1.21v. I would say going from Vista x64 to Win7 x64 made my day to day activities feel snappier, not the processor but I saw my biggest gains with the 920 during video encoding. This i7 920 D0 encodes much much faster than my previous rigs.

If you are looking for a more snappier experience upgrading the processor probably won't see much of a change but video encoding will benefit if you get the 920 D0

[GasPipeJimmy]

My 40mm Northbridge fan arrived today, the bracket should be here tomorrow.
I'll give it a couple of days to see if cooling off my bizarrely hot Northbridge chipset doesn't do the trick. If doesn't get my overclocks happening to at least 3.4, It's all going back and it's i9-860 time.

[zalbard]

785 + amd x4 620

Or x2 555 and unlock it!

[GasPipeJimmy]

If you are looking for a more snappier experience upgrading the processor probably won't see much of a change but video encoding will benefit if you get the 920 D0

Yeah, that's what my main fear is.
Lot's of money spent that's completely out of line with the increase in real world day-to-day speed.

My Northbridge bracket arrived Wednesday, with no mounting hardware, but that's OK because it wont clear my Coolermaster V8 anyways!

OK, so I grabbed a Corsair H50 water cooler and that should free up the room to mount the fan.
While I'm at it, I may as well grab another 40mmm fan because the "silent" one I bought doesn't move much air but the higher CFM 40mm fans sound like a jet engine.

Damn, this stuff is a pain.