Old chip shootout time, stick with the q6600, or run an i5-2400s?

[PhillipM]

Right, got an i5-2400s and 2x4gb sticks of DDR3 for free today, which is nice, but, the question is, do I use them to replace my Q6600 (@3.4ghz) in my main rig, or just build another machine with 'em?

The only thing that has me concerned is with the limited overclocking and it being an early low-power chip, with lower turbo boost speeds when the cores start getting used, it might not be worth buying an old 1155 board (given they're still 60 quid for a decent ish board) for it in case it's not noticeably faster than the q6600?

Yay or nay?

[watercooled]

i5 all the way

[oneman]

The i5 is about twice as quick as the Q6600 in general usage, however is it worth spending £60 on a new board ? Is there any other parts worth upgrading like an SSD ?

[wonderlust]

In most day to day stuff, not gaming etc, you will notice very little difference.

An SSD will be more noticable

[PhillipM]

Nah, the machine already has SSDs in there and decent size raid storage. I just never spent the money on upgrading from the Q6600 as it was fast enough not to bother really - m plan was wait until the new boards/chips/DDR4 have come down in price a little in the spring and make a leap rather than incremental upgrades. But, the i5 and DDR3 was free, so...

[wonderlust]

Lol in that case enjoy the increase in performance and drop in power use

[RealNeil]

I'd say to go for it.
If you don't like it much, you can always go back.
If you enjoy building PCs like most of us do, you'll have a good time with it.

[cruciate]

Just as an after thought, if you upgrade to the i5, you will probably get sata 3 as well. Your Q6600 will almost certainly be on a sata2 connection, unless you've added a third party sata 3 card into a PCI-e slot. Pretty sure no socket775 chipsets ran sata3.

This on its own will bring you an extra boost in speed, unless your SSD is more that 3 years old. SSD's have been saturating sata2 bandwidth ever since the old crucial c300 came out.

[El Wayneo]

Plus you have the extra boost in speed that knowing your stuff is newer and faster brings.

[Cosford]

The £60 or whatever you could recuperate by selling your q6600 stuff any way, or whack in another rig. =)

Do eet

[le4thab]

Well if you were planning on upgrading in the spring, sell the i5 and the ram to put towards the upgrade?

[PhillipM]

Yeah, the portsare Sata II, so the SSD's peg it at 270mb/s

[oneman]

The £60 or whatever you could recuperate by selling your q6600 stuff any way, or whack in another rig. =)

Do eet

Q6600 + motherboard + 4GB RAM should be going for around £50 on fleabay.

[TheMadDutchDude]

What motherboard have you got with the Q6600? If it's a reasonable one, that'll cover the cost of a newer 1155 board anyway.

I'd also say go for it. Much faster in day to day stuff and uses less power. It's a win win all round.

[PhillipM]

It's a P5K and a G0 Q6600, memory is XMS2 and Ballistix, Freezer 7 cooler, so I should get half decent money for it.