It my opinoin yes quad core threaded games are becoming more common now but thats just up to me.. i would have bought one if i wasnt a student on a budget so i settled for a q6600

 

Yes a quad core would make a big difference, depending on what you're paying for the q9550 will determine if it would be worth it.

 

Yes it's worth it as nowdays games are more multi thread friendly..

And with that board Q9550 wil hit @ least 3.6GHz on almost stock voltage
if you get a nice E0 stepping,as my does 3.5GHz @ 1,15V @ LOAD and that's VID for my CPU..

FSB of 425MHz should be doable without much effort on that P35-UD3P..

CHEERS..

 

I upgraded my two rigs to Q9500 from E8400 in March and have no regrets.

 

I did this last year, had a huge impact on the more CPU intensive games like Crysis and BFBC2
I would first make sure your motherboard will support a Q9550

Also does your board have a 4 pin CPU socket or 8 pin? it helps with the OC

 

I recently made the switch from dual to quad. As far as gaming is concerned, it did make a difference in a handful of games. If the upgrade is for gaming only, the benefits might be debatable as currently only a handful of games get substantial benefit from quads. I guess in the next year we may see that number climb significantly. Overall I consider the upgrade worth it (although I have other uses for it outside of gaming).

 

Definitely. Take it from me. I went from an E8400 at 4.2GHz to a Q6600 at 3.4GHz and it was a huge gain.

 

Besides, your graphics cards will absolutely adore a Quadcore. Q9550 is THE biggest bang for your buck 775 proc. I saw good improvements when I went from a E8500 to Q9550 and 4850x2.

 

I went from a E8400 to a Q9550.

Made no difference in my gaming experience. Except for GTA IV, which saw a 5 fps increase. So much for supporting Quads.

As far as gaming is concerned, I would keep the E8400 at a nice clock.

 

Try a game that really utilizes four threads, PanicProne. I play games which can, and the results are 100% in favor of the quad. GTAIV utilizes three threads, not four, mainly because it's ported from Xbox which runs a tricore IBM Xenon.

 

I went from an e8400 to a qx9650 at the start of the year and yes its worth doing.

People say that you only notice a difference in multithreaded apps which does make a lot of sense but what i found was that everything within windows enviroment felt a lot quicker,not just multithreaded apps.

Keep your eye on ebay as there is a guy on there in hong kong who sells quad extremes at reasonable prices:

http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Dinsdales-H...=p4634.c0.m322

I bought a qx9650 from him and it was awesome,only just sold it 2 weeks ago as i upgraded reccently to an i7 rig.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by PanicProne I went from a E8400 to a Q9550. Made no difference in my gaming experience. Except for GTA IV, which saw a 5 fps increase. So much for supporting Quads. As far as gaming is concerned, I would keep the E8400 at a nice clock.

You are right not with that GPU. He has a GTX480 so he will see nice gains.

 

Went from a 4.4 E72 to a 4.4 Q95, holy hell there's a lot of difference.

 

OP, with your P35-DS3R board, it won't push a Q9550 as much as you think. The p35 chipset really struggled to push the FSB on quads. Sure you can get 3.4GHz - 3.6GHz, but its not going to do 4.0GHz like on a P45 chipset. If you want to go the quad core route, I recommend spending $110 on a Q6600 and push it to 3.4GHz.

Do you need a quad core? It really depends on what games you play. I know Black-Ops does really well with a quad core. In fact my brother-in-law and a friend have the same video cards (GTX 260 216SP), but his friend has a dual core e8400 and he has a Q6600 (OCed to 3.2GHz). He has much better gameplay with the Q6600 and his friend is looking to upgrade. So I would only go to a quad if your games will benefit from it.

Just my thoughts...

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by ericeod OP, with your P35-DS3R board, it won't push a Q9550 as much as you think. The p35 chipset really struggled to push the FSB on quads. Sure you can get 3.4GHz - 3.6GHz, but its not going to do 4.0GHz like on a P45 chipset. If you want to go the quad core route, I recommend spending $110 on a Q6600 and push it to 3.4GHz. Do you need a quad core? It really depends on what games you play. I know Black-Ops does really well with a quad core. In fact my brother-in-law and a friend have the same video cards (GTX 260 216SP), but his friend has a dual core e8400 and he has a Q6600 (OCed to 3.2GHz). He has much better gameplay with the Q6600 and his friend is looking to upgrade. So I would only go to a quad if your games will benefit from it. Just my thoughts...

I'd put my money on this..

 

In my case, it wasn't just the games that benefited from it. Much snappier rig alltogether.

 

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpu...o-games-need/5

Dual Core seems enough.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by slickwilly I did this last year, had a huge impact on the more CPU intensive games like Crysis and BFBC2 I would first make sure your motherboard will support a Q9550 Also does your board have a 4 pin CPU socket or 8 pin? it helps with the OC

Lies.

Crysis makes no use of Quads.

General knowledge.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by PanicProne Lies. Crysis makes no use of Quads. General knowledge.

Yeah Crysis bearly uses two cores..

I went from E6750 @ 3.3GHz+ (up to 4GHz) to Q9550 @ 3.9GHz and haven't seen any improvement in Crysis..

CHEERS..

 

Thanks everyone for the quick replies. I do not have any problems playing BC2 at all. Just in the mood to upgrade something, and cpu seems to me to be the weakest link. That is, without a complete upgrade.

My current processor is maxed at 100% in BC2. Just thought a quad may run a bit less than 100%, therefore helping my video card to run at a higher %.

 

Man your dual core must be holding back your 480 really bad. I am suprised anyone would pair such a fast GPU with such a ralatively slow CPU.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kirby1 Man your dual core must be holding back your 480 really bad. I am suprised anyone would pair such a fast GPU with such a relatively fast CPU.

Fixed.

And an overclocked E8400, won't bottleneck a single GTX 480. I would bet money on it.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by PanicProne Fixed. And an overclocked E8400, won't bottleneck a single GTX 480. I would bet money on it.

In Vanate for example moving from Q9550 @ 4.0Ghz to Core i7 4.4Ghz only increase GPU score by 300 points which means that CPU was not a bottleneck.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZealotKi11er In Vanate for example moving from Q9550 @ 4.0Ghz to Core i7 4.4Ghz only increase GPU score by 300 points which means that CPU was not a bottleneck.

Nice. Really shows how much more important a GPU upgrade is than a CPU upgrade at the moment. I'm honestly in good shape on both

The only cards that top mine are the GTX295, 480, 580, 5970, and 5970X2.

 

I upgraded from E6550 @ 3.23GHz to Q9550 @3.91GHz & there was difference in games.

As far as overclocking the Q9550 on a P35 chipset goes,you can get to 3.8-4GHz if you have a good board.

I have my Q9550 overclocked to 3.91GHz on my P35 board.