CPU-Unterschiede

Wer kann mir sagen, wo - außer im Preis - der (techn.) Unterschied bei den Intel Quad CPUs zw. der Q- und der QX-Reihe liegt?

Jou, Danke!

Ich interesiere mich für ein Upgrade auf einen 9650er unb bin aber für einen QX zu geizig.

Zitat

Observations / Thoughts / Conclusion

When I consider a new CPU purchase, there are a lot of variables I take into account. First I look at the general picture to see who is "winning" the processor race, and for the past few chip generations, Intel has firmly held the top spot. Then, I evaluate price, performance, future-proofing and overclockability - in no particular order.

Regarding price and the Q9650, it recently dropped nearly $200 and currently sits at $339.99 at Newegg. Yes, this still may seem a little high, but you also must consider it is the fastest Core 2 family chip excluding the Extreme series.

Now you should also consider if this will be a new build (motherboard, processor and memory) or simply a drop-in replacement and consider those costs. For a new build, you are likely looking at around $700 for a Core i7 920, midgrade triple channel memory kit and a baseline LGA 1366 motherboard. Oh, and your old aftermarket heatsink manufacturer may or may not offer an i7 bracket, so you could be looking at an additional $30-50 for a quality cooler. A similar LGA 775 build would be around $550 for the Q9650, 4 GB DDR2 memory kit and midgrade motherboard, plus the extra $30-50 for a heatsink. Honestly, if you are building from the ground up and can't reuse any of your old hardware, I would recommend spending the extra cash for the entry level Core i7 setup.

But, if you are simply upgrading the processor in your existing LGA 775 system, then you won't need a new motherboard and memory. For example, let's say you have an older E6600. Those chips were very popular in their time and I would be willing to bet many are still seeing use today. A direct swap would cost you $339.99 but then you could turn around and sell the E6600 on eBay. A quick check there shows these chips are selling for around $60, so that puts you at $279.99 for a nice boost in performance without having to buy a new motherboard, memory or CPU cooler. And, once overclocked, a system of this caliber is pretty close to the performance of an entry level Core i7 in several benchmarks.

Conclusion

Getting back to the Q9650 in question, I was generally pleased with its performance here today. The LGA 775 chip was a direct swap-in on my current system, which would be nice for most as you won't have to reformat your hard drive due to a new motherboard.

We saw a mixture of tests, some that utilized all four cores and others that were more dependent on sheer clock speed. Regardless, in almost every case, the Q9650 beat out the older Core 2 Duo E7200, but of course that was expected. This comparison was made to showcase how the Q9650 stacks up against an older chip, much like what you may be running in your computer today.

The Q9650 was also a breeze to overclock, something I value when choosing a CPU. I was able to hit 4 GHz with ease and could have gone a bit higher with better cooling. 4300 MHz or more wouldn't be out of the question with a proper water cooling system.

If you do a lot of video editing, sound editing or rendering, a quad core is a time saver, as most applications I have used are coded to utilize all four cores. Other tasks like gaming are more of a mixed bag, as many still don't support multicore configurations, but that will change over time as both CPU manufacturers have moved to multicore almost exclusively.

At the end of the day, however, it all comes down to your individual situation and what you are running today. If you have an LGA 775 system with an older Core 2 Duo chip, the Q9650 makes a lot of sense. It will certainly hold you over for a good while (especially when overclocked) and will save you a lot of money. If you are running something older than LGA 775 or an AMD system and are looking to make the jump to Intel, I would spend a little more money and pick up an entry level Core i7 combo.

OCIA.net awards the Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 our Seal of Approval!

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