Stick with Q6600 or upgrade to QX6850?

[William W. Holcomb]

Ok, this may seem like a stupid question but I need to make a decision. I recently purchased a Dell 720 with a Q6600 processor. About the only thing I do on this system is video editing and special effects work (Adobe Premiere and After Effects CS3.) I have a GeForce 8800GTX and 4Gb Corsair Dominator PC8500.

Please keep in mind that I CANNOT overclock this chip because when I do so it causes my video to jump around. I've had it OC'd to 2.9Ghz stable but like I said it seriously affects my video.

So with that said, here is my delima. I've come into possesion of a QX6850 (retail) for free, nada, nothing. No, it's not stolen or anything like that. My intention was to simply upgrade and have a top-end system that would be good for a few years. But now I'm thinking about throwing the processor on eBay and banking the money.

I don't have any problems running the Q6600 but I have no idea how much faster the 6850 would be. Any thoughts?

[HAL9000]

I don't think you would notice a huge difference, but IMHO, throw the faster processor in and e-bay the old one.

[chadsxe]

Sell it and keep the money for 45nm penryn.

[William W. Holcomb]

Now you're way over my head. What's a 45nm penryn and what will that do for me? I've been into computers since the early 80's - back to the Commodore VIC-20. I built my own for many years (back when a 386DX33 with 4mb RAM was considered high-end.)

But in recent years I've gotten away from DIY and just purchased pre-made systems. Maybe it's time to getting back to my computing roots!

Do you think anyone would be interested in a used Q6600 if I decided to sell?

[perkster]

Q6600 is a very top of the line chip at present most new builders here are using them.

[chadsxe]

Now you're way over my head. What's a 45nm penryn and what will that do for me? I've been into computers since the early 80's - back to the Commodore VIC-20. I built my own for many years (back when a 386DX33 with 4mb RAM was considered high-end.)

But in recent years I've gotten away from DIY and just purchased pre-made systems. Maybe it's time to getting back to my computing roots!

Do you think anyone would be interested in a used Q6600 if I decided to sell?

The Penyrn (Wolfdale / Yorkfield) line is Intels new line of CPU's that will hit the market by years end. The current Quads ar3 65nm. These new CPU's are not a huge jump like P4 to C2D but they are a significant improvment. More then enough to justify selling and saving for the Penyrn. Oh shoot I almost forgot....they have SSE4 instruction set which is going to be a huge thing for video encoding. Much faster then previous SSE 3 and <. Not to mention they run much cooler then the 65nm do to the drop in size and they have a large FSB.