what should I upgrade on this rig

[d0z3rr]

Get an i7. Q6600 is some seriously old architecture. This coming from a Q6600 owner.

[thedreameater]

Thanks for all the replies.

Sajuuk - I can't afford to upgrade at the moment, just looking ahead in 2010. I might be able to get one or two pieces.

Looks like I'll be upping the mobo+CPU for i7 support and adding a 2nd video card. Will probably boost the ram at that point as well.

Trick - Will Windows 7 really show an improvement? The OS will be the last thing I upgrade, but if others have noticed W7 is kicking some ass, maybe I'll have to knock it up the list sooner.

Took a break from WoW for a month to do some music. Stunbled across this video, reminds me of boxing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYv5jqHMe5c

[Shodokan]

Thanks for all the replies.

Sajuuk - I can't afford to upgrade at the moment, just looking ahead in 2010. I might be able to get one or two pieces.

Looks like I'll be upping the mobo+CPU for i7 support and adding a 2nd video card. Will probably boost the ram at that point as well.

Trick - Will Windows 7 really show an improvement? The OS will be the last thing I upgrade, but if others have noticed W7 is kicking some ass, maybe I'll have to knock it up the list sooner.

Took a break from WoW for a month to do some music. Stunbled across this video, reminds me of boxing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYv5jqHMe5c

I'm LOVING windows 7... just got my new comp today

[yaki]

Switch to a quad core CPU, then see if any further upgrades are necessary. Do not start swapping out half the system at once unless you have cash to burn.

Get an i7. Q6600 is some seriously old architecture. This coming from a Q6600 owner.

Still works fine. WoW is damn old, and most things that can actually benefit from four cores need parallelism more than brute per-core power. Really, modern CPUs are overpowered for most things that end up being done with them even more generally.

[d0z3rr]

Still works fine. WoW is damn old, and most things that can actually benefit from four cores need parallelism more than brute per-core power. Really, modern CPUs are overpowered for most things that end up being done with them even more generally.

Umm, not really. Look at some benchmarks for the Q6600 vs the i7 and the i7 blows it completely out of the water, even for single threaded games.

[Sajuuk]

Umm, not really. Look at some benchmarks for the Q6600 vs the i7 and the i7 blows it completely out of the water, even for single threaded games.

Also take into account the Q6600 is called a Core 2 Quad for a reason: It's two Core 2 Duo dies on a single chip, whereas the i7 is a ''''''''''true'''''''''' quad core.

But, unless you have around 900 dollars to spend on an upgrade (assuming you want 12GB of ram), and use your computer for more CPU intensive things than WoW/Gaming, might as well get a good Core 2 Quad.

[yaki]

Umm, not really. Look at some benchmarks for the Q6600 vs the i7 and the i7 blows it completely out of the water, even for single threaded games.

Yeah, because I totally want to build a computer to multibox SuperPi.

[thedreameater]

Thanks for the advice all. My Q9400 arrived today from Newegg and I install it tonight. Down the line I will upgrade my GPU and HD to an SSD.

Here's what I got
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...819115131#spec

Here's what I had
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115037

[Gramzngunz]

Thanks for the advice all. My Q9400 arrived today from Newegg and I install it tonight. Down the line I will upgrade my GPU and HD to an SSD.

Here's what I got
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...819115131#spec

Here's what I had
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115037

lol looks like I missed this post when I wrote mine!
Looks good man enjoy!