[solved] Core 2 Quad Q6600 - Good enough for Sonar X1?

My PC has a Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.4 GHz).  On the Passmark chart it gets a score of 1501.

The Sonar X1 Requirements say the minimum CPU is a Core 2 Duo E8200 (2.67 GHz), which gets a Passmark score of 1936 (which is higher than my E6600).

My motherboard is an Intel d975xbx2 ("badaxe2"), which can support a few faster (but still kinda old) processors.  One is the Core 2 Quad Q6600 (2.4 GHz), which gets a Passmark score of 2975.  That score is about 50% higher than the Sonar X1 minimum, and is almost twice as high as my E6600.  I can get a Q6600 for about $250.

Here are my questions:

1) Can we trust the Passmark scores when it comes to Sonar performance, or is there another metric/chart I should be using?

2) In your opinion, would the proposed upgrade be worth the $250, or would you opt to buy a more modern mobo, cpu, ram, etc.?  (NOTE: The rest of my PC is pretty solid: 4 GB RAM, large SATA disks, good video card, 650W PSU)

3) If I upgrade to the Q6600, will I need to buy a new heat sink, RAM, power supply, or anything other than the CPU itself (I already have thermal paste)? 

4) If all I do is change the CPU, will I need to reinstall the operating system?

Thanks a bunch!

I also have an E6600 Core 2 Duo. My understanding from reading several threads on this is if your system works OK with 8.3 or 8.5 (and mine does) it will also work fine with X1. Of course, you won't be able to run as many effects as you could with a faster or 4 core processor, but you should be able to run projects that ran fine on Sonar 8.3 or 8.5.

I plan to upgrade my system before long, but can't at the moment. I've got X1 on order and don't expect any problems horsepower wise. We'll see if it pans out...

In Europe on Ebay you find lots of Q6600 for 100€ maximum. As it's very light the shipping cost should'nt be too expensive. Prefer the German country; people are more serious.
That's my advice though I'm french! You keep your ram and everything, don't need any os installation.
Some processors are still under Intel's warranty.

If I upgrade from my Core 2 Duo E6600 to a Core 2 Quad Q6600 or Q6700, do I need to upgrade my heat sink as well?  Or should the same heat sink work equally well?  (I'm using the stock E6600 heat sink)

Did you get a new heat sink with your Q9550, or are you reusing the one for the e6850?

If I don't plan to overclock the Q6600 or Q6700, do you think I can get away with using the stock E6600 heat sink?

Do you feel like your Core 2 Duo is holding you back in your music making?  If so, in what way(s)?

Do you use your computer for just music, or general use as well (e.g., browsing, office, games)?

   Hello...
1) yes... that graph is the Pass Mark, CPU performance test results... there are other tests for memory and video cards, etc... you will get 2 more CPU cores with the Q6600, thus 2x performance with CPU related tasks... and Cakewalk will use them.

2) in my opinion, I would be patient, wait and bid on a Q6600 on EBAY, instead of buy now at $250, I would be pleased with a $100~$150 Quad upgrade price for you... prefer the ones with the GO or Slacr Spec for overclocking, if you are so inclined. Also put your old CPU back up for sale on EBAY.

3) a Quad is typically 30 watts more than a Dual CPU... 95 vs 65 watts... not knowing what your current heatsink is, makes it hard to tell what would happen... but stock intel fans are very similalr for all their Socket 775 CPU's, and are variable or auto speed controlable in your motherboard BIOS... Most BIOS has a PC heath catagory to see temps... and there is a freeware program called REALTEMP, that will let you watch CPU temps in your task bar as you are doing your tasks. You should be able to use your current Fan/heatsink... but after install, monitor the temps to determine if you should need further cooling with a 3rd party Fan/heatsink... you don't want temps in the 70C or higher all the time on the CPU, or you don't want to hear the CPU fan running at high or noisy levels all the time either... alot of factors including case size, placement, and cooling can affect personal results.

4) A CPU change will not require any other modifications to your software or hardware from what I see here... Just drop in and enjoy... if you upgrade a motherboard then a software install is needed due to hardware driver changes and MS policies.  

+1 on the Thermaltake cooling fan. I have one on my Core 2 Duo e6750 and it's running at around 23 degrees celsius. I haven't had any problems with it, and it's much better than the stock Intel fan.

What Thermaltake CPU fan do you guys recommend?  There seem to be a bunch: http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/Products.aspx?C=1405

ptheisen, I see Q6700 new on ebay for $235.  Is that too steep?

Tripecac


What Thermaltake CPU fan do you guys recommend?  There seem to be a bunch: http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/Products.aspx?C=1405 

 
I have the Thermaltake TMG i1 for the LGA 775 socket board. 

I just did some testing of Dimension Pro on my E6600.  It's pretty horrible.  Samples take a few second to load, and I get dropouts at even high latency if I try to do multiple things at once.  TTS-1 is more forgiving, but to my ears Dimension Pro sounds more realistic at some things.

So, it seems like my E6600 isn't even close to being able to handle Dimension Pro.  This makes me think a "subtle" upgrade like the Q6600 or even Q6700 just isn't worth it.  If I want to be able to enjoy using Dimension Pro, I think I need a much faster CPU and possibly an SSD disk.

Do Dimension Pro samples take a long time to load for you too?

How fast does one of those big (>200MB) grand piano samples load?

Tripecac,

I have an E6600 also.

Yes, it takes maybe four or five seconds for me to load the 230MB Dimension Pro grand piano, but the speed at which samples load is not very directly related to cpu power, it is most directly related to the hard drive speed.

Of greater concern is your statement that you get droputs even at high latency if you try to do multiple things at once. What do you mean by multiple things at once? I can run 20 tracks or more, a mix of audio and virtual synths, plus  a number of effects, at 3ms of latency without dropouts on my E6600 machine. If you can't do that, then maybe there is a hardware driver type of problem on your computer, something creating spikes in the DPC latency such as a network card or something like that.

Or maybe you mean that you can't have a video encoding or some other cpu intensive application running at the same time as Sonar. I would never expect the E6600 to handle that simultaneously. Personally, I wouldn't try to do both simultaneously no matter how powerful my computer was.