Using Core 2 Quad Q6600 in 2021

[@krz8888888]

Indeed, I remember the debate duo 8400 vs q6600. The quads got incredible longevity and sold me on the idea of getting more slower cores vs fewer fast cores

[@brpadington]

I think mine was the 8400 or 8200. They were all great chips in my opinion.

[@jamiehav0k62]

lol yeah everyone at the time was like noo get an e8400. I was like nah and got a q9450, that came out around the same time. lasted a lot longer than the e8400 did!

[@si4632]

@@jamiehav0k62 thats why i went for an athlon 455 lol

[@oOignignoktOo1]

I remember this debate well when I built my 1st pc back in 2008. I ended up going with the Core 2 Duo E8400 at the time because at the time most games didn't support Quad Core and by the time I upgraded the Quad Core cpu's would ve been aged enough for me to move to a new platform. I loved my E8400 for what it was until motherboard for it died back in 2018 from a power surge. I feel nowadays though if you're gonna upgrade an old LGA 775 platform the Q6600 would be the wiser choice since the extra cores is better for modern multi-media , day to day processes.

[@MLGKid420]

@@oOignignoktOo1 A 45nm quad would be better.

[@SolusBolus]

I'm still using my E5450 since 2018, for media and retro stuff. Thanks to you I upgraded my old PC and brought it back to life. LGA 775 continues to rock on.

[@philscomputerlab]

E5450 Xeon is so awesome.

[@istvankovasznai]

This 14 year-old "grandpa" of a CPU still holds up remarkably well in 2021, even in games. Not to mention basic office or multimedia tasks, in which it can even out-perform some low-end Pentiums or Celerons. For comparison, in 2007, when this thing came out, a 14-year old CPU would have been the original 60 MHz Pentium, which would have been pretty much useless in 2007.

[@philscomputerlab]

Totally! Installing Windows 10 and programs was quite responsive.

[@warrax111]

@@philscomputerlab Im still using it as primary CPU, didnt upgraded for 11 years. Well, to be honest, just last week I upgraded to Q9650, was prepare it for 2 years in box, but was lazy to upgrade. System is noticably faster, around 25%, but I didnt expected much, it is obsolete. But I dont need more, it's still ok with windows 7, I will hold as much as I can, cause I hate w10 / 11

[@stevenb4599]

Just reinstalled my Gigabyte P35 DS3 with the Q6600@3Ghz and an AMD HD 6950 (no nothing from 2022 :D) in a new Be quiet Pure Base 500 for my mother, replacing the old Dell with an E6400. On a SSD and only 4GB Ram (the two other slots seem to have issues) it is still ok for Office purposes. Once all Updates etc were done, pretty fine!

[@warrax111]

@@stevenb4599 You should upgrade to G41 motherboard, they used to have DDR3. With only two DDR3 slots, you can easily get 2x4GB, for 8 GB. Also Q6600 @ 3ghz, is biggest bullshit you can do nowadays. I was using it for years, and it was big mistake. it draws power like crazy. It's better to buy 45nm processor, so for example Q9550. Even on stock speeds, it's fast as Q6600 overclocked to 3.2 Ghz. While, you can keep all saving power states. In fact, I've set Vcore to 1.07 (which is even less, it has in idle originaly), and it works even in load. My power consumption dropped drastically. Q6600 is non-sense today. Particulary after overclock. My power consumption on Q6600 in idle state, raised from 90W to 110W, only in idle (after overclock), and in load, it was always like +30-40W more. Knowing this, I would let it in stock speeds, which I did after years, when I found it out. When I count how much power it drew over years, I could buy for it Q9650 even like 3x for that money.

[@warrax111]

@Edgar Grefve just don't forget overclock Q6600 to 3ghz, and turn off all idle states, so it draws 25$ per year additional power, and use it for 5 years, instead of buying Q9550 and G41 motherboard for 20$ more. Btw, to buy 8GB of DDR3 memory is cheaper, than to buy 8GB of DDR2 memory. Just to let you know. So it will be probably even cheaper to get G41+Q9550 and DDR3 combo.

[@Flabbycakes]

I built a system for for one of younger brothers using the Q6600 with the tape mod OC and a GTX 470 a couple years ago for Christmas. It was his first gaming PC and he's still using it to this day! Excellent part from Intel's glory days.

[@KillPixelGames]

lga 775 is a legendary platform that spanned across one of the most rapidly changing eras in gaming. the performance range is very broad - from a celeron d to qx9770 - making it a great choice for a number of retro builds. it's relatively inexpensive, too. running an e8600 @ 4ghz in one of my machines atm.

[@giostetina]

i use a xeon e5460 on 775.

[@microbuilder]

Last summer I upgraded from the Q6600 to a Q9650...the GTX770 has a bit of a bottleneck, but still runs the few games I play quite well.

[@Ktmzqw]

@@giostetina me too. I have 2 actually. First one was unmodded so i put the sticker on and cut the cpu brackets on the socket myself. Second one came already modded from aliExpress. on the same motherboards i struggled to go over 3.6ghz on my q6600, the 5460s go past 4ghz with relative ease

[@randomchannel9331]

some 775 boards can run pentium 4s lol

[@tronalddump8776]

@@randomchannel9331 I have several p4 on the 775. Not worth talking about none the less.

[@mr_pckiller5258]

My desktop still has a Core 2 Quad Q8400. I played on it Jedi Fallen Order (25-30 fps) with 12 GB of DDR3 RAM and a GTX 650 OC GPU. Core 2 Quads are true survivors.

[@vladimirsamas3097]

use q9550 is better 15percent

[@dannylovell7876]

How did you run that game??? What resolution? Granted, it seems to suffer from trash loading times and lags even on high end hardware, but I'm impressed. :)

[@mr_pckiller5258]

I ran it at 1280x960. With the "medium" setting which is the lowest. The CPU struggled on big areas and with too many enemies but the framerate was kinda stable. With 8 GB of ram there was microlaggs when the area loaded, so I added 4 more GB and it made microlaggs less noticeable.

[@arik2216]

Seriously ? Do you have low fps 12-15 fps during fight more than 3 enemies specialy in Dathomir when you are fighting zombie. Mine uses i3 4130 (non OC), DDR3 8 GB, RX 560 4 GB. Why do i still have trouble to run it with low setting ? Is it because i save my game with eksternal hdd ?

[@mr_pckiller5258]

On Dathomir not really, I dips when there are too many enemies, like way too many. But in general it runs stable. It struggles during the area loading, when I travel with the Mantis. The fps goes down to 12-15 and sometimes the video just stops while the audio plays but when the area is loaded it resumes. An external HDD can slow down things.

[@mattyclad9185]

I bought a HP at Best Buy in 2008 had a q6600 in it. Knew nothing about computers really at the time, but I knew 4 cores was bleeding edge tech then. I used that rig as my main driver until 2017. The only reason why I replaced it is because it struggled with video encoding if I wanted to record game play or stream. However, it handled most games like a champ, and it still does. It was a solid machine.

[@dhgodzilla1]

Core 2 Quad is one of my all time favorites. 10 years I spent on that platform. I am going to try to revive a bunch of old Pentium 4s & Core 2 Motherboards this summer. Got a nice Heat Station, a decent Soldering Iron & a bunch of Caps. I hope it goes well I always feel good fixing things & preventing waste. Anyway good video as always

[@precastsnake3171]

What would you use such old processors for nowadays?

[@precastsnake3171]

@@Didz that sounds pretty good

[@trashtronics1700]

This is exactly why I keep my mother Bord graveyard around one day boys one day

[@nicolausteslaus]

@@Didz Why do you need core for old games when you can install virtual machine or dosbox

[@Robin-tb3ql]

My same i have a game pc with a ryzen 5 5600x but next to it i have a Fujitsu Siemens with a intel core 2 quad core q8300 and its pretty fast for a core 2

[@RoterFruchtZwerg]

I'm actually watching this on my desktop pc with a Q6600 in it which is running fine for 14 years now. My motherboard is a Gigabyte P35-DS3L. I've only upgraded to an SSD over the years. I'm not much into gaming, more coding etc. Recent developments in virtualization are a problem though (Docker, VMware etc. stopped working in recent versions) due to missing instructions.

[@finkelroy211]

Try an I5 3570s. They are pretty cheap. I use them for mining rigs with Lenovo OEM IH61M M-ATX boards or Gigabyte H61M. It will double your CPU power, burn half the electricity and add those instructions you are missing. But I am typing this on an Optiplex 780 with overclocked X3220 so they are far from useless. I used a C2D as my desktop for 7 years. I watched my first streaming HD video on it.

[@TheSteelCrown]

@@finkelroy211 you can overclock on optiplex?

[@_matis_]

Lol,same

[@averyoldYoutubeuser]

May be the most missing instructions is SSE4.1, 4.2 You only need to go to the Q9xxx for SSE4.1, SSE4 support. If you need AVX , the core i 2nd, 3rd gen is the need. I don't mention the first gen core i cuz they are pretty rare and expensive in my opinion, both the motherboard and the chips

[@digitalintent]

I'm typing on one right now. It's hooked up to my TV. It's the same exact rig, minus the SSD, which I used from 2009-2013 to run a small animation startup. I do all my heavy graphics work on my workstation using professional software but I use this rig to watch KZbin, play movies, play emulators and even do some Doom and Quake mapping. It also runs Blender pretty well. I use it for some relaxation sculpting. I'm running Windows 10. I'm extremely attached to this rig and will probably shed a tear when it dies. Q6600 EP45-UD3R motherboard GeForce 9800 GTX+ 16 GB Corsair

[@kjcolewelle]

Glad to see you haven’t completely abandoned 775 (unlike some other "budget“ tech KZbinrs); I still love this stuff and even DDR2 4GB sticks have become more affordable over time. (Have a couple of boards still that can run at least 12GB like this). Great stuff!

[@suiken3149]

The lack of instruction set to run modern games is what these techies are worried about when recommending budget builds.

[@TheRailroad99]

in General, 775 was a great option, but even the best 775 systems really struggle. my old 775 system struggles to play CSGO with more than ~40 FPS. A few years back most eSports titles ran great on it. Updates to the games and pretty bad performance with Spectre/Meltdown patches killed 775 as a budget option. it moved from "budget" to "retro". The new minimum for a budget system is socket 1366.

[@documentaries2206]

Still using Q6600 in 2021 after 14 years!

[@phoenixfireclusterbomb]

I still use this as my daily driver. I have a gaming pc but this does basically everything I need it to do. Bought in 2006.

[@acid3129]

I still have a pentium 4 as my xp gaming pc mainly for freelancer

[@Tech2C]

@@acid3129 I loved Freelancer. Checkout Everspace 2. It's in early access but very Freelancer-ish.

[@primus711]

Lets be honest u were to lazy to move everything to new pc

[@AaronAlmario]

The good old Q6600. Still have it in my collection. Sadly, my 775 motherboard died that's why it's in my spare PC parts. But it helped power up my "home theater/living room gaming" setup for a few years around 2015-2018.

[@milosmarinkovic1572]

And this is why I follow your chanel, so old platform yet perfect for retro gaming. Always fun and informative content thy!

[@AetiusPraetorian]

Ran my Q6600 at 3.0ghz easy. Later upgraded it to a cheap Q9550 running at 2.83ghz stock. The Q9550 beat the overclocked Q6600 in games and bench's, but the Q6600 was legend among the old Core 2 Quad's.

[@StaelTek]

The first batch of Q6600's had a 105w TDP. The later G0 model has a 95W TDP. I would've liked to see the tape mod in action, basically turning it to a 3 GHz CPU

[@MichaelTavares]

Even if you don’t reply, it’s good to know you read every comment. I’ve learnt a lot from your channel and have brought back to life many discarded machines as a result. Thank you.

[@soumyajitdeb3943]

I use a Q6600 and a 5870 for late XP era games. Runs those flawlessly.

[@RuruFIN]

E8500 & 560 Ti here for that usage. :)

[@Droogie128]

E8600 and 750ti for my xp rig.

[@B-A-L]

Q66600, 4Gb ram and a 2Gb GT710, runs every XP game that I have that doesn't need Steam, even Crysis (although it did struggle massively on the last level)!

[@arik2216]

Can you make some list those game ?

[@Ganiscol]

Been (and still am) using a Q6600 since 2007 through today. 😄 I'm only surprised the overclocking hasnt fried it yet. Ran it at 3.2Ghz for ~13 years and 3.5 for a year now 🤷🏽‍♂️ Solid stuff from ye olden days!

[@excess.subiefl0w]

Just got an extra large coffee and have a day off today and a new video is ready! Thank you! Love your vids!

[@neopolaris]

Enjoy! ☕

[@philscomputerlab]

Yay! Thank you!

[@evergreengamer5767]

had a used q6600 with 680i motherboard from 2013-2015 till the board failed got a fx8120 and 990fxa motherboard in trade used that till 2019 when got hold of a dell xps 410 put the q6600 and was having a better experience than my fx build lol, then found a ddr3 motherboard on ebay and used that with the q6600 for about a year. The setup felt aged in some areas but still had a good time with it, did upgrade to q9650 but was also running into some modern games not launching due to lack of avx instructions which finally made me look into something more modern

[@owenmorgan857]

Had one of these back in the day with a zalman flower cooler, still going today in the hands of my Grandfather as his daily driver and its holding up very well

[@matthewplehn4271]

i wanted to let you know that you have been an inspiration to a lot of lesser known content creators, that both watch your videos and use the special programs you have created. I hope that you will continue to make videos and create content.

[@philscomputerlab]

That is awesome!

[@stijnbagin]

These were great systems, I went the dual-core route with an E8500 3.16Ghz in 2008, but around 2016 I upgraded to a socket modded X5460 4-core Xeon and installed a GTX 1060. Great system, awesome value, with a bit of overclocking, i was able to keep it until mid-2019. I wouldn't recommend it anymore, but definitely my longest running system ever. Great video !

[@roger.monitor]

In 2017 I bought 50 second desktop with this CPU Q6600, 40 HP dc7800, 5 HP dc7900 and 5 different Dell. 40 of those now run Linux Mint Mate 20.1, one with Win7, one Win8.1 and the rest Win10. All without any problems, most have 8GB DDR2 800 and five got a graphics card. Allmost all HD for the OS have been changed to SSD, the old HD stays in the PC for backup and or downloads. In all that time I got one broken motherboard, ten broken memory sticks and around ten HD that give up. So it has been a good investment and they will be keep on working for years. No gaming is been done on these PC, they are for working.

[@HeyImGaminOverHere]

One of my all time favorite CPUs that is apparently still going strong considering age. Thanks for the memories Phil!

[@nadtz]

I'm all about haswell xeons now, but yeah the Q6600 is still probably one of the best Intel put out given the age.

[@Trick-Framed]

I am so surprised how well that boards held up. The chip I have along with it's 8400 siblings, and I had such a hard time getting them to work on low end boards or in an All in One in 2 cases. That board really does that chip justice. And those chips seem to hold up ok with many many games. Especially the older titles. Great video Phil!

[@anno5936]

Still have a few 775-components around, including a Q6600, all essentially for free. Great stuff for retro-sessions 😊

[@monham5041]

Do you have a ddr3 mothrrboard?

[@anno5936]

@@monham5041 Asus P5xxxx, combo with DDR2 & 3... picked it up for cheap, didn't play around with it yet, especially "instant boot" was always on my list to test out

[@monham5041]

@An No So you're not selling the board then? You're testing it?

[@anno5936]

@@monham5041 🤔 who would buy a MB via YT ?

[@inkysteve]

I watched your video about that RX470d and bought one. I, like you, flashed a standard bios and now it runs happily at 1300mhz with an undervolt. Out of curiosity I went to Ali Express a couple of weeks ago to see if they were still on sale, they are, for $180. That's price gouging, as they were $62 when I bought mine.

[@philscomputerlab]

Well GPUs have gone up in price a lot, nothing to do with AliExpress. I sold my other GPUs, but kept this one as it makes the most sense for budget builds...

[@airmicrobe]

I read through all replies upto here to find out the current price. I don't have that gpu, but like to buy. It is around 150 (dollars US) from Ali and coupang in my area(South Korea), and thank you for letting me know that.

[@billellick6921]

I am still using a Q6600 cpu on a gigabyte mb with 8 GB ram for a system that I ran an animated light display for Christmas. I played Mass Effect on it with no troubles and now use it for testing things as well as word processing and odd things in my basement shop. A great system that just keeps on running along.

[@WoZYtaZ83071]

I also have Q6600 to this day on 3.26 GHz ;) with also 8G of ram, but now i don't play games on this PC grafic card radeon 5850 is to weak ;) but for other purpose is still "alive" ;)

[@dormcat]

I swear it's just a coincidence: the computer my Dad is still using for basic browsing has the exact same P5G41T-M LX motherboard with a Q8300, and this is not the first MB I purchased that is the same model Phil has. Dad called me last week saying the computer is "dead;" thought I might have to purchase a new computer (and learn the new Win10 interface, as the current computer is still running Win7) for him but later turned out the problem is caused by a loose/faulty HDMI cable being stretched to its limit for three years. A new, longer cable solved the problem.

[@KeyToTime]

I've never had any of the 65nm Core 2 CPUs. I went from a Pentium 4 640 straight to a Q9650 and good God what an amazing jump that was. Incredible CPU for the time and it lasted as my main gaming PC until 2014 and I kept it going in one of my main PCs until 2018. It was clocked at 4Ghz for the majority of that time. I now have it in a retro XP machine. I had an E8600 as well, in a second PC, but I didn't get that until 2013.

[@Andrei_Gooo]

Me tooo, I had Pentium 4 640 when i was at second grade and I changed to Pentium E5500 at 10th grade, I'm a freshmen college now xD, I was shocked how fast it is despite running at lower clock speed, and next week I'll be switching to Q6600. Hehe

[@titotech]

Hello Phil, you should try some overclocking, it would be great to see the differences.. you have a good fsb margin to try it, 266 to 333mhz can be just fine something at this range.

[@charonunderground8596]

Not on this motherboard. See how weak the power section is?

[@TheDemocrab]

​@@charonunderground8596 With the Socket 775 Pentium D or Core 2 Quads, even overclocking the FSB speed while lowering the CPU multi (Say, from the stock of 266x8 to 340x7 for similar CPU clocks but higher FSB clocks) can actually increase CPU performance a noticeable amount as there's two separate dies that talk to each other via the Northbridge over the FSB. I haven't tested and am going off of stuff I remember from when these chips were new, but if memory serves then apps that actually used more than 2 threads benefited far more which is quite a few games, an FSB OC might be whats needed to push some of them into playable territory.

[@42asshole]

@@charonunderground8596 it would be just fine, I even overclocked one in a frigging HP SFF desktop, just taped over two pins and job done.

[@Omabatfartsbruh]

@@charonunderground8596 you do not know how to properly harness the power of the Q6600 using electric tape

[@petrkubena]

Exactly - Core2 lineup was phenomenal for OC. I bought a lowly Pentium 2140 as an interim CPU (I was waiting for 95W Q6600) and after i OCd it from 1,6 to 3,2GHz (that's +100% OC) I stayed on it for a long time. Phil shoud be able to OC it well beyond 3GHz, maybe even 3,6GHz and that should make most games playable. It woun't fix lack of new instructions though.

[@isator1380]

I love this channel....I just retired my last 775 quad but damn I literally can still find uses for it

[@anomaly95]

Ah, you have the SLACR. Those S-steps typically could overclock to 3.0GHz with a minor bump in voltage and a good heatpipe cooler. The downside is that it turns into a power-hog.

[@StarFury2]

0:56 When you wanna live on the edge, so you flash the same BIOS version again.

[@archienati]

Thanks, Phil! I am using a Q6600 with titan cooler in my current 98se/XP build. Using Gigabyte GA-EP43-UD3L v1.3 (P45, ICH10) for mainboard. This is the newest mobo I have been able to achieve full 98se compatibility. It has full USB/SATA/IDE detection. I use a Radeon x600 pci-e and have a GTX 460 that I switch to for more demanding XP era games. Your last two videos have paired with my current build nicely, thank you for the inspiration!

[@philscomputerlab]

That's awesome! 98 can be a real challenge, so well done :)

[@keremizgol]

Still using my socket AM2 Athlon64 X2. It has floppy, IDE and PCI support and can run Window 10, so it's great for bridging the gap between new and old technology.

[@guido69x]

Im currently typing on a pc using this CPU!I saw it on wish for about 8$ and didnt think twice!!! I have 2 laptops but this old vintage machine can handle it almost everything my recent laptops with i7 do!! 775 machines are getting outdated but they can still handle most of the more demanding games and softwares! Great video man!!

[@MarcoGPUtuber]

Philday is the best day of the week!

[@danielberrett2179]

2 for one with LGR video today too!

[@arizonaranger7884]

Such a throw back to your older content that's not retro hardware

[@retrotechpinas3640]

would've love to see overclock numbers. The Q6600 can do 3ghz pretty easy and the board you used is pretty decent to handle such overclock

[@zqzj]

I had my Q6600 OC'd to 4.1 Ghz back in the day. The only limit was the FSB on the motherboard.

[@youzernejm]

I've missed Phil's computer lab videos. And it's my favourite cpu ever! I used to own it and absolutely loved it. Best purchase ever. Had it for 6 years. It used to run Crysis in Windows XP prefectly well. Also, there was some mod back then that offered better graphics settings.

[@Mr_Meowingtons]

The Q6600 was a God among men. Q6600 oc to 3.0 ~ 3.3ghz Still running One today.

[@peterpereira4300]

I had mine overclocked @3.6MHz

[@brpadington]

I have heard they beat out a lot of the i5's that came out for quite a while.

[@kamaltufekcic4618]

Until 2 days ago I was running a Q9550, it was an awesome CPU, and the worst part in this video is his decision to run everything at high settings, I played Crysis 1-3 @60+ fps on it just by lowering some settings, didnt even need to lower the resolution(FHD)

[@brpadington]

@@kamaltufekcic4618 I was running mine until 3 years ago when I replaced it with a Core i7. i am planning on putting the Core2 in my Mame cabinet.

[@shahnazfiaz2015]

I have a core 2 quad q9500. 2.7 GHz and still runs strong. Does get quite hot (90 Celsius) but still runs after us getting it 5 years ago.

[@davidspencer2079]

I still have my Q6600, used to run a 3.3Mhz 24/7 overclock on an Abit Pro mobo. It was the first and only CPU that I have lapped which very impressively knocked almost 10 degree's C off the temps. It hasnt been powered up for about 5 years but someone here mentioned a MAME cabinet....... thats got me thinking.....

[@checkyoursixgaming]

I used this chip for years running at 4Ghz no problem. Was a great system for me at the time.

[@welshgoldferret5107]

Hi Phil, Great Vid! I have been using the QX9650 and my son was using the Q6600 until last December, They both were awesome on GTA-V and Crysis etc... We Finally upgraded to 10th Gen i5 and notice the difference, but still the age of the Core 2 cpu's they lasted well! :)

[@vipast6262]

Overclocking makes a pretty significant difference in performance. 3ghz was pretty much a guarantee, but 3.4 wasn't uncommon and 3.6 in some cases was doable. I ran mine @ 3.4ghz and I had a system up until 2018 for a daily driver until I finally went AMD Ryzen 1700 in 2017. I sold the system for like $150 to a kid, and it was playing Fortnite at the time, I think I paired it with a 1060 3gb. He was happy, pretty sure he is still rocking it today.

[@tupmankolanks2638]

I feel like this video was made just for me. I asked about this very thing recently on reddit and here's a video about it. You even used the motherboard I have. I bought a Core2Duo myself back in the day (2009). I got the same clock speed at the fastest Quad (but not the fastest Duo). \The fastest DUO and QUAD were a significant step up in price from the second fastest. And you could get the speed of the fastest quad for like half the price. It was the sweetspot. And it overclocked nicely. I have been using it daily since 2008. I still use it today for home theater/living room PC type work. Works fine. It just can't handle the CAD work I do daily.

[@GTRdeamon]

Oh yeah, this whas the CPU i wanted back in the days. But i ended up with a I7 920. Not a bad replacement for Q6600 throw.

[@solarstrike33]

If you have an X58 motherboard, get a Xeon from that era. It’ll run some modern games very well.

[@GTRdeamon]

@@solarstrike33 All ready have a I7 980X oc to 4.4 Ghz all core and a Ryzen 5 5600X and Ryzen 9 5950X laying ready for when i get the last parts home for a new build.

[@solarstrike33]

@@GTRdeamon Ah, nice. I upgraded to a Ryzen system last year, and now I want a 5950X one day.

[@DM-rq6yx]

@@solarstrike33 I upgraded to a Ryzen 7 but I haven't put it together yet because my x5470 is still kicking ass at 4Ghz on air cooling. 😂

[@Scornfull]

@@solarstrike33 I currently use a hex core xeon from that era and it barely uses 50 percent for most games

[@dragnar1147]

Keep up the good work. And whatever you upload, its always a good video. So upload whatever you want man.

[@philscomputerlab]

I appreciate that

[@RuruFIN]

I have a Xeon X3230 on my temporary HTPC, equivalent to Q6700 and running it at 3.33GHz. Still okay for basic usage.

[@penguin5384]

Still have a rig running a Q6600, you really need to stick a decent cooler on it and overclock it Phil. This is one of those golden chips Intel produced every now and then and it deserves a sound thrashing. I've had several and have never seen one that won't hit 3ghz without trying. Most will run the best part of 50% over on a good air cooler. So give it the hiding it needs.

[@MazeMouse]

I had a Q6600 back in the day along with a Nvidia GeForce 8800GT and 4GB of ram. It was an absolute beast in gaming and productivity. Used it for a couple of years but had to replace it when the PSU died a violent death at the end of 2012 and took the motherboard and CPU with it. I think I would have easily used it into the mid-2010s if it hadn't died.

[@Jtwizzle]

That was probably one of the most popular builds back in the day. Or the e8400 with 8800gt combo. Good stuff.

[@user_unknown00795]

me too i had one like this with 8gb of ram but sadly the gpu died! now i use it as a normal desktop machine

[@KARAOTI23]

Much love for the Q6600; I had the G0; bought it in 2008, I believe for 180€. Kept it in my main system till 2015 (sold it for a Xeon X5460). I now have a Q6700 system as a backup and for running some older games in Windows 7.

[@pixoarts3262]

I have a Xeon which I bought after watching your videos in quarantine those are really the best bang for the buck cpu’s but I also have a q9650 system lying around which I use for mine craft server watching movies and some light work

[@Romerco77]

I don't think anybody is going to use, or buy, a system like that for games in 2021, but they might still have plenty of use as general home/office computer. I would like to see your opinion from this perspective, apart from games, in the next videos reviewing old platforms like this.

[@philscomputerlab]

Games is what I do on this channel. But I do know that it does videos, Internet and most common tasks very well.

[@Romerco77]

@@philscomputerlab Yeah, i know what you usually do ;), but i think it would be interesting to see what else this machines can do, beside retro gaming, for example a Socket 939 Athlon FX doing web surfing/youtube in Windows 7/10 ;p

[@philscomputerlab]

@@Romerco77 What I mean is, it doesn't interest me at all 😅

[@richardp7608]

Q6600 depuis 2008, les Core 2 Quad étaient en avance sur leur temp : )

[@NickThePilotUSA]

I just upgraded my older system which had Core 2 Duo 4gb ram to Q6600 8gb ram and a new hard drive with a fresh Windows 10 install and sent it across the country to my mom since she doesn't have a computer and I dont want her to have to go to the library to use one. It felt very quick still when I tested it before I sent it to her. Can't wait to see this when I'm off work

[@wertywerrtyson5529]

At my last job I had a Core 2 Duo until I stopped working there in 2016. And some colleagues had still Athlon 64s at that point. When I started in 2012 they still had some people using Pentium 3s and 4s. We used very old software that was not demanding so it worked even if it wasn't optimal.

[@JoeStuffzAlt]

I personally try to run my PCs until the mobo, RAM, CPU, or PSU dies (if the PSU dies, it's a good idea to replace the mobo). I often get may 5-8 years from them. Quite often, a new GPU will give enough of a boost to make the old system play most games.

[@wertywerrtyson5529]

@@JoeStuffzAlt I had my 3570K for 7-8 years. If I had gotten the 3770K I could probably still use it. CPUs last a long time these days. However it depends on what kind of framerate you are aiming for.

[@JoeStuffzAlt]

@@wertywerrtyson5529 Agreed; my 4790k was really good. The reason why I upgraded it was that the CPU started to crash if I stressed the system, so the CPU, the mobo, or at least 1 RAM chip was bad in a way. I would fix it, but 1-2 years later, I would have to make adjustments. This got to be several months between fixes, and I decided it was about time. With a recent-ish GPU, it played every game I threw at it, and I don't know if any game played less than 60 FPS unless it had a frame rate limiter. I was getting 120 ish FPS on Overwatch with the 4790k

[@Dream0Asylum]

And this, kids at home, is why when you're building a computer yourself you get the best motherboard you can get even if you have to get a slightly lower tier processor, ram, or gpu. You can get a lot of longevity out of a system by upgrading those items when you can find the upper tier version for cheap (sale / ebay) as time goes by but good motherboards tend to hold their value (or even increase in value) for far longer. A socket 775 could start out as an anemic P4 or Pentium D system, and - over the years - essentially be 4 to 8 times the machine it started out as for cheap - just by being patient.

[@Howch125]

I was running a phenom II x4 until recently. It was a really good CPU for a long time, with its 8gb of DDR2 as well. Has struggled the last few years but I was always impressed with what it could do years after I got it. last card I had paired with it was a 1050ti and don't think many people would have realised it was a decade old platform, although the case might give it away :D I hope to get the same life span from my 5800x. Going to have a HHD with XP and one with 7 in that system now :)

[@dougsteel7414]

I'm kind of amazed how well it stands up, particularly as it's not a target for optimisations.

[@colonelk3000]

My old Q6600 lasted almost 10 years and only upgraded as I wanted to do more video editing and it wasnt quite cutting it, played most of the games I wanted. Moved onto a Ryzen 6 core. Final thing that pushed me over was the motherboard starting to have issues

[@MitchLambert]

I had one of these - one of my favourite CPUs. Ran it with an AMD X800 Pro. I overclocked this thing within an inch of it's life and it never gave up. Bullet proof, brilliant processor that was amazing in its day.

[@dikbozo]

The RX 470 continues to impress. The frame rates this system is able to push show its abilities very nicely. 4 and a half years old and still working just fine. Sapphire does make the best AMD/ATI cards. Rhe current prices even for this one are silly.

[@timothygibney159]

I had one until last year when I got a 2080s. At 1440p both CPUs reak

[@dikbozo]

@@timothygibney159 The 470/570 cards are 1080p. anything higher is not good.

[@MasterBlaster220]

THe prices are not silly, the extreme inflation due to brainless money-printing in 2020 due to the so called pandemic is the reason. Our money is just much less worth because there is so much more money! And it starts to reach the different consumer branches one after another slowly. It just hit graphics card market before most others. The USA alone increased the dollar quantity by 350%!

[@dikbozo]

@@MasterBlaster220 keep your political position to your self. this is a hardware discussion channel.

[@airmicrobe]

How much? I can buy as 150 dollars now. Isn't it a good deal?

[@ng990]

I was there Gandalf, I was there 3000 years ago and I chosed the E8200

[@nikmilosevic1696]

Funny watching this, I just updated my old Shuttle PC with a Q6600 so I could use the E6700 it had to upgrade my oscilloscope last week. Still have a Q9550 PC also which I prefer over the Q6600. But was also surprised how well the Q6600 still held up when testing the upgrade in the Shuttle.

[@WouterVerbruggen]

The Q6600 is awesome! But the real reason it (still) shines is its very easy overclockebility. Easy in terms of how good/high it overclocks AND how stupidly easy it is to overclock. Almost every board can overclock it (by FSB) and almost every Q6600 can run easily at (above) 3 GHz without problems. Just put FSB to 333 for CPU to be 3 GHz and you're done, volt increases are usually not even necessary. I had one running at 3.6 GHz with a small tower cooler until about 2018, only got replaced because the memory limit of 8 GB became more and more a problem for me.

[@xnghuasgftrm4205]

im using a core 2 quad q9550 with 4GB ddr3 1066 and gtx 550 ti for windows xp retro gaming, and works beatifully!!

[@PaulMetalhero]

I still have my Q6600 with a GeForce 760 and windows 7. Glorious machine

[@TheDodgeWhisperer]

i keep a q9500 system for a linux mint box. works amazing!

[@JamesSmith-sw3nk]

I gave my Q6600 pc with a 750ti to relatives who use it as a 1080p media machine, it's hooked up to their big screen tv. Still works.

[@andipajeroking]

My Q6600 still runs strong on my secondary PC. Along with my GTX750 ti, it's the most successful combo I ever owned!

[@arnox4554]

Keep the 750 Ti even after you get a new PC. It's got a compact design, requires no external power, has great thermals, driver support for every OS from XP up, and has native analog output support. There is no other GPU like it that you can buy. There is the 1050 Ti which is indeed much more powerful and has more VRAM but it doesn't support anything below Windows 7 and doesn't support analog outputs natively.

[@andipajeroking]

@@arnox4554 This is my secondary PC. I have another newer PC with RX580. The 750ti has been "retired" at the end of 2019 because Red Dead 2. Forza Horizon 4 was the newest game I played on it. And it ran suprisingly good. Don't worry, will not part with it, still using on the old PC. Best GPU I ever had. Better than FX6200, 9800GT, or ATI HD 6850. It's 6 years old and still going strong.

[@bryantallen703]

I used the Q6600 GO at 3.6GHz on a eVGA 680i SLI with a GTX 1050ti until Jan 2018. Giving the Q6600 a 1GHz+ overclock really brings it back to life. Upgraded to an 8700K then 9900K/10700K from the Q6600 so you can imagine the boost in performance. The Q6600 overclocked runs great on almost all Vulkan titles. On Windows 7 with a GTX 1050ti it can run DOOM 2016 at 1080p60 maxed out. That's pretty cool.

[@carlolalattacosterbosa5821]

YOU SHOULD HAVE DONE THE FAMOUS "TAPE" MOD (a.k.a. Bsel mod) to bring thge q6600 @ 3.0 Ghz ... BTW, great video!

[@van0tot100]

Yess

[@geraldbal461]

that shits rare

[@BlueSkyYGO]

I will test this today on a Lenovo with an Duo E7500 it should go from 2.9 to 3.6 and should be faster than my E8400 even with halved cache Gettings!

[@derpinbird1180]

@@BlueSkyYGO how did it go?

[@BlueSkyYGO]

@@derpinbird1180 great! Is running @3.66GHz tested with Aida 64 Extreme, good results

[@reggiep75]

Still got my Q6600 - it was a beast - and is still most definitely usable for a 00's PC system if you can't play old games on modern tech.

[@yuliusnico1772]

upgraded from this little beast to Ryzen 5 2600, everything so smooth then

[@noneed4me2n7]

My first quad cpu PC I built using that processor. Got in on sale at frys for 175 which at the time was a steal.

[@StephenBanyar]

The Q6600 is the AK-47 of CPU's!

[@peterpereira4300]

I had one of these back in the day overclocked @3.6 MHz, and was one of the best CPUs that I have owned in a PC.One of my cousins now uses it in 2021 just amazing it's still viable so long after its initial release.

[@shanapagdilao3580]

Im still using a core 2 quad Q9450 up to this date still usable for basic tasks and light esports gaming planning to upgrade to ryzen system unit but the prices of PC parts including GPU skyrocketed >.

[@Indian-from-India]

Same here ....Still using 2009 INTEL-CORE2-QUAD-Q8400. Really nice processor , awesome performance !!!

[@th3d3wd3r]

I did indeed have a q6600, in the g0 stepping. I'm sure I had that thing running at 4ghz on water lol

[@BillAE91]

Still using mine today dual booting Windows and Linux. It's still going strong after all these years for most tasks. Also, I just realised that I've been running it overclocked at 3.2 GHz since 2010. Specs are : Asus P5E, 8gb 1066 ddr2 ram(overclocked at 1333), Nvidia Gtx 760, Sound blaster X-Fi. Love it to this day.

[@joeMW284]

Yeah, this is a really solid CPU. Like someone else said it was between this and the E8400 which was a 45nm dual core. The quad core was definitely the way to go in the long run. Dual cores don't cut it.

[@joannaatkins822]

My first run in with the Q6600 was building my first ever budget gaming system for someone else. It used a GTX 750 2gb, a Q6600, 8gb of DDR2, and a 250gb SSD. I did the BSEL Tape Mod to get it to run at 3000mhz, and it was just such a little champ.

[@joannaatkins822]

Hmm... I actually still have another old Q6600 kicking around... Should I build another old daily driver as a workstation?

[@neopolaris]

Always wanted this processor! I still have a fast E8500, but my board doesn't support the quad 😔

[@poppasteve2976]

A Dell Q6600 is still my wife's daily driver. It still does everything she needs.

[@TheScure]

I think Shadow of the Tomb Raider is well optimised, i finished it with my Phenom II X4 965 and Q6600 seems to handle it at 30+ FPS too

[@WorldPowerLabs]

My NEWEST computer uses a Q6600... Built it in 2007 or so, using a good motherboard that allows considerable overclocking. Still very usable for basic tasks, especially if you run a flavor of Linux as the OS. My oldest computer is a Timex Sinclair... used to have a Commodore PET, but that one is gone.

[@matijavukonic3888]

Still rocking a Q6600 with 8GB of RAM and a Radeon HD5670

[@ashkira2]

Removed Q6600 from my machine yesterday. Outlived 3 video cards, 2 PSU's and one harddrive. Functioned fine.

[@aublak7492]

My first desktop PC was running a QX6700. It was so cash.

[@KrunchyTheClown78]

Great video. I remember back when that CPU was new, and thinking "That CPU is super overkill! I'll go with the core 2 duo instead! :D" good times!

[@racejay]

Running a QX9770 myself :-)

[@Alan_Skywalker]

The biggest problem for 775 CPUs is I/O latency, including PCI-e and memory. And it's two dual core glued together, making the situation even worse. I have a QX9650 for backup machine, It's significantly slower overall including web browsing and office. The in-cache IPC is only about 50% slower than the current generation but the problem is not about the cores.

[@bepisman3161]

if you have this the xeons are a better choice as they cost around 5 bucks and can be 10-20% upgrade

[@N_Joji]

I love the look of these older motherboards