hey guys I have been upgrading my computer for some time now and have had my eye on the intel Q9550. The specs look great to me but why the sudden price drop. 6 months ago it was $320, 4 months ago $310, 2 months ago $280, and a month ago it dropped to its current price of $220. Is there a reason for this besides new technology coming out or is there some kind of bug with the chip that people are just now finding out about. Here's the link to the Chip. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115041 Okay I'm gonna give you guys my system specs and you tell me if this would be the best option for me.

Asus P5QSE PLUS
2gb x2 gskill ddr2 800mhz
1gb x1 kingston ddr2 800mhz
seagate baracuda 7200.12 1tb sata II
ati all-in-wonder HD
Pentium 4 631 3.0ghz running at 4.0ghz

Im planning on upgrading the kingston ram to two more gskill 2gb sticks
Im also planning on adding a couple of Raptor HD to set up a raid config for video editing
I mostly use the computer for the internet and school but I do use it for video editing and gaming. I'm very happy with my video card, and I love my ram to, even though i want more of it. I NEED A NEW PROCESSOR!!!! I have been building this system for over a year now and the processor will no longer cut it. Is the q9550 the best choice for me or should I choose something else. Oh and I am running Vista home premium 64-bit and am planning on running at least one virtual machine as soon as I upgrade my cpu. Thanks for the help guys.

The Q9550 will serve you well, its a good chip. Same goes for all the yorkfield quads. They're cheaper because Nehalem has pushed them from the high-end down into the upper midrange as far as CPU's go.

There's no bug with the chip lol. Old technology just falls in price...the Q9550 would be a great performer.

john dabrowski said:


John,

The Q9550 is perfect for your system.

Reason prices goes down with time as mentioned above and to add ... competition (pricing wise). There is absolutely nothing wrong with the Q9550. Matter of fact the Q9XXX series of cpus are the best in the line and the outgoing to the new incoming Core i7/i5. It also represents the best in process manufacturing and all the fixes that have been learned along the way.

by the way.... You mentioned that you had

2gb x2 gskill ddr2 800mhz
1gb x1 kingston ddr2 800mhz


This is a total of 3gb with 3 dimms.... if you are actually running with this setup in your current mb.... you are actually running in a "pesudo" Dual Channel mode... typically in mb prior to the Intel P45 chipset, if you run 3 dimms, the mb would run in single channel mode whereas 2 and 4 dimms would be in dual channel mode. With the P45 chipset, this pesudo Dual channel mode is like faster than single channel mode but not as fast as a complete dual channel mode. It is something they did so as in a situation of 3 dimms.... they try to allow the board to run in dual channel but be limited in total bandwidth vs shutting it down to single channel only...

As for getting 2 x 2gb more of memory to augment the 2 x 2gb you already have.... that would be a great idea... and you have Vista home premium 64bit which will allow you to see all 4GB.... There is a suggestion in the memory area though..... rather than just getting 2 more 1gb sticks.... you might want to consider getting 2 x 2GB ddr2 1066 memory. This will give you the same total amount of memory but at faster speeds and will allow you to better over clock your cpu on two memory sticks versus on 4 memory sticks if you so choose to down the line.

Let me clarify something about the last comment. I have 2 2gb sticks and 1 1gb stick for a total of 5gb of ram. I have thought about upgrading to 1066 but im not really sure it would be worth the price considering when i do upgrade i'll have 8gb of ddr2 800, and possibly even 16gb if my budget will allow it.

john dabrowski said:


My bad... yeah.. that should have read a total of 5gb with those 3 sticks... the rest of the post is still good.

well. if you are looking to go to 16gb of memory... lol.... you better start saving because I'm sure 4 sticks of 4gb dimms is going to cost a bundle like this one - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145243