[Sode no Shirayuki]

XPS 410 specs: http://speccy.pirifo...p7QgzovrbG8rpyJ

 

I would like to use this computer for a while longer, so I want to upgrade it. The RAM has been upgraded to 4GB and the graphics card has been replaced with a Radeon HD 6450. At the time, I did not upgrade the hard disk drives and processor, but I would like to upgrade them now because I am

pressed for space and I found a good deal for an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600. However, I have also found what I believe to be a good deal for an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700. 

 

Which one of these processors is the better deal? It may be worth noting that the Q6700 is seller refurbished. 

 

Q6600: http://tinyurl.com/o72rreh

 

Q6700: http://tinyurl.com/nzn7obc

             http://tinyurl.com/p998ncx

 

Besides for school, I use this computer to watch anime. Often I use Potplayer with the EVR Custom Present video renderer and the Vibrance and LumaSharpen pixel shaders, but I also use the Kawaii Codec Pack with the "high" profile setting with the Intel Core 2 Duo E6300. More recently I began pointing Potplayer to the Madshi video renderer.

 

Would the Q6700 provide a noticeable increase in performance for the aforementioned purposes? 

 

As for storage, I originally intended on using the Crucial MX 100 and some other 2TB or 3TB drive, but I found the Seagate 2TB SSHD. I am thinking about pairing the Seagate 2TB SSHD with a 2TB WD Green and using data synchronization software, such as Bvckup, to synchronize the drives. Would the WD Green be okay for this or should I go for a 7200RPM drive? I am not sure whether RPM matters when transferring files between two different hard disk drives. 

 

Silence is important to me, which is why I originally intended on going with a solid state drive, because I watch anime. Also, do SSHDs need to be defragmented? Another reason I was going to go with a solid state drive is so I do not have to worry about fragmentation. The problem is my external drive is only 1TB, so I will not be able to synchronize my data with the internal 2TB drive once it exceeds 1TB. 

 

Opinions? 

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In my opinion, the differences between the Q6600 and the Q6700 are negligible (2.4GHz to 2.66GHz), that being said, I would probably go for the Q6700 because the price difference between the items you posted are also negligible ($15).

 

As for the SSHD, how these work is they have a small amount of NAND Flash memory available, and the rest of the storage is traditional spinning platter technology. The controller "intelligently learns" what data is used most often, and tries to keep this data on the NAND portion of storage. The rest of your data is stored on the platters. So yes, strictly speaking, the platter portion of the data can become fragmented. That being said, Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 automatically run a defrag in the background on a set schedule. It's scheduled automatically, and runs automatically. I haven't run a defrag on my system in many years because of this. Always seemed a bit unnecessary.

 

Regarding the WD Green drives.. The lower spindle speed will cause *slightly* slower data access times, and this will slow down data copying. How much depends on several things: speed of your CPU, your SATA controller and it's speed and the speed of the drives themselves. The impact will most likely only be noticeable when copying LOTS of data to or from the WD Green drive. I have a 2TB WD Green in my main desktop that I use as a data backup drive, and I have never had any problems with slow access times, so I think it should be fine for your purposes

 

HTH

[KaoticEvil]

In my opinion, the differences between the Q6600 and the Q6700 are negligible (2.4GHz to 2.66GHz), that being said, I would probably go for the Q6700 because the price difference between the items you posted are also negligible ($15).

 

As for the SSHD, how these work is they have a small amount of NAND Flash memory available, and the rest of the storage is traditional spinning platter technology. The controller "intelligently learns" what data is used most often, and tries to keep this data on the NAND portion of storage. The rest of your data is stored on the platters. So yes, strictly speaking, the platter portion of the data can become fragmented. That being said, Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 automatically run a defrag in the background on a set schedule. It's scheduled automatically, and runs automatically. I haven't run a defrag on my system in many years because of this. Always seemed a bit unnecessary.

 

Regarding the WD Green drives.. The lower spindle speed will cause *slightly* slower data access times, and this will slow down data copying. How much depends on several things: speed of your CPU, your SATA controller and it's speed and the speed of the drives themselves. The impact will most likely only be noticeable when copying LOTS of data to or from the WD Green drive. I have a 2TB WD Green in my main desktop that I use as a data backup drive, and I have never had any problems with slow access times, so I think it should be fine for your purposes

 

HTH