Wow - Been maxing out my Q6600, Which C2Q Next?

TENSiON wrote: On another note, if it is mostly the browsers where you notice the pauses, then the cause might be javascript related processing in FF/Chrome.

Agreed...

I broke my golden rule of "NEVER"  opening FB games in FF, and that was a major culprit..

Will take a look at Waterfox x64.

Built this machine approx 18 months ago, and only 2x Windows crashes I've had, were due to beta installs of FF x64..

Deffo not your CPU that is at fault. Well, at least not if it isn't overheating (better check the temps, should be well bellow 60deg). The fan (or the heatsink itself) could be clogged up.

On another note, if it is mostly the browsers where you notice the pauses, then the cause might be javascript related processing in FF/Chrome. It's strange that it would happen with only so few tabs open, but still a possibility. The JS garbage collector & memory cycle collector are quite shite (especially in FF) and can cause such spikes in some situations.

As a general advice, make sure to restart the browsers at least once a day, and allways keep them up to date (new versions tend to include performance/memory fixes). And seeing that you are running a 64bit OS, I would also advice to replace Firefox with its younger 64bit brother, Waterfox (google it). It is still firefox, but compiled for 64bit, and apart from that also includes various performance improovements.

And if it's not the browsers, then use the task manager to find the culprit:
CTRL+ALT+DEL -> Start Task Manager -> Processes -> CPU
and check what process is eating the most CPU durring those spikes.

But the bottom like still is, that your CPU should handle all those things you've listed without much trouble.

theres not as much in it as people or test make out... overclock the Q66 and water cool it for now...