Best CPU right now in terms of staying power?

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ofDoom

Weaksauce
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Nov 23, 2005
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I'm building a new rig and want for it to last, so the question being, which CPU can I get right now that's going to perform well for a while (in terms of performance in games, firstly). I realise that E8400 is a pretty good deal right now, but in the long run, should I be aiming for C2Q instead or should I commit to E8400 and either run with it or plan to replace it earlier than I would with a quad? Overclocking capacity definitely matters for me here. Help me out here. The video I'll be using is HD4850.
 
q6600, no question. or if you can spend $300 - $350, the q9550. if you have to use it for a long while, dont tie yourself down to a dualie.
 
q6600 usually overclocks well to very well. q9550 its a crap shoot, but as a whole they dont overclock too tough.q6600 has a 9.0 multiplier, and the q9550 has an 8.5. so you would have to run the q9550 at higher fsb (and higher ram speed unless using an nvidia chipset) to reach the same oc. a decent q6600 will get around 3600mhz. a very good q9550 will get 3800mhz. except for the lower l2 cache, i think the q6600 (or q6700) shits all over the q9550.
 
How long is long? I don't think there is going to be a need for quad-core in the next year or so, maybe longer. The E8400 is a great chip, great overclocker, and will outperform the Q6600 for most games/apps. I've had both and I personally like the E8400 better - ymmv. That being said, the prices on the Q6600 are insane right now, and if you have a need for a quad-core it is certainly hard to beat.
 
Well I definitely don't have a "need" for quad core right now, but I plan on using this system for at least 2-3 years and probably more.
 
ofDoom said:
..., which CPU can I get right now that's going to perform well for a while (in terms of performance in games, firstly).
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there are lots of cpus that will perform for a while. The best performance across all games will come from the best dual core which is the E8600. Of course there are a handful of games that can take advantage of quad cores right now and that number will continue to increase over time...
 
ofDoom said:
Well I definitely don't have a "need" for quad core right now, but I plan on using this system for at least 2-3 years and probably more.
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I was in the same boat and picked the Q9550. It may not be the best in terms of price/performance, but I'm hoping it'll last me a good few years. Of course, if you're looking to spend a little less, the Q6600 would do the trick as well.
 
I have yet to see a Q6600 that won't run 3ghz rock solid on stock volts, and since it's a 266 fsb cpu with a 9x multi, you can essentially achieve this speed without running anything else out of spec by simply bumping your board up to 333 fsb.
 
Sabrewulf165 said:
I have yet to see a Q6600 that won't run 3ghz rock solid on stock volts, and since it's a 266 fsb cpu with a 9x multi, you can essentially achieve this speed without running anything else out of spec by simply bumping your board up to 333 fsb.
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Agreed. And you forgot to mention that the stock cooler will take it to 3.0.
 
q6600, one of the best ocers around for bang/peformance and a bit of future proof from the quad.Recently installed one for a friend. And he's loving it. Too bad, if he was a lady maybe some sex, I will get.
 
monkeymagick said:
q6600, one of the best ocers around for bang/peformance and a bit of future proof from the quad.Recently installed one for a friend. And he's loving it. Too bad, if he was a lady maybe some sex, I will get.
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Jeez, you sound desperate :D
 
I'll put in another vote for the Q6600. It can overclock to 3.4-3.6 with a good cooler and should provide good performance for the next few years. I don't plan to upgrade mine for at least another 2.
 
I have had my q6600 running at 3.6ghz rock solid for close to a year at this point. On water i can actually get it stable at 4.0, but thta takes 1.6v which is bad juju for a chip that i dont want to eventually kill.
 
Does anyone see any reasons the Q6600 should drop steeply or noticeably in the next month - month and a half?
 
ofDoom said:
Well I definitely don't have a "need" for quad core right now, but I plan on using this system for at least 2-3 years and probably more.
Click to expand...

If you plan to keep it that long then definitely get a quad core. If you do a lot of video encoding it might be worth looking at the 45nm quads because of SSE4.1, otherwise the Q6600 is by far the best bang for buck quad, especially if you take overclocking into account.
 
You can see my rig in my sig below. I have my Athlon X2 4200 clocked to 2.9Ghz. How much of a benefit is there to going with a new Q6600 system? Let's say I am able to clock it to 3.4 or 3.5. Is it worth the cost of upgrading the whole system, i.e. new mobo, ram, psu, etc ... for that amount of performance increase?
 
It's night and day difference Sgtfury. I had an AMDopteron overclocked to over 3ghz, but, I got a Q6600 and even at stock it wiped the floor with the opteron, they are not in the same league at all.
 
Yeah, I went from an Opteron 165 @ 2.9 to my Q6600. With the Q at stock speed in general putzing around Windows you won't see much of a difference. With the Q at 3.0 it blazes past the Opty. Apps and games load faster, better frame rates, video encoding time pretty much got chopped in half.
 
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