Bone-Stock: E8200 v. Q8400

[PGHammer]

I know, I know....sounds like a silly question; however, I have specific reasons for asking.

I have a Celeron DC E1200 currently at home in an ASUS P5N-EM HDMI (which can swallow either CPU in question). The E1200 is overclocked to 2.6 GHz (which is the stock speed of the two CPUs in question). The E8200 has more total cache (6 MB vs. 4 MB), while the Q has four cores (vs. the two of the E). Both processors support VT-x (which is why both are under consideration). I'm running Windows 7 RTM (x64, of course). The biggest application I run today that can actually use more cores is virtualization software; however, I'm looking to add video transcoding (converting downloads to DVD/1080i), which also uses multicore in addition to VT-x. Which CPU makes more sense (at stock, and given the $50 spread between them)?

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0312980 (E8200)
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0316263 (Q8400)
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0316263 (Q9550; just outside the range)

 

[Shadowssong]

Q8400 imo, better for transcoding, whereas the E8200 would be better for gaming.

 

[SonicTron]

The q8400 would blow the e8200 to bits for any sort of coding, and the performance difference would be absolutely negligible in games that only use 2 cores, and noticeably better in games that take advantage of multiple cores. There's no reason to pick up the e8200.

 

[Zero82z]

Any significant amount of multitasking or multithreaded application usage will give a huge advantage to the Q8400. For running VMs and video encoding, it's a no-brainer.

 

[crazyassazian]

Q8200, if you want to do encoding. It'll play games just fine as well.

 

[AmongTheChosenX]

Q8400, no douct about it. especially for a $50 difference...