E6850 or Q6600. Both similar prices, but which one should I get?

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Viperjts10

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The processor is the final part to my computer build until I can put it all together, and I don't know if it matters what processor I get. I hear a lot of good things about how good the E6850 is, but that is only a Core 2 Duo and not a Quad. So how could that be so good and how can it be an identical price to the Quad Q6600 processor?

So is the E6850 better then the quad q6600 processor or what? They're nearly identical prices, so how do you know which one to get?
 
For me, two years ago I played games... and nothing but games, so the E6850 would have made more sense.

Now I hardly play any games and spend most of my time working with large graphics files.

So, the Q6600 makes more sense.

That's all there is to it, not one better then the other, it's just what you'll need it for.
 
you have to wonder though just how long the E6850 will be better for games. I think I read somewhere that crysis will run better the more cores you have so how long until its standard and well implemented, now whether that means more cores will beat faster clocks I dont know but at some point the extra cores are going to outclass the other even in games, right? I have to make this decision soon myself lol
 
Deadsexy said:
you have to wonder though just how long the E6850 will be better for games. I think I read somewhere that crysis will run better the more cores you have so how long until its standard and well implemented, now whether that means more cores will beat faster clocks I dont know but at some point the extra cores are going to outclass the other even in games, right? I have to make this decision soon myself lol
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This is true, however, by then the Q Intel's will be old school.

The reality is gaming, especially PC gaming is several years behind current technology.

Think about how long dual core home computers have been a reality... hell, I was using dual celeron 366's on a BP6 what, seven years ago. Also, think about 64 bit CPU's, they've been affordable for several years now.

I can't think of more then a four or five games that take advantage of such things.

Eventually they will, but what are we talking? 5 years from now?

The Crysis engine is an exception however I'm not really expecting it to live up to it's hype.

Still, my take is simple, if you want to play games... go for clock speed, if you plan to work with large files then think more cores.

If you can get both, more power to you.
 
It doesn't seem like most people are overclocking their dual core e6850s higher than the quad core Q6600s. Both are available with G0 stepping now. I got the e6850 just because I assumed I wouldn't be able to find a Q6600 in the new stepping for a while (which turned out to be NOT true), but doing it again I would get the quad.
 
GRAFiZ said:
This is true, however, by then the Q Intel's will be old school.

The reality is gaming, especially PC gaming is several years behind current technology.

Think about how long dual core home computers have been a reality... hell, I was using dual celeron 366's on a BP6 what, seven years ago. Also, think about 64 bit CPU's, they've been affordable for several years now.

I can't think of more then a four or five games that take advantage of such things.

Eventually they will, but what are we talking? 5 years from now?

The Crysis engine is an exception however I'm not really expecting it to live up to it's hype.

Still, my take is simple, if you want to play games... go for clock speed, if you plan to work with large files then think more cores.

If you can get both, more power to you.
Click to expand...

So I guess it depends on when you expect software to catchup. I really think now that intel really needs us to buy this stuff that more people will just have it if for no other reason then marketing so I think the development for this stuff will be a lot faster then in the past because developers are gonna develop to the largest installed base. Now that you cant get a dell without 2 cores(or at least its hard) people are just gonna demand it from developers and I think they are gonna pander to the masses and over the next 1-2 years will see a lot of shifts to multithread programs including and especially games.

If you think it will take 5 years wait on it but I really think that estimate is faar off and in the end I will probably go with the Q myself cause at the end of the day I do notice they seem to OC to about the same at least in some peoples situations and thats enough for me to try :)
 
Thing is, once programs become muti-threaded... you can use the "look how long it took dual core to become useful" because once a dual core is fully optomized, do you really think it will take them that long again to add a few more threads to make a quad core full optomized?

Once multi-threading is down, taking advantage of extra cores should be easier for the programmers, right? :confused:
 
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