E8400 or Q6600?

Gulkor said:
If you want your computer to last longer get a quad. the Q6600 is a good price. Plus you can o/c from 2.66 to 3.0 easy on stock voltage. or to 3.2 or 3.6 if you really want. some games use the quad-core some dont. i mean if you think the E8400 will work for what you need get it. but since your talking about making your computer last longer get a Q6600
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It's not going to last longer if he only to continues to use single or double threaded apps. the Q6600 would be much slower then a E8400 for those types of apps.
 
TOOL1075 said:
the Q6600 has a high multiplier (than the Q9450, for example), which allows you to overclock it to 3ghz and beyond without stressing the rest of your components as much as you would if you had a CPU with a lower multiplier.

It has 4 cores. You could unrar a huge file, watch a moive, game, compile a program, enocode a movie, browse the web, etc, and do a lot of those things all at once.

get a bunch of ram too, so you can do all this stuff, play a game, and alt-tab out of it without slowing everything down.

quad core ftw. I hate how people go against quads, when this is the [H]!!! I mean, 4 cores ftw people....

hell, even if you don't use it to its potential- this is the [H] damnit, just get it. what's $20? a dinner? you can't skip a nice dinner to have 2 more cores? lol
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I absolutely agree with you when you are doing all that stuff. However, the OP has stated that right now he only plays some older games, the main one being WoW which certainly wouldn't take advantage of all 4 cores. What most people are trying to say is that for single or double threaded apps that are run by themselves, the E8400 would certainly outperform the Q6600. I don't know about you but I certainly wouldn't want to pay more money, even if it was $20, for something that is going to give me less performance in these types of apps.
 
so overclock the quad, and then that performance gap shrinks, right? (yeah, I guess then you could overclock the dual too.... but if you get 3.6 out of the quad, how much you gonna get out of the dual? 4ghz? I'd take 3.6quad over 4dual... but that's my opinion)
 
TOOL1075 said:
so overclock the quad, and then that performance gap shrinks, right? (yeah, I guess then you could overclock the dual too.... but if you get 3.6 out of the quad, how much you gonna get out of the dual? 4ghz? I'd take 3.6quad over 4dual... but that's my opinion)
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First of all, duals certainly do OC better because of less heat, but besides that your telling me that running just one single or double threaded app, you would take a 3.6 quad with less cache over a 4.0 dual with more cache? Not to mention that the quad would cost more.
 
oh, and if he plays WoW.... I've seen people that play WoW.

they play the game, and just let the game run sometimes. they alt-tab and do other stuff all the time. I think a quad would be great for a WoW player.... they could let WoW run, and do real life stuff in the background.....

I dunno, fuck it. buy both. then sell the one you don't like. these threads make baby jesus cry.
 
CamaroZ28 said:
First of all, duals certainly do OC better because of less heat, but besides that your telling me that running just one single or double threaded app, you would take a 3.6 quad with less cache over a 4.0 dual with more cache? Not to mention that the quad would cost more.
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how much of a difference, realistically, in gaming, are you going to see between a 4ghz dual and 3.6 quad. seriously? yes, it's faster. is it that much faster? lol

take the small sacrifice for greater multi task ability. or, don't. who cares really. again, these threads make baby jesus cry.
 
get the E8400, you'd get the Q6600 without asking if you knew what you wanted...but since you have no idea what you want the Q6600 for,just get the E8400
 
TOOL1075 said:
how much of a difference, realistically, in gaming, are you going to see between a 4ghz dual and 3.6 quad. seriously? yes, it's faster. is it that much faster? lol

take the small sacrifice for greater multi task ability. or, don't. who cares really. again, these threads make baby jesus cry.
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Actually I have a great deal of experience with this. I play primarily HL2 based games which are almost entirely single threaded, ingame one core runs at 100% and the other 1-2%. We are comparing the Q6600 here which has 2x4mb L2 cache vs. my 6mb L2 cache that means that those threads can only access up to 4mb of cache while I have access to 6, and cache is probably the most important thing for most games, and especially for HL2. I've used a E2160 OC'ed to the exact same speed as my stock E8500 so that the only difference between the two is cache, and there was a 60FPS difference between the two clock for clock and a 30FPS difference on min rates. Overclocking from there to 3.8 resulted in an aditional 30FPS avg. and 10 FPS added to the min rates.

In more direct comparison with the Q6600, I used a friends E6600 for testing as well. The E6600 would perform EXACTLY as the Q6600 in HL2 since the Q6600 is 2 E6600's side by side on the pcb more or less. Now with this E6600 OC'ed to 3.1GHz same as stock E8500, There was still 20fps avg less then my E8500 and 10FPS less on the min rates.

Don't act like I'm trying to shoot down the idea of 4 cores, it's just that SOME people do not need a quad core right now. The most multitasking I do on my computer is listening to winamp, web surfing, aim, and having outlook open. This already isn't even enough to make the processor focus on anything other then Windows background tasks. When I go to play a game, the only programs I would leave open is maybe aim and outlook at most. If I were to switch to a Q6600 right now, I would see no difference in my everyday multitasking but I would see a very noticeable decrease in my gaming.

Like I said I don't have anything against quad cores at all, I've recommended them to plenty of people and once games become properly multithreaded I plan on getting one myself. It all depends on your application. Just because it's beneficial to you doesn't mean it would be to everyone else.
 
I somewhat agree with you. And, I also agree that because the OP doesn't seem to know why a quad would be beneficial - he probably doesn't need one anyway lol

(but this guy asks everyone about every single component instead of reading for himself... so..... lol)
 
dude, a Quad does everything a Dual does..

Quad at 3.6 , Dual at 4 Ghz you'd get maybe 3 fps less in a game but the system would be faster
 
CamaroZ28 said:
Don't act like I'm trying to shoot down the idea of 4 cores, it's just that SOME people do not need a quad core right now. The most multitasking I do on my computer is listening to winamp, web surfing, aim, and having outlook open. This already isn't even enough to make the processor focus on anything other then Windows background tasks. When I go to play a game, the only programs I would leave open is maybe aim and outlook at most. If I were to switch to a Q6600 right now, I would see no difference in my everyday multitasking but I would see a very noticeable decrease in my gaming.
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Right on, and there is MORE to multitasking than multiple cores. Most people around here have this nerd fantasy that if they have 4 cores they will be able to do a bunch of stuff at once. And then they preach it in these threads like it's the gospel. It's false. For example, you will not be able to run a defrag or virus scan or some other lame shit while you game and get full performance out of your game. It just doesn't work worth a darn, there are limits to I/O.

4 cores are good for when you have a multi threaded application that takes a long time to complete and you want to be able to do something else while it runs.

4 cores are good when you have a application that you use alot that can use 4 cores.

Other than that, get your e8400 with it's slightly tweaked core and larger cache. If you are a noob overclocker, it will hit 3.7Ghz with the included cooler, put on a good one and go further.
 
Met-AL said:
Most people around here have this nerd fantasy that if they have 4 cores they will be able to do a bunch of stuff at once. And then they preach it in these threads like it's the gospel. It's false. For example, you will not be able to run a defrag or virus scan or some other lame shit while you game and get full performance out of your game. It just doesn't work worth a darn, there are limits to I/O.
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Wrong. Fact is most of the time when you are playing a game the HD isn't really doing anything the whole time. So you can in fact defrag or run full virus scans while playing games without a detectable performance hit. Defragging and scanning anyway use a decent amount of CPU power to complete, so luckily for 4 cores you have plenty of spare cycles floating around.
4 cores are good for when you have a multi threaded application that takes a long time to complete and you want to be able to do something else while it runs.

4 cores are good when you have a application that you use alot that can use 4 cores.
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Well going back to my original point, I can rip 1280x1024 videos with FRAPS (I/O intensive), encoded previously recorded videos down to a smaller resolution (I/O intensive), have about 75 browser tabs option, streaming content from multiple sources, running a Linux VM, AND playing WoW and WoW runs along just fine. Sure the HD light is lit up like a XMas tree almost the whole time, however its not slowing down the game much at all, and all 4 cores are hitting between 85 - 100% in the Resource monitor, so clearly its making good use of that extra CPU power and not completely bottlenecked by my HDs. Zone switching takes a bit longer (I/O), and the game's max FPS goes down however minimum FPS is still about the same for playability.
 
ocellaris said:
I can rip 1280x1024 videos with FRAPS (I/O intensive), encoded previously recorded videos down to a smaller resolution (I/O intensive), have about 75 browser tabs option, streaming content from multiple sources, running a Linux VM, AND playing WoW and WoW runs along just fine.
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if you're doing all those things at once, what type of CPU you have is the LEAST of your problems.

;)
 
brent4president said:
if you're doing all those things at once, what type of CPU you have is the LEAST of your problems.

;)
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Well its not like I do this all the time, how its definitely something I do frequent enough to know that it works fine and its ridiculous for someone to say that you can' do a bunch of shit at the same time. Usually I am trying to get videos up online for previous boss kills before we get to the next boss, so its efficient to go mildly AFK during trash packs and pound out the videos :p And all the browser tabs are just because I have a tendency to keep opening shit that happens in a new tab then I forget about it :D
 
Don't forget that the Q6600's are MCM. So not 4 single cores as it will be two paired cores for each side.

"ocellaris" man i have a quad core 6600 and if i use bitdefender and browse the net i see slow downs. Not to mention if i encode a avi to dvd using convertx and play a game it is real noticible in the game not to mention my encoding on the dvd skips. Using vista 64bit and 4 gig of ram (corsair dominator @ 1,111 mhz) and a 500 gig hard drive and my q6600 is at 3.8 gighrz also.......

Could fix it by using another hard drive for the movies. But you must have a beast of a machine to do all that. and notice no performance hit with all that running.

to the O.P. you need to decide on what you want all we can do is give you our opinions. Your kinda asking for example you picking two cars which one would buy. If we pick it then it is because we like it not you.

Good Day
 
KILLER_K said:
"ocellaris" man i have a quad core 6600 and if i use bitdefender and browse the net i see slow downs. Not to mention if i encode a avi to dvd using convertx and play a game it is real noticible in the game not to mention my encoding on the dvd skips. Using vista 64bit and 4 gig of ram (corsair dominator @ 1,111 mhz) and a 500 gig hard drive and my q6600 is at 3.8 gighrz also.......

Could fix it by using another hard drive for the movies. But you must have a beast of a machine to do all that. and notice no performance hit with all that running.

Good Day
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No my system is fairly boring (see sig). I haven't used BitDefender myself for AV so not sure how that would perform for me. I use Kaspersky or AVG for virus software (recently switched), and usually when I am going work with video content I am going between the Raptor <---> 3200AAKKS which probably helps free up some IO bottleneck since one drive is mostly reading while the other is mostly writing. Plus I am just using Windows Movie Maker, which appears to play nicely when multitasking (for my anyway).
 
ocellaris said:
Wrong. Fact is most of the time when you are playing a game the HD isn't really doing anything the whole time. So you can in fact defrag or run full virus scans while playing games without a detectable performance hit. Defragging and scanning anyway use a decent amount of CPU power to complete, so luckily for 4 cores you have plenty of spare cycles floating around.
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Bullshit.

Just last night, I was copying 160GB of files from one hard disk to another. I decided while I was waiting for this, I would fire up a nice game of SOF2. Guess what, it was a stuttering mess. Guess what else.. one core, the one with the SOF2.exe running on it was at 100%, like usual, and the other core sitting at only 10%. (Logitech G-15 Performance Monitor)

Why was it stuttering? It sure wasn't because of not enough CPU. I call bull on your previous post.
 
Met-AL said:
Why was it stuttering? It sure wasn't because of not enough CPU. I say you claiming that you can defrag and farm shit on WoW at the same time is a line of bull.
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At this is getting comical now. You want me to shoot a little video of this with my cell phone or something?
 
the Q6600 is just getting too old to handle all the defrag and virus and WoW.. you need a Q9650 for those things...
 
Basically, when all of these new procs come out, I probably won't have the money to switch to a new mobo, ram, +price of CPU.

And if games are going to use quads in a year or more, shouldn't I get the q6600?
 
Zake202 said:
Basically, when all of these new procs come out, I probably won't have the money to switch to a new mobo, ram, +price of CPU.

And if games are going to use 4quads in a year or more, shouldn't I get the q6600?
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simple reason, no one can predict the future.
 
Aye that's the sad part =(

If I knew for a fact games wouldn't be going to quad in the next 2 years I'd snag the E8400, but since no one seems to know when or what will utilize quads, and the prices of newer technology coming out, I'm leaning towards the Q6600.

Btw, not arguing that the Q6600 is a better processor for gaming, or that the E8400 isn't better than the Q6600 for gaming.

Still worried about Newegg, if their Q6600's have G0 by now or if they still ship out B3's.
 
Zake202 said:
Aye that's the sad part =(

If I knew for a fact games wouldn't be going to quad in the next 2 years I'd snag the E8400, but since no one seems to know when or what will utilize quads, and the prices of newer technology coming out, I'm leaning towards the Q6600.

Btw, not arguing that the Q6600 is a better processor for gaming, or that the E8400 isn't better than the Q6600 for gaming.

Still worried about Newegg, if their Q6600's have G0 by now or if they still ship out B3's.
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they are g0, just go ahead and order it, i ordered mine a month ago, and guess what? it was g0!

g0 has been out for a very long time in the q6600's case so im sure theres not many if any at all out in retail.
 
Yea after reading newegg reviews up to 4months ago it seems all are G0, but some people get random B3's. Makes me a bit nervous but Idk any other place that is cheaper with G0.
 
Zake202 said:
Yea after reading newegg reviews up to 4months ago it seems all are G0, but some people get random B3's. Makes me a bit nervous but Idk any other place that is cheaper with G0.
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dude im 99.9% sure you will get a g0! go ahead and order it and dont worry to much, if by chance you get a "random b3" you can always return to newegg, as they are very good on returns.
 
Zake202 said:
Basically, when all of these new procs come out, I probably won't have the money to switch to a new mobo, ram, +price of CPU.

And if games are going to use quads in a year or more, shouldn't I get the q6600?
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ocellaris said:
simple reason, no one can predict the future.
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Yep, and anything we are buying right now probably would probably be barely cutting it by then.

Take my last system,a Socket 939 Athlon X2 4200. In it's time, it was bad ass CPU, it cost me like $450. By the time games finally started taking advantage of it's second core (BioShock, SupCom, Crysis, etc) it was sucking so bad it didn't matter how many cores it had.
 
ocellaris said:
Here you go, this is me copying 6.5GB of data at ~60MB/sec, running a defrag, and playing WoW which is running like 90 to 100 fps (same speed it runs if I turn off the file copies and defrag):

http://files.filefront.com/053wmv/;11737073;/fileinfo.html

Btw my phone is a Moto Q9C which takes horrendously bad videos :p
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Nope, doesn't count. :)

Question for ya, is your WoW smooth like when you are just running that alone? For me, my framerate in SOF2 according to FRAPs was 125 (the max it can go) but it had the stuttering so bad I couldn't stand to play it.
 
Met-AL said:
Nope, doesn't count. :)

Question for ya, is your WoW smooth like when you are just running that alone? For me, my framerate in SOF2 according to FRAPs was 125 (the max it can go) but it had the stuttering so bad I couldn't stand to play it.
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Yeah its always smooth. I've never playing SoF2 myself, could be just a game issue and not indicative of your overall system capabilities. Generally WoW benefits from CPU and video upgrades and is limited by either of the two at various times. For example I could stand around Shattrath (the current major city in WoW) it ran almost as good on a 2GHz Core 2 Duo laptop with a Nvidia NVS140 ("8400GT") as it did on my current Quad rig at stock CPU speed and a 9600GT. That same laptop would turn into a slide show during heavy AoE attacks.
 
ocellaris said:
Yeah its always smooth. I've never playing SoF2 myself, could be just a game issue and not indicative of your overall system capabilities.
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Well, one thing for sure, I got owned. Nice video!
 
Zake202 said:
Yea after reading newegg reviews up to 4months ago it seems all are G0, but some people get random B3's. Makes me a bit nervous but Idk any other place that is cheaper with G0.
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Well Microcenter has them for $177 bucks now. Can't imagine them getting much cheaper than that unless Fry's has another give-away.
 
Actually....if you go to the store, they're 149 :) I'm still debating on selling my q6600 and picking up an 8400 and going for 4.5ghz. Best i can get out of my q6600 is 4ghz and thats on 1.6v. It runs 3.6ghz daily at 1.4v right now. But i'm more inclined to just wait for x58 and nehalem so i can go sli on an intel board :D
 
veedubfreak said:
Actually....if you go to the store, they're 149 :) I'm still debating on selling my q6600 and picking up an 8400 and going for 4.5ghz. Best i can get out of my q6600 is 4ghz and thats on 1.6v. It runs 3.6ghz daily at 1.4v right now. But i'm more inclined to just wait for x58 and nehalem so i can go sli on an intel board :D
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you may still be able to get an e8500 for $179 (with promo, free ship) at newegg. if promo is no good anymore, its $189, free ship. and they are currently shipping e0. only $10 or $20 more than a newegg e8400. i got an e8400 on wednesday, and it was not e0.
 
Hit up a microcenter and grap a Q6600 for $177 and OC the bejeesus outta it.

You will be a happy camper, guaranteed. :D
 
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