• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

E8400 or Q9550

L

Leo123

n00b
Joined
Jul 27, 2009
Messages
57
Hello all,

Am buying the following set up:

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
Asus P5Q-E
Antec P182
640GB WD Caviar Black
4GB Corsair DDR2 PC2-8500
Corsair TX 750W
Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 Vapor X

and am going to be using the following parts from my current computer:

500GB Hitachi HDD for backup
1TB Spinpoint HDD for Media
Pioneer DVD/RW
22" Widescreen Samsung Monitor

I am not massively into games, but with a better computer I might start to look into this. I also do a bit of video editing of camcorder footage etc. In addition I have a topfield PVR, which records in .rec format, so these need to be converted to mpeg before burning to DVD.

Someone on another forum room suggested that I swap the E8400 for a quad core (perhaps Q9550) - I personally cannot see the point at the moment. The quadcore is more expensive and very few programs seem to take advantage of the extra cores, so I was thinking of going with the dual and upgrading to the quad when prices have gone down and there are more programs around that us it.

Couple of things - I am sticking with the Intel route and I don't overclock.

What do you think? E8400 or Q9550 - sorry if this subject has been done to death on here

Many thanks

Leo123 - UK
 
Quad core (or even more cores) is the future, there is no doubt about that. While many programs might not take advantage of all 4 cores right now, more continue to do so every day; that will go a long way toward helping future proof your rig.

You mentioned that you do video transcoding; those programs are already among the most multi-threaded apps.

Socket 775 doesn't have a lot of future at this point. By the time you would be looking to upgrade to a quad the market will have likely been completely replaced by i7/i5/i3 processors. I'd either go quad now or resign yourself to probably sticking with your existing processor until you do another full build.
 
Forgot to add that I shall be getting Windows 7 when it comes out - have heard that this can make better use of quad cores - not sure if this adds much.
 
Leo123 said:
I am not massively into games, but with a better computer I might start to look into this. I also do a bit of video editing of camcorder footage etc. In addition I have a topfield PVR, which records in .rec format, so these need to be converted to mpeg before burning to DVD.
Click to expand...

just based on this info, I would get the quad.
 
quad, overclock will be easy if you ever choose to try, but I will never go back to dual with the clock speeds available on a quad
 
add $150 to that and you can be running an i7 rig. however, with the price of the 9550 and overclocks available with the e0 stepping, forget duallies.
 
Just did the same sort of thing. My primary rig has a stock e8400. I picked up a q9550 for a spare ESXi server. Originally, most of the stuff I did would not take advantage of multiple cores, so two 3.0ghz was enough. Figured a 2.8 something ghz quad would be just fine for an 'external' server.

But just for grins, I tried a bump up to the next memory tier - 1333 > 1600 and found the silly quad is rock solid at 3.4ghz on the stock heatsink. Never tried to OC the dual core chip - but I was wanting at least single threaded speed equivalent to what I had before. Got that and more...

Something to consider. Glad I did not spend an extra $100 or so on the q9650.
 
Does seem that the way to go is the Q9550.

Say I did want to wait until the i5 comes out, what would be the advantage of these over the Q9550?

Also, when is this new chip going to be release and how long do you think I would have to wait until there are some decent Mobos to go with it?

I have heard that someone in my position would be mad to spend such money on a new computer, when you could wait a short while and get something with DDR3 at a similar price - though isn't that the problem with technology in general = if you always wait for something slightly better, you would wait forever.

Considering that we are talking about a whole new chip and faster RAM and from what you have heard, would you just advise me to wait and get the i5?

I have also heard that the i5 is going to run almost as fast as the i7, but cheaper - is this true? (thus really not worth considering an i7).

Sorry for so many questions - your help very much appreciated.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top