Q6600 or E8400?

Ruckus

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Ok im trying to find out what would be the best proc for me.

I just bought a XFX 680i LT Sli from someone on the forums. It will be running a 7900GS now and eventually 2 in sli. it will have 4GB of ram, and a tuniq tower for cooling. I mostly will be using this machine for internet and playing counter-strike source and team fortress 2. I will be running XP Pro for now and probably vista ultimate once i get the free copy from microsoft for that participation thing. So my question is which processor will I benefit the most from?
 
Both will serve you well, but I would go for the Faster E8400 and OC it as much as possible...
 
E8400 is actually like $40 cheaper for me too. I was wondering if the quad made up for the difference in mhz.
 
I'm sure the quadheads will jump on this thread, but I'd go with the E8400. I'll be building one myself shortly. Maybe when the Q9450 comes out I'll upgrade again and trickle down the E8400 elsewhere, but until then, I personally would not buy the Q6600 unless you absolutely need quad for the next 2 months.

Robert
 
Keep in mind that 680i boards need a BIOS update in order to work with Wolfdale processors, and even with the update, they are proving to be a difficult platform for Woldfale overclocks. With that in mind, you may get better performance from a Q6600.
 
well the person I bought the board from said his board was already updated to run the e8400, with what I do would I even be able to take advantage of the quad? I mean Im really only gaming and working on websites.
 
well let me say, my q6600 @3.6 renders shit alot faster then my 6420 @ 3.2, ALOT faster. so if you do any sort of rendering, video or 3d, quad ftw, even some games like UT3 and SC take advantage of 4 cores, UT3 shows 25-50% on all 4 cores when I play it.
 
welll I play counter-strike source and team fortress 2 only other than like online poker. I dont now if them games take advantage of it or not.
 
yeah i been reading up a little bit on various sites and everyone seems to say for the games i play the e8400 will be better suited. since I dont render video or anything and im runing a pentium d 945 right now I should get a good boost from the e8400



thanks for all the opinions everyone.
 
For those two games, I'd go with the e8400. That, and the 680i motherboards is sometimes pretty finicky with quads
 
E8400 is really the best bet for anyone whose primary task is gaming. So little benefits from 2 cores at the moment, let alone 4.

My rule of thumb is this, unless you spend 25-30% of the time at your computer doing stuff thats going to significantly load all 4 cores, you're better off with a dual core system.

I.e. if you're a Linux nut and spend most of your time compiling stuff, then the more cores the better, since that stuff basically scales linearly with the number of cores.
 
E8400, but you'll never notice the difference in clockspeed other than benchmarks.

Maybe a Placebo or Psuedo on your mind and this so, but.. probably not.

Personally, I love my Quad and it overclocked really easy. Wait for the Q9XXX instead?
 
E8400 is really the best bet for anyone whose primary task is gaming. So little benefits from 2 cores at the moment, let alone 4.

My rule of thumb is this, unless you spend 25-30% of the time at your computer doing stuff thats going to significantly load all 4 cores, you're better off with a dual core system.

I.e. if you're a Linux nut and spend most of your time compiling stuff, then the more cores the better, since that stuff basically scales linearly with the number of cores.

E8400, but you'll never notice the difference in clockspeed other than benchmarks.

Maybe a Placebo or Psuedo on your mind and this so, but.. probably not.

Personally, I love my Quad and it overclocked really easy. Wait for the Q9XXX instead?



I dont think a gamer can go wrong with either a dually or a quad from Intel currently.Both will be more then screaming fast.
 
for just tf2 and cs definitely get the 8400. remember you won't be able to go to a 45nm quad on your 680 though
 
why not? there was a bios upgrade to support it on the duo just not the quad
 
Having tested both, I kept my Q6600 because at 3.6 GHZ, it runs cooler then the E8400 runs at 4.0 GHZ.. keep in mind I got a good batch number at a good price from someone here on these boards and it runs only at 1.30 volts on load at 3.6 GHZ.. your results may vary.

My E8400 did not want to do 4.0 GHZ under 1.375 volts in windows, too hot and high for my blood.. I'll take my 4 cores. :)


Simple choice for you... get the Q6600 IF

-you fold.. you'd be stupid to pick the E8400 if you fold.. the Q6600 is going to kick it's ass.

-you can find a batch number from somebody that is verified to get you to 3.6 ghz under lower volts, such as an L737B

-you do lots of encoding or multitasking

Get the E8400 if..

you are into gaming mostly

don't do much multitasking, just one thing at a time

don't mind that long term testing at the voltages required to hit 4.0 ghz have not been done yet and there are some reports of chips dying from people using 1.4+ volts which is above the maximum VID of any chip.
 
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