Q6600: So where's the power?

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Everyone says that I won't really notice a difference - speed wise - with my Q6600 because I'm not running any video editing or such which takes advantage of the four cores. My question is - is there a way that I can see the power of the Q6600 on my system and what would I need to do in order to see it?

I'm asking this because after blowing my whole income tax on this new system I don't really notice a big difference from my old P4 2.4GHz system.

Thanks.
 
F@H. :D

Seriously though, multicore really only benefits applications that are programmed to take advantage of two or more cores. You'll see slight to minor improvements in OS responsive when you go from single core to dual core, but not so much when you go from DC to QC.

EDIT: Of course if you're massively multitasking like those who posted below, you'll see a large improvement.
 
open more than one thing at once :)


I was amazed the other day on my q6600 I had two virtual machines, a 16GB file copy, a DVD burning, about 16 internet browsers, winamp playing and was clicking around and the CPU wasn't over 35%.

Responsiveness of the system was as if nothing was going on at all.

Try that on your aged P4 2.4 :)
 
Have some news for you..

In your daily usage you probably wont notice a dimes worth of a difference between your old system and your Q6600 rig. I dont see much of a difference between my old XP 2400+ @ 2.325Ghz and the new E4500 @ 3.31GHz.

Its only when you do something CPU intensive that your new rig will shine. Try running some newer games w/ a decent GPU for example..
 
depends on what you do with your system in order to realize the difference a q6600 makes. I run one, have it at 3.6ghz and ram at DDR 1066. I noticed a very LARGE difference from a 2.8ghz Opteron165 and 2gb of ram. However, I run virtual machines, do some video encoding here and there, as well as some graphic work.

If all you do is play some games and surf the web, then no...everyday use you're not going to notice much difference. If all you do is surf the web, do word/excel/ppt then you probably could have gotten by with this little Intel board. I run that in my car. Great board. Quiet, cool running, uses only about 27w and is hardly longer than a stick of ddr2.
 
The power in a Quad chip is in multitasking. With my old systems, if I wanted to game, I would shut down everything possible to make things as smooth as possible in the game.

With my Q6600, I just leave everything open, and play away. My current game is Supreme Commander. I play on 2 displays. 1 is at 1680 X 1050, and the second one is at 1280 X 1024. I zoom in and out on both displays while at max units in the biggest battles with no noticable slowdown. It's cool.

When converting video for my Zune, it is almost twice as fast as my Dual Xeon 2.6 system it replaced. That is the only thing I normally do that is SMP aware.

Don

Edit: Good lord, 6 responses in 10 minutes on a Friday night!!! Go on a date or something will yas! :)
 
Thanks for the great replies everyone :) I guess I'll have to try a PC game. I've never played any before. What one would you guys recommend?
 
Dude my laptop is horrendously weak compared to my desktop and aside from the some aspects of Aero being slower on it, I can't tell the difference between my laptop and desktop machines. The differences I really perceive are the differences that naturally become apparent between Aero running on two 8800GTX's in SLI vs. Intel GMA950. :eek:

For all other non-gaming/non-video/photo editing tasks, there is no difference between them. Word processing and everything else are identical between the two.
 
DonDon said:
Edit: Good lord, 6 responses in 10 minutes on a Friday night!!! Go on a date or something will yas! :)
Click to expand...


If I went on a date without my wife, she'd kill me. And since she's at work, I don't forsee me dating anytime soon.
 
Thanks for the great replies everyone I guess I'll have to try a PC game. I've never played any before. What one would you guys recommend?
Click to expand...

Well, there's always Solitare. You can watch how much faster the cards deal, or how much smoother the lame fireworks are when you win.

I like Real Time Strategy games like Command & Conquer or Warcraft. My current game is Supreme Command which I highly recommend.

Don
 
Have an ipod? Have videos on your puter ( I know you do..)? Convert and enjoy!
 
if you dont play game, dont bother if your not into them

tell us what you use your computer for, and why you wanted to upgrade in the first place...
 
DonDon said:
Edit: Good lord, 6 responses in 10 minutes on a Friday night!!! Go on a date or something will yas! :)
Click to expand...

I'm sure you pwnt a few peeps with that one, hah!

And as far as the 6600 power goes, ya, do some multitasking. If you really want to know, try those tasks first with your old rig, use a stopwatch if you want some real results. This is the age where a microwave seems slow, but go back to the wood burning stove and see how slow it is.
 
Just something else to mention on the subject of quad cores.
In the past week I have been messing with my computer and trying to get FRAPS working the way I want, so have done a lot of ALT-TABing out to change settings.

The other night I actually forgot I had tabed out, and loaded up ARMA again. I played for about an hour and decided to take a break and quit the game. It was then I realized that the while time I was running 2 instances of ARMA at the same time. Of course 1 wasn't doing too much because it was at the menu screen, but still.

Then to top that off, tonight I did the same thing almost. Was playing ARMA, tabed out to adjust FRAPS, decided to check the webpage to see who was playing Project Reality Mod for BF2 (which is way more resource than vinilla BF2) and got a phone call. When I came back, I saw some friends were in PR, so I decided to play for most of a round of Qawi River. Looked over right before the end of the round to my 2nd monitor and realized I was using almost 3 gigs of RAM (which isn't unusual for buggy BF2 and it's memory leak) so I quit the game and then realized I still had ARMA running as well, and this time it was actually in one of the tutorial training missions I had been playing with earlier.

I hadn't even noticed in PR. That is why I am happy with my quad, and went with it over the Dual core.

And by the way, I think ARMA on all HIGH is about as resources straining at Crysis.
I have a mild overclock on my q6600 running it at 3.0GHz
 
The power of multi core CPUs is in multitasking and multithreaded applications.

I've placed a q6600 on an accountant's desk. Because Excel 2007 is multithreaded he went from a 1.5-2 hour spreadsheet recalc on his P4 3.0 to a few seconds on his q6600.

I run all of my work apps, two instances of f@h and game at the same time on my own box. (q6600@3.1, 8GB DDR2-800 on Vista 64) I can switch back and forth between the game and my work and still let two f@hs run and never worry about it.

I used to run out of RAM at 4GB so I upgraded to 8 (way overkill, but where else do you go after 4GB?) But the CPU was never overtaxed.

BTW even the older single threaded Excel versions run faster on a C2D CPU vs a P4. The new cores are much better even when only using one. That same 1-5-2 hour recalc was only 10-15 minutes using a single core of the q6600
 
I made a similar switch a few months ago (see sig), and at first I thought it wasn't really any different. Then, I starting playing game and I was like WOW. Then I tried playing a game, with one or two other games open, alt tabbing between. Amazing. However, even on basic stuff my computer is faster. I went back to my old computer and couldn't believe how much longer stuff took. It's more more noticeable going from fast to slow than the other way around.
 
It really depends on what you do. If your primary uses are using Word and browsing the internet then you just wasted your money. I noticed a huge difference when I upgraded from an X2 4400+ to the Q6600.
 
For the same price I would go for the Q6600....I was going to get a E8400 at first but they were so hard to find so I got a Q6600 and OC'd it and I love it..I run 4 F@H clients and game at the same time and the system is still very responsive.
 
I went E8400 over the Q6600 because I figured the E8400 could do ~4+Ghz vs ~3.6Ghz out of the Q6600 and use less power and create less heat. Plus from what I've seen most games won't take advantage of 4 cores. I multitask on my PC for work stuff but nothing that can really use 4 cores like encoding and etc. I'll probably go quad core next time around though.
 
Oh joy, another e8400 vs q6600 comparison. OK, I'll bite.

I chose the Q6600. While I may not ALWAYS use the 4 cores, the times that I do will benefit me a heck of a lot more than an additional 400Mhz would. Prior to my current system I was running an Athlon X2, so upgrading to a more powerful dual core just wasn't a significant enough upgrade for me.
 
RamonGTP said:
Oh joy, another e8400 vs q6600 comparison. OK, I'll bite.

I chose the Q6600. While I may not ALWAYS use the 4 cores, the times that I do will benefit me a heck of a lot more than an additional 400Mhz would. Prior to my current system I was running an Athlon X2, so upgrading to a more powerful dual core just wasn't a significant enough upgrade for me.
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Yup, plus more applications/games WILL use quad-core/greater in the near future.
 
GoldenTiger said:
Yup, plus more applications/games WILL use quad-core/greater in the near future.
Click to expand...

That was pretty much the deal-breaker for me on the Q6600. An extra 400-600mhz with the E8400 isn't going to make that big of a difference now...but later down the road the extra 2 cores will.
 
Plus a Quad core at 3.6Ghz coupled with ddr1066 is nothing to sneeze at for a while.
 
No doubt that games will take advantage of Quad cores in the future, but I'll have a new cpu in the future too. For now I'm happy with 4ghz and pretty low temps and voltage. Really both CPU's are way more then enough for gaming now, so if you can benefit for 2 extra cores go for it.

My only concern with the Q6600 was keeping it cool enough to get a nice OC out of it. Even the 45nm E8400 gets pretty hot in my setup once I start going for 4.2Ghz at 1.375v. Its hotter then my good old E4300 at 3.3ghz and 1.5v. I like my PC silent, so I run my fans on low and I'm too lazy for water cooling.
 
I really don't think heat is much of an issue. Look at everone running a Q6600 here who have been able to get good OC's out of it. Games even now are using quad cores. When we say future, we're not talking two years from now, there is every possibility that the very next big game to come out will utilize 2+ cores. That's not to say your dual core won't handle it just fine, only point I'm trying to make is that "future" is very near, you will likely not have a new processor when the next A+ title hits and uses quad cores.

Heck, just a couple hours ago I was playing CoD 4 and noticed the CPU go above 60%, which means 2 cores were fully utilized and then some. Weather or not this was being all used up by the game or not doesn't matter, even if it was a background app useing the additional cycles it just goes to show that quads can be very usefull even if the game may only use 2 cores. Had I only had a dual core CPU it's likely I would have experienced some slowdown or choppyness during this period of high CPU usage.
 
I expect to be running my Q6600 for 3-5 years. By then the 2 extra cores will be much more beneficial than a 4-600 mhz clock.

Clocking my quad has not been any problems. Lets see, 800mhz clock over 4 cores, I am getting an extra 3.2 ghz.

I'm happy.

Don
 
you can't add them together!! lol

I think the Core 2 Quad Q6600 is one of the top developments of the last 5 years.
 
I have had both. I started with a relatively early run e8400 from newegg. I was less than impressed. I don't know if it was the board or the chip but I couldn't get much more than 3.8 out of at decent voltages. The temps were not great either. So I sold it and picked up a Q6600 with $45 left over(first and probably last time I have sold a piece of computer hardware for more than I paid for no less 20%) With it clocked at 3.2 it I have been more than happy with the change. It will go to 3.4 but there really is not point. If I ever get around to doing the vdroop mod I am sure it will do 3.6. I know i will get much more longevity out of this as well.

The only reason I see for the E8400 is if you just game and nothing else. I like to be able to have a media player, a couple firefox windows, visual studio, outlook, and still be able to encode a couple TV shows and my system not blink an eye. In my opinion the quad gives much more value for your dollar, especially now when many sites are charging more for the dual.
 
ryan_975 said:
F@H. :D

Seriously though, multicore really only benefits applications that are programmed to take advantage of two or more cores. You'll see slight to minor improvements in OS responsive when you go from single core to dual core, but not so much when you go from DC to QC.

EDIT: Of course if you're massively multitasking like those who posted below, you'll see a large improvement.
Click to expand...

My point in suggesting quad-core compared to the higher-end dual-cores (especially E8400 and above) is that *everyone multitasks*, even those that think they don't. If you have more than five applications in your tasktray, you're a multitasker. Even if you have fewer, start up Task Manager (Windows) XP/Vista) sometime and look at how many processes and threads you likely have running.

I'll even use myself as an example. I'm running Vista Ultimate (and a very lightly loaded Vista Ultimate) with thirteen non-OS-related items in the tasktray, eighty-six processes, and one thousand, one hundred ninety-three threads, on a system with a mere Pentium 4 single-core (Northwood-C core). Note that I said that that figure is *low*. I've taxed this very same Northwood more than that. Yes; it's an overclocked Northwood (fifteen percent), but I'm also using the stock HSF. And that's loafing, even for me.
And if I'm piling on that sort of load on a Northwood, think of what some of you supposedly-light or non-multitaskers are running in terms of processes and threads, especially when gaming.

Think of some of the games that you play (and I'm not even going to get into the games with really high process and thread counts, such as Bioshock, Gears of War, or Crysis) or the applications that you run (like Firefox or Outlook or even Word).

And you really think you wouldn't be able to find uses for two extra cores?
 
PGHammer said:
My point in suggesting quad-core compared to the higher-end dual-cores (especially E8400 and above) is that *everyone multitasks*, even those that think they don't. If you have more than five applications in your tasktray, you're a multitasker. Even if you have fewer, start up Task Manager (Windows) XP/Vista) sometime and look at how many processes and threads you likely have running.

I'll even use myself as an example. I'm running Vista Ultimate (and a very lightly loaded Vista Ultimate) with thirteen non-OS-related items in the tasktray, eighty-six processes, and one thousand, one hundred ninety-three threads, on a system with a mere Pentium 4 single-core (Northwood-C core). Note that I said that that figure is *low*. I've taxed this very same Northwood more than that. Yes; it's an overclocked Northwood (fifteen percent), but I'm also using the stock HSF. And that's loafing, even for me.
And if I'm piling on that sort of load on a Northwood, think of what some of you supposedly-light or non-multitaskers are running in terms of processes and threads, especially when gaming.

Think of some of the games that you play (and I'm not even going to get into the games with really high process and thread counts, such as Bioshock, Gears of War, or Crysis) or the applications that you run (like Firefox or Outlook or even Word).

And you really think you wouldn't be able to find uses for two extra cores?
Click to expand...

How many of those apps, processes, or threads are using any processor time? I can open 15 web browsers or Word sessions and it wouldn't tax a P3, assuming I had enough memory to keep the pagefile allocation down.
 
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