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Q8300, Q9400?

B

botw

Gawd
Joined
Jan 13, 2007
Messages
593
I've been running a cheap e7300 and was considering an upgrade. I don't want to do a complete system rebuild to upgrade to i7 right now (not in the budget). I use this system for a variety of purposes, including picture and video editing (mainly Lightroom but also some minimal video and photoshop), office applications, and gaming (primarily Call of Duty right now).

I'm thinking about the q8300 and q9400 (or anything else in that price range). How much does the limited L2 cache cripple the 8300? Is the extra speed (and larger l2)worth the price of the q9400? I guess I could also consider the q6600 too but I do appreciate the better cooling characteristics of the newer chips.

I know we get many of these upgrade posts/questions. Thank you in advance for your thoughts.
 
Despite the awesomeness of this thread: Quad Powahh!, I've decided just to overclock my 7300 and wait for i7 and my budget to mature a bit more.
 
If your task are minimal it's not going to benefit you very much; however if you do it regularly it can get annoying. I know that decoding and re-encoding DVD's and HDDVDs/Blu-Ray is loads faster on my quad than on my C2D.

You could also look at the AMD Phenom II X4s. I feel they're a better deal than the i7 for price to performance.

Otherwise just get a normal intel Quad core. I love my Q6600.

The price difference is 30-40 dollars between the Q8300 and Q9400. The 9400 gets my vote.



Honestly IMO, I rank my suggestions as follows...

Q9400
Q6600
Q8300
Phenom II x4 (If you want all new and are on a cheap budget.)
i7 (Too expensive right now.)
 
Last night there were Intel x58 open boxes for $51.xx each in the Newegg.com store. Luckily I bought 2. My new build will be cheaper than my last Core 2 Quad build. You guys should check it out sometimes. They usually update their open-box pages from afternoon-evening. Good luck!.
 
seanclayton said:
Last night there were Intel x58 open boxes for $51.xx each in the Newegg.com store. Luckily I bought 2. My new build will be cheaper than my last Core 2 Quad build. You guys should check it out sometimes. They usually update their open-box pages from afternoon-evening. Good luck!.
Click to expand...

Yeah, at $51 that becomes pretty tempting - assuming they aren't open boxed because someone already determined they were lemons.
 
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