Q9300 or Q6600 for my needs?

therealjustin

therealjustin

Limp Gawd
Joined
May 19, 2008
Messages
471
I know about the thousands of threads comparing the Q6600, E8400 and Q9300 but I wanted to know what you guys thought about the Q6600 vs. the Q9300. I do a little video editing, a lot of Photoshop, some 3D, game some, and multi mask a lot so I figured a quad would be a good choice. Plus I'd like to keep this system for at least 3 years. I can get the Q6600 G0 for $213 shipped or the Q9300 for $240 shipped. Which one?

I wouldn't mind overclocking either although I probably wouldn't need at this time, maybe later on.
 
If you're not gonna OC, then go 9300 for sure. If it's going to be minor OC'ing, then do 9300. If you're going for major OC, go 6600.
 
Yeah cause I'm probably going to get the DS3L or DS3R and that should do 400FSB easily. probably not much over though. So the Q9300 would be at around 3 and the Q6600 would be at around 3.4-3.6. I guess the Q9300 is actually faster than the Q6600 even when not counting the extra 100mhz clock because of chip improvements?
 
Probably would like the SSE4 instruct set if you're doing 3D stuff, outside of that probably won't see any difference I bet, unless you're a hardcore spec person running progs to check.
 
Newegg lowered the price of the Q6600 to $214 and I couldn't resist it! I grabbed one plus a DS3L, the new EP version. I don't need the RAID on the DS3R anyway.

My parts list so far:

Intel Q6600
Gigabyte EP35-DS3L
Zotac 8800GTS 320
Antec 500W PSU

Total spent so far is $455.54 so that's not too bad.


Should be a pretty decent system! I'm excited!:D
 
My Q6600 arrived today! It's a G0 SLACR but it has a pack date of 1/08/08 and came in the duller blue box. It's batch # is L740B307. Any idea on whether this is a decent chip or not?
 
Yeah, I know the batch number really doesn't matter but I was just curious! ;)

I won't be able to try it until sometime next month unfortunately. My case isn't here yet and I haven't ordered memory, a hard drive, DVD drive or the OS yet. Just seeing the little Core 2 Quad sticker got me excited! I can't wait to build this computer!
 
Just so you know ds3l has horrible vdroop if you are going to be overclocking. I have a 0.08V droop on my ds3l, so i had to up my voltage more to get it 24 hour prime stable at 3ghz with my q6600
 
I have three G0s, two of them do 3.6 easily and the other does 3.51. I don't think you'll have much trouble getting a good overclock out of it.

As for the original choice, I would look at the software you use and see which ones will be updated with SSE4 optimizations. If a lot of them have those optimizations or will be optimized for it, an overclocked Q9300 might be a better choice. Otherwise, I would have gone with the Q6600 just because of the higher stock clockspeed and the probable ability to overclock it higher negating improvements of the better IPC of the Q9300.

 
Which direction should I install the stock HSF? I know the pre-applied thermal grease will spread out but is there a right or wrong way to install it? My HSF has 3 strips of thermal grease by the way.
 
cereal_killer24 said:
Just so you know ds3l has horrible vdroop if you are going to be overclocking. I have a 0.08V droop on my ds3l, so i had to up my voltage more to get it 24 hour prime stable at 3ghz with my q6600
Click to expand...

Seconded, my DS3L also does the same thing.
 
///M3 said:
Which direction should I install the stock HSF? I know the pre-applied thermal grease will spread out but is there a right or wrong way to install it? My HSF has 3 strips of thermal grease by the way.
Click to expand...

Any ideas?
 
///M3 said:
Any ideas?
Click to expand...

It doesn't really matter. The stock cooler can be mounted any direction. If your case has a window you'd probably want to mount it so that the label on the fan hub is rightside up. :p
 
Ha!!! I didn't even think about that:rolleyes:

Guess I'm used the the logo spinning along with the fan.
 
I think it's important to keep in mind that 3.6GHz is anything but gauranteed on a q6600. I've built several Q6600 machines and only half (at the most) were able to reach 3.6GHz and almost all of them ran quite hot at that speed. Only a small handful reached that speed stable and had temps that I was comfortable with.
 
Oh, I know. I'm probably just gonna shoot for 3.2-3.4 if possible. Maybe even just 3.0Ghz will be enough at 333x9.
 
I just finished installing most of the components and the Intel push pins are a bitch! I've read countless horror stories about how awful the push pins are and I can now officially say based on experience they aren't the easiest things to use. I had one that wouldn't lock so I had to redo it snapping that pin in place first( I guess because of tension on the motherboard ).

The bent load plate scared the crap out of me at first but I soon realized it was supposed to be like that in order to apply pressure to the processor. I used the new OCZ Vendetta 2 cooler and before installing it I applied some thermal grease to the cooler itself. I filled in the cracks between the aluminum base and copper heat pipes and applied two small lines of TIM on the two aluminum area(like benchmarkreviews.com did). Hope it works. Memory was easy to install and the extra power supply wires were tucked away on the reverse side of the motherboard tray and zip-tied in place. I still have some cable management to do but it's not too bad right now for my first build. The DVD burner is the new Samsung SH-S223F. My hard drive comes on Monday(floods in Illinois have delayed UPS) and Vista comes on Wednesday. I did manage to plug it in and it POST'ed fine. No unusual beeps or anything like that so I think I hooked up everything correctly!:p

Is it OK to plug in a system fan into the power supply fan plug on the motherboard? It's 12V and had the same plug and it works fine. I just don't want to damage anything.

Please excuse the long post I'm just so excited! And now for a few pics: Not the picture showing the space between the Vendetta 2 and where the side of the case would be. It's very close but it fits.

1009761copydr0.jpg

1009766copybu1.jpg

1009771copymc6.jpg

1009772copyuv8.jpg

1009776copyoq7.jpg

1009774copyot0.jpg

1009775copypw7.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top