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Quad or Nehalem?

Quad or Nehelam?

  • Quad

    Votes: 5 7.9%

  • Wait for Nehelam to come out

    Votes: 23 36.5%

  • Buy a Quad and wait a year or two for prices to drop with the Nehelam

    Votes: 35 55.6%
  • Total voters
    63
M

Maplewalnut

n00b
Joined
Mar 5, 2008
Messages
43
Simple question...I'm planning on playing any game being thrown at me. The thing is, Warhammer Online comes out in the fall--prior to Nehalem. I'm just curious as to if anyone has an understanding on how much a P45 board will cost? Not only that, but it'll be a new Socket CPU and DDR3 RAM. I forsee probably around $1500-$2000 excluding other components. What say you?

EDIT: I didn't realize until now (because I'm so scattered) that option 1 and option 3 are slightly similar. I apologize.
 
Doh! :( Way to make me feel even less confident. How could I even consider a something where I don't even know to spell it! :p:D
 
Wait for Nehalem to come out. Don't bother with the current Core 2 Quads, unless you already have a socket 775 motherboard.
 
Nope, it's an entirely new build. (desktop is dead, I'm only using a laptop atm) I just need something for the fall so I can play my long awaited Warhammer.
 
Get a Quad now, they are good values and Intel will sure be charges very high prices when Nehlem launches (as the should if the performance estimates hold up). Plus this gives you some time to let the motherboard and compatibility situation sort itself out. ~$325 spent on a Q6600 and good motherboard now should hold its value, otherwise you might be looking at $1K+ for an early Nehalem and 1st generation motherboard.
 
Buy a Quad and wait a year or two for prices to drop with the Nehalem

The mainstream Nehalem parts won't be out to Q1 2009 though some sources are saying Q2 2009 is more likely. Either way, you're gonna be waiting a long time. Plus it's not known whether or not the Nehalem CPUs will be significant enough of an upgrade.

So just buy a quad which will last you those two years and then upgrade the CPU to a Nehalem CPU if you think you need it.
 
Would you wait for the P45s (Eaglelake)? Or just pick up a P35 board? Kinda iffy on the P45 seeing as it's most likely a minor increase in performance.
 
p45 boards probably aren't going to be cheap when they become available later this month. picking up a q6600 now is a good buy, but if you have a budget don't get overzealous on the motherboard or memory. buy a sensibly priced cpu, and spend the bulk of your money on a next-gen gpu and a good display.
 
I would not expect a huge gain from a P45 right now anyway. A good P35 board and a Q6600 is likely the best value you can get given current pricing.
 
Unless something is only a month or two away, it's never worth it to wait. If you wait six months for something, you'll soon learn about the next big thing after that, and start all over again.
 
I went with the Q6600 and a P35 board. I want Nehalem too, but I'm not spending $1000 on a chip or even half that for a chip with performance I don't really need. Chips now are plenty fast enough for most tasks. Even when the desktops chips come out in January/February 2009 imagine the prices! Sure the new quads will be 35-40% faster but the prices are sure to be double, if not triple the cost of a brand new, quad core Q6600 that I can buy right now. Now is a good time to buy!
 
If you're just gaming, the performance gain you from going with Nehalem and DDR3 memory probably won't offset the cost you would have to pay to get those. I would just build a system nowish..
 
A quad now should last most people for a couple of years, I'd say, at which time the 32nm die shrink of Nehalem (Westmere) should be around, and the Nehalem platform will be mature and more affordable. Getting Nehalem this year isn't a serious option for most people, you're looking at almost a year before it's likely to be getting somewhat more affordable.

As I've said in a couple of other places, a fast CPU is good to have, but you needn't get too stressed about there being a faster CPU available, unless you do a lot of, say, video encoding. For games and general usage, provided the it's fast enough, other components like the video card and hard drive will hold you back before the CPU becomes a problem. I'm sure lots of people who have QX9770s or whatever will be first in line to buy a new Nehalem system, but they won't necessarily see much in the way of real-world performance benefits if other bottlenecks apply.
 
Exactly. And the thing to remember is that there are better processors out there now than the Q6600, yet it seems people don't realize this. Better things are already there to be bought if you have the cash to buy them. They think, "Oh, Nehalem, I better wait for that!" but the fact is that the performance of today's processors is more than what we need in most circumstances. A 3GHZ quad or dual core is plenty for most things now and in the future, at least for another 2 maybe 3 years. Nehalem is awesome for what it is, no doubt about that, but for my needs a Q6600 is more than enough. It's a quad core priced at $200. That's not a bad deal!
 
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