X3350 or Q9450

[hainer36]

question is, which one should i go for when they arrive.

my 4 friends all want me to upgrade thier rigs, and I told them that the X3350 would be the best bet (seeing as they are tested much harder than the Q9450).

will they be out at the same time? intel has stated that they have the same price per 1000 oem chip, so one would believe that they would have the same retail price.

is there any benefit to having the X3350 over the Q9450 (overclocking #1) or should i just go with which is cheaper come april when i purchase 4 of em

PS- I'm still waiting myself for Nehalem (have been since i heard about the chips 2 years ago). Stuck on a 930 @ 4.2ghz, P5WD2-P, 2x1gb ddr2-533 kingston value ram (dont laugh its @ 750mhz 4-4-4-8 ) and a 7900GTO

also what would the power req. be on those chips? would a 520W powerstream still run it, or should i grab em some 610W PCP&C psu's? (figure 1 49A 12V rail is better than wasting some 3 or 4 12V rail psu's)

 

[Dan_D]

question is, which one should i go for when they arrive.

my 4 friends all want me to upgrade thier rigs, and I told them that the X3350 would be the best bet (seeing as they are tested much harder than the Q9450).

will they be out at the same time? intel has stated that they have the same price per 1000 oem chip, so one would believe that they would have the same retail price.

is there any benefit to having the X3350 over the Q9450 (overclocking #1) or should i just go with which is cheaper come april when i purchase 4 of em

PS- I'm still waiting myself for Nehalem (have been since i heard about the chips 2 years ago). Stuck on a 930 @ 4.2ghz, P5WD2-P, 2x1gb ddr2-533 kingston value ram (dont laugh its @ 750mhz 4-4-4-8 ) and a 7900GTO

also what would the power req. be on those chips? would a 520W powerstream still run it, or should i grab em some 610W PCP&C psu's? (figure 1 49A 12V rail is better than wasting some 3 or 4 12V rail psu's)

Actually there is no proof that the Xeon LGA775 processors are tested any differently than their Core 2 counterparts. I think people assume they are since that is the way AMD did things with their Opterons but there is no proof that this is the case with the LGA775 Xeons. The LGA775 Xeons do not run cooler and do not overclock better than their Core 2 counterparts. As for their availabilty it is difficult to say. The 45nm Xeon's are already available but only in LGA771. We'll have to wait and see what happens with the 45nm LGA771 Xeons.

The Xeon X3350 or Core 2 Quad Q9450 processors won't require a large increase in power over what they are running now more than likely. I wouldn't worry about that.

 

[hainer36]

ok, so its going to be basically whatever CPU is cheaper/available at the time.

but heres a run-down of the PSU's that they are using:
Thermaltake 550W (terrible PSU, surprised it has lasted this long, not even a good Thermaltake)
Enermax 500W (good for the system its in, but wouldnt run a dual core let alone a quad)
Generic "600W" (this has to go for sure)
OCZ Powerstream 520W (the old green LED one, should be good, I hope)

this is why they need to replace their PSU's, they dont have even "ok" PSU's in the first place, so... they gotta go

 

[Dan_D]

ok, so its going to be basically whatever CPU is cheaper/available at the time.

Right.

but heres a run-down of the PSU's that they are using:
Thermaltake 550W (terrible PSU, surprised it has lasted this long, not even a good Thermaltake)

Yeah those are horrible from what I've heard.

Enermax 500W (good for the system its in, but wouldnt run a dual core let alone a quad)

Bullshit. This PSU would run a dual or a quad. I am not saying it is a good PSU but increase in CPU cores doesn't suddenly make the power requirement skyrocket. In fact most quad core CPUs use less power than dual core Pentium D processors.

Generic "600W" (this has to go for sure)

Probably junk.

OCZ Powerstream 520W (the old green LED one, should be good, I hope)

You should be good to go on this. I don't know the specifics of the unit, but I doubt it is total junk.

this is why they need to replace their PSU's, they dont have even "ok" PSU's in the first place, so... they gotta go

Maybe, it really depends on the specs of thier systems. Quad core based systems use quite a bit less power than you think. For example the Skulltrail dual quad core system used only 589watts under load with two hard drives and dual 8800GTX's in SLI. The 780i SLI QX9770 quad core system with the same components (hard drives, PSU, etc.) used 512watts under full load. Idle each configuration pulled less than 400watts. Granted you don't want a PSU running anywhere near full load at any given time, but seriously, a 500watt PSU is good enough for a quad core system so long as it doesn't have dual high end video cards and a ton of hard drives.

 

[hainer36]

IIRC the enermax psu is this one
Enermax EG-495P-VE SFMA NoiseTaker P Series 485 Watt ATX Power Supply
and its got dual 12V rails at 18/15, now i highly doubt that will run a machine that im going to be setting up

i hope to have it as the follows (just incase)
Q9450/X3350
mid-range mobo (unsure)
highly overclocked ddr2 or mid range ddr3 (depends on board and price)
now this is where it gets tricky, all 4 system will have different GPU's
#1 (thermaltake)- dual 7800GTX's (already has em, doesnt want anything new)
#2 (ocz)- dual 7900GT's (has one, getting a cheap 2nd)
#3 (no name POS)- dual 8800GTS 512mb or dual 9800GT (if the exist)
#4 (enermax)- single 8800GT (told him to wait, but he is an idiot, so he is set on that, when we are buyin this stuff in april...idiot)

so i know the thermaltake must go, the no name should have blown by now, the enermax, well is a toss-up but i THINK is should go, and the OCZ should be good

 

[Dan_D]

IIRC the enermax psu is this one
Enermax EG-495P-VE SFMA NoiseTaker P Series 485 Watt ATX Power Supply
and its got dual 12V rails at 18/15, now i highly doubt that will run a machine that im going to be setting up

i hope to have it as the follows (just incase)
Q9450/X3350
mid-range mobo (unsure)
highly overclocked ddr2 or mid range ddr3 (depends on board and price)
now this is where it gets tricky, all 4 system will have different GPU's
#1 (thermaltake)- dual 7800GTX's (already has em, doesnt want anything new)
#2 (ocz)- dual 7900GT's (has one, getting a cheap 2nd)
#3 (no name POS)- dual 8800GTS 512mb or dual 9800GT (if the exist)
#4 (enermax)- single 8800GT (told him to wait, but he is an idiot, so he is set on that, when we are buyin this stuff in april...idiot)

so i know the thermaltake must go, the no name should have blown by now, the enermax, well is a toss-up but i THINK is should go, and the OCZ should be good

Well once you start factoring the GPU choices, then it makes sense to swap the power supplies out.