Q6600 vs E8400 ??

E8400. Q6600 is a cracker jack quad, and like whitefiredragon said, by the time everything makes the switch to use all four cores the Q6600 will be obsolete
 
so would the e8400 ....?..and whitefiredragon -- where did you see the q9400 for 180? ...also it has a 6mb l2 cache vs the 6600 with 2x4mb cache....I dont know if that would be a major deciding factor IF they both are the same price...?

--guys please keep in mind, I will not be doing any video encoding at all, maybe very rarely, but mainly I will use it for gaming, watching HD movies, and all the basics -web surfing...ms office, AIM, etc...


Thank you all very much for your replies!:D
 
Last edited:
DirtyD86 said:
by the time everything makes the switch to use all four cores the Q6600 will be obsolete
Click to expand...

So this is what all the Quad haters are saying now, Eh? :P

A little while back it was;

"by the time games start to use all four cores the Q6600 will be obsolete"

Now that's happening, there's another excuse. The way I see it, you never see a Quad owner saying this, it's always Dual owners. I think they're trying to convince themselves that they made the right decision. It always comes down to simple maths: 4 > 2.

(Wasn't aimed at you, Dustin. Just something I've noticed)
 
heres what I have come up with

heres the setup I have in my mind....tell me what you guys think about this...:

Motherboard:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128380

CPU:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115017

RAM:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220353
one of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2000170147%201052108080%201052420643%201395428464%2050002204&bop=And&CompareItemList=N82E16820220315%2CN82E16820220353%2CN82E16820220334%2CN82E16820220314

I chose this combo because The q6600 has 1066 mhz fsb, which also is supported by the Motherboard as well as the ram....If I was to get the q9400 It has a 1333mhz FSB, but I could not find ram at this speed...so I think that I would just be bottlenecking its potential...? am I right about that ?...

(related specs that I already have:...680w PSU, BFG 9800 GTX 512mb)


Also, I feel like getting the quad might be better because I use programs in the background alot and even if the games dont use all 4 cores, I know the unused cores will actually be processing the background apps which will take the load off of the game..(or should, right?)...and also If I over clock it a little I believe it would be comparable to using the stock c2d. Lastly, I believe that even though games would not all use multiple cores, at least some will-which should give me some advantage in those areas- which I find nice as well as the so called future proofing (yes it would be outdated soon, but at least it would be on the lower end of the newer techs, dual cores would seem to be even MORE outdated, right?..) and not to mention, just even having the 2 additional cores would be nice, considering they will be put to use some how some way...so it should not be a waste....

what are your thoughts?
is there a better motherboard I am missing, or a better set of RAM, or even CPU?

what about a motherboard that supports ddr2 800, wouldnt that bottleneck the RAM & then in turn the CPU?..



Thanks all you guys are helping me very much, hopfully others will get help from this as well....
please reply with your thoughts/concerns/advice-ideas.....

Thanks again all --sorry for the long post--
 
Last edited:
ram speed does not have to match FSB speed. truthfully, the best performance would come from an fsb of 1600mhz and ram set to 800mhz. this is because ram does two cycles for every one of the fsb, so it needs half the speed.
 
you're not really going to notice much of a difference if you're only gaming, so i would go with the 8400 to spend less money, but quad core would do well in other tasks besides gaming.
 
dont you think I would notice a difference if the game is coded to use more than 2 cores, though?....also....dont you think it would at least make some kind of difference having 4cores vs 2? I.E. if I had programs running in the background, the other available cores can handle those while the game runs on the others.?
 
i dont think so,it will just use 2 cores instead of 4.

put it this way...would you rather have 2 cores or 4 cores?

Even though the Q6600 might not overclock aswell as the E8400 it can easily overclock way past the E8400s stock speed of 3ghz.

some people have the Q6600 to 3.7-3.8 with very good cooling.

i would rather have 4 cores at 3.7ghz over 2 cores of a E8400 at 4ghz.
 
MouSe said:
Something can slow a Q6600 down? LOL, I love mine really. I've had I don't know how many internet windows open with multiple tabs each. Also while having iTunes open while watchin a movie. It's awesome.
Click to expand...
HA! thats nothing. Ive had 2 FF's going, one with ~9 tabs the other with ~5. Itunes, uTorrent, watching a movie, whilist UT3 minimized :P all of that and i could rip a DVD at the same time without laggign at all.

Get the quad, even if it doesnt reach the same speed as the 8400 would its worth it. Games are going to start taking advantage of 4 cores, and when they do, the difference between an i7 and Q6600 will almost be non existent because games wont be able to load up all the cores, but still use them all. Although HT would help, no games within the next 4 years will have more than 4 threads.
 
could you guys recommend a good heatsink for overclocking a quad? I would like to keep it all air and no water cooling. Also I would like to spend under 50 if possible... on top of all that, it would be nice to OC to over 3.6-3.7, but I feel that just around 3.0 ghz is fine for me - after all I wouldn't want to shorten the life span of my computer, also I wouldn't want to mess something up....
anyways...maybe you guys could give me some recommendations..
?

Thanks all!!
I appreciate all the help! very helpful indeed!
 
Kornowski said:
For sure, I'd recommend the Tuniq Tower. 24c idle and 38c full load.
Click to expand...

I still think that is a chip vs cooler issue.

Id love to see your temps on a Xigmatek S1283.....anyone in the UK mind stopping by his house and testing it? :P

Only reason I didn't buy a TT120 is dunno if its your chip or if its actually better. Reviews say they are even in cooling. Maybe 1-2c difference.
 
for the tuniq tower it depends on if you get a good one like kornowski got or the one like mine where i only idle at 32-33ish, but its not like that terrible and i only get up to about 50 when running prime for an hour
 
I'd say I got lucky with the chip, I'd probably have pretty similar results using the Xigmatek. So, any monster, after market HSF that's pretty reputable would do the job!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top