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CPU choice hell...

rebeeper

rebeeper

rebeeper

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Joined
8 May 2008
Posts
66
Location
Bures
I have been trying to get my head around the best CPU for my next rig.

I have been oscillating between a Q6600 or a E8400 (each has their pro's and cons) but now I am thinking about a Q9450 which is at the extreme upper limit of my budget (probably a bit over tbh).

I know everyone says wait for Nehalem but you can spend your life waiting for 'the next big thing'.

So do I go for the relatively cheap E8400 or Q6600 and wait for Nehalem to come out only to find I now need a new motherboard, ram, attitude to life etc or just blow the budget on a Q9450 and accept that with a 600-800Mhz OC it's still going to be more than awesome...

Target spec for reference
Coolermaster Cosmos S
Asus P5K Premium WiFi-AP iP35
Swiftech H2O 220 Compact Kit
OCZ 4GB Kit (2x2GB) 800MHz/PC2-6400 Memory Platinum Performance
Optiarc AD-7191S
Samsung SpinPoint HD103UJ 1TB x 2 (RAID 1)
Corsair HX Series 620W Modular PSU
XFX 9600GT 1GB
VISTA 64Bit
 
I dont think it's worth spending all out on a mega system anymore, the E8400 is a bloody good CPU and should see you through to the new generation of stuff.
 
Brilliant - so now I am back to the old connundrum :) - I think I am going to go for a Q6600 because i do a lot of Graphics and Design work as well as gaming and I feel it's probably going to give me a better balance...
 
Q6600 everytime..

the Q9450 doesn't appear to clock any better than the Q6600 at nearly twice the price and I've been hearing all this degradation stuff about the wolfdales.. the Q6600 is def the sweet spot at the moment, 3.4/3.6 without much trouble which will most probably get you past any cpu bottleneck for gaming and you've got 2 more cores over the wolfdale just in case you need them :)
 
For gaming alone perhaps but using CS3 and 3D applications as well as video editing software I think I am going to get more from the Q6600 (am I not?)

I am pretty close to taking the plunge on...

Coolermaster Cosmos S
Asus P5K Premium WiFi-AP iP35
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
Swiftech H2O 220 Compact Kit
OCZ 4GB Kit (2x2GB) 800MHz/PC2-6400 Memory Platinum Performance
Optiarc AD-7191S
Samsung SpinPoint HD103UJ 1TB
Corsair HX Series 620W Modular PSU
Asus 8800GTS 512Mb
VISTA 64Bit
 
Azza said:
Just give him the ole roll eyes Matt, thats what im going to do...


:rolleyes:
Click to expand...
i dont think its the fact that its dual core, more to do with the fact that the E8200/E8400 has faster clock speeds. And yes the E8200 does benchmark quicker on most games
 
Janesy B said:
i dont think its the fact that its dual core, more to do with the fact that the E8200/E8400 has faster clock speeds. And yes the E8200 does benchmark quicker on most games
Click to expand...

no no, he quite clear said "2 cores better for gaming" which clearly isn't true.. a Q6600 and an 8 series C2D clocked to the same speed would be almost identical in terms of performance.

The 8 series can clock up to and beyond 4GHZ easily enough but they do seem more fragile than 65nm chips, he also said they run cooler.. so what? As long as the chip is withing its thermal spec then who cares? Q6600s are hardly hot chips.

So, I would stick by the fact that a G0 Q6600 is still the best buy because you're getting 4 cores in an increasingly more multithreaded world.

Apart from anything at a half decent resolution games become GPU limited long before any cpu limit kicks in.
 
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