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CPU choice hell...

Why has no one asked what the machine will be used for?

If you're using multi-threaded apps ie: video editing and stuff then get the Q6600. More cores = better/do more at once.

If you're gaming then get the 8400. It'll clock further than the Q6600. Faster = better for games that don't use more than 2 threads. Spend the £15 you save on a nicer graphics card, or a sound card or something.
 
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TUNSTALL_NICK said:
sorry but don`t like bile green....lol..!
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So you've taken the thread off topic and insulted one of the UK's top case modders and water-cooling gurus because you don't like green? Poor show - be a man and apologise!

Anyway - on topic again - the E8400 will go to 4GHz with the right motherboard and in games, it's MHz that counts in my opinion. Very few Q6600's go over 3.6GHz on air and the extra 12% performance for a couple of pounds less makes me feel the dual-cre is the better bet in this case.
 
WJA96 said:
So you've taken the thread off topic and insulted one of the UK's top case modders and water-cooling gurus because you don't like green? Poor show - be a man and apologise!

Anyway - on topic again - the E8400 will go to 4GHz with the right motherboard and in games, it's MHz that counts in my opinion. Very few Q6600's go over 3.6GHz on air and the extra 12% performance for a couple of pounds less makes me feel the dual-cre is the better bet in this case.
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lol! I can't see that happening somehow, but he'll probably find some way of managing half a dozen posts rambling nonsense unrelated to the thread. Its odd how much he hates bile green but he's got the typical LOOK AT MY SPECS capitalised sig in... bile green.

Anyway, on topic.. I see your point on the higher clocked dual core but does it actually make any appreciable fps difference at mid 3ghz+ clock speeds in modern games? I thought at 20" widescreen res and upwards everything was gfx card limited much more than cpu and the 2 extra cores might come in handy someday?
 
The graphics card is generally the bottleneck, and the two extra cores are great for folding@home (I personally wouldn't have anything else) but my fastest games rig (the one that benches highest in Crysis with everything maxed out) and running a GX2 is the dual core E8400 with the highest clock speed.
 
Another vote for the Quad, the slight gaming performance advantage of a heavily overclocked dual is not worth it. The quad is a multi tasking beast, clock at around 3.4-3.6 with ease and is solid performer.

I am one of the few that believe that if you are building a spec that wants to last you now you should go for the Yorkfields, they are more expensive but when you build a system to last 2-3 a years then for me it doesnt really matter. They should be able to clock at around 3.6GHz i think and are better clock for clock, and they have the SSE4 instructions which may be useful for video editing? Not really sure there.
 
quad core "q6600" has more cash and even if it overclocks bit less still pwns e8400 look ar reviews. and when u run some heavy application your pc will not slow down as u still hae spear cores. as for q9450 its not worth it as someone said right now as its just to expansive and u see minimum performance from q6600 i thinks its like 10% performance. as long time ago wise man said if it does not increase performance more then 20% its worthless :eek:
 
psychas said:
Quad core "q6600" has more cache and even if it overclocks a bit less it still pwns an e8400 look at the reviews. And when you run multiple heavy applications your pc will not slow down as you still have spare cores.
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Well, I still hold that for applications that use 1 core ie. most games the higher clocking CPU is the better CPU. And you still have a second core to handle windows in the background. The E8400 is also about £15 cheaper than the Q6600. I could probably make the same argument for the E7200 though and that's £65 cheaper.

And I don't need to look at other people's reviews, I test all my own stuff. No-one gives me anything, I buy it all myself and I call it as I see it.

[OT@Psychas]Whereabouts in Ireland are you?[/OT@Psychas]
 
Janesy B said:
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.
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i agree with this, why have the cooling issues of a quad, the cooler chip in my view cuts the mustard with real time applications, i wish i'd kept my E6600 and saved some money!
 
http://www.guru3d.com/article/cpu-scaling-in-games-with-quad-core-processors/

The Verdict

So then, the hardcore truth today is a very simple fact: you'll gain a better bang for buck in your games from a faster clocked dual-core processor opposed to having a somewhat slower clocked quad-core processor. That doesn't mean though that quad-core processors offers less value. Contrary, and I know I've been evangelizing it for over a year now, but the future is multi-core gaming, the fact is just that dual-core is the sweet spot value wise anno 2008 as 95% of the games still only use one and maybe two CPU cores.

When we look purely at the quad-core processors used in this review, it's quite interesting to see what the effect of the platform difference between AMD Phenom and Intel Core 2 processors. We compared the two quite a lot in the past already, yet with more affordable graphics cards in the mid-range segment. Surely, in the high-end segment a faster graphics card obviously needs to be paired with a faster processor to form a nice symbiosis between the two, more frames per second equals more date for the CPU to present to the GPU drivers. It's a simple matter of 1+1=2

2,4,8,16 cores ... right now it seems that after 2 cores it does not seem to matter that much how many cores you have in your PC when it comes to gaming. Our recent Intel Skultrail review (8 logical CPU cores) proved that already. The biggest bang for your buck is a faster Core 2 Duo dual-core processors preferably with a higher clock frequency. Next in line are the cheaper quad-core processors. But after four cores guys, I tell you, with the pending Intel Nehalem release going 6, 8 and maybe even more cores, we are bound to run into an issue. More transistors means more costly products. What really needs to go up is that processors frequency.
 
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GunRunner said:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/cpu-scaling-in-games-with-quad-core-processors/

But after four cores guys, I tell you, with the pending Intel Nehalem release going 6, 8 and maybe even more cores, we are bound to run into an issue. More transistors means more costly products. What really needs to go up is that processors frequency.[/U][/B]
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I agree with this, wiith each new gen of intel processors the clock speed is going nowhere, instead they feed us with this energy efficiant bull****. I'd have a 3.00Ghz Dual Core over a 2.66Ghz Quad anyday
 
I guess the total truth of it is Q6600, E82/8400, even something like an E2/4/6/7xxx you'd be hard pushed to be disappointed. Especially seeing as the lower down the range you go the better they seem to clock!
 
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