E8400 - E8600 v Q9550

[Nic Miller]

Can someone offer me some advice.....need (want!) a new CPU, currently got an E6600 at 3.0 Ghz. Use PC for games and surfing, pretty much nothing else. Game genres....RPGs, FPS.

Intend to keep new CPU for at least 12 months - probably until Christmas next year at earliest.

Is it worth spending a bit more now on a quad and hope that future games will utilise it more - ie heard Farcry 2 is 40% faster with quad (no idea if that's true though - sounds a bit high!) or just go with 2 cores as it should be fine for the next year or so?

Understand I'll get no real benefits with the quad on current games I own and probably some new titles.

Plan to over clock an dual core to c 4Ghz - E0 stepping - if that is the way to go, but can't source one at the moment. OC can guarantee an E0 E8600 so may go that route.

Any advice?

Cheers

Nic

 

[Nic Miller]

I also note the quad is quite a bit more cash......and probably doesn't overclock as well.....

 

[marcus_667]

if i was you id be just holding out for core i7 to come down or maybe just upgrade ya graphics a bit , seriously a 3 ghz core 2 duo is enough thats my opinion on it anyways

 

[Nic Miller]

got an 8800gtx which seems fine for now. i7 won't be viable for at least 18 months as it will mean new motherboard/memory/processor etc which am not ready to do.

Just want something to last me the next 12 months or so and my e6600 is starting to get left behind.

 

[linktoinsanity]

Tbh, it's not worth the £££s for a quad atm, the Q6600 is old tech and burns through watts like there is no tomorrow as it overclocks higher and most of the Q9xxx series are currently a lot more expensive than their dual counterparts, which are currently (until more software utilises more cores) absolutely fine, generally perfoming well in most systems. My Dual Core E8400 is pretty responsive, most of the loading times etc are down to other hardware (such as Hard Disks) at the moment with most systems. A RAID 0 goes a long way in improving that!

As far as your E6600 goes, I'd recommend leaving it, you will notice a step up in most applications when upgrading to an E8xxx series but not enough to warrant the cost.

However, if you really want to upgrade your processor, then I'd recommend either an E8400 or an E8500. These are both good cpus at stock and overclock well too. The E8600 is a good cpu, but it's much more expensive than it's counterparts (E8400 and E8500) so I'd say the lower two E8xxx chips (not the E8200) are probably much better value for money right now.

 

[tatts]

I wouldnt bother changing the E6600 unless you're going for a quad with reasons