E8600 Upgrade to a quad?

Crezzlin · 17 Oct 2011 at 23:29

From my past i had the rampage formula x38 then x48 with a E8400 4GHz and a Q6600 3.5GHz, the E8400 would kill the Quad in all game benchmarks, i was running 2 3870x2's at the time so the extra clock speed of the E8400 may of helped,,

Still have results

E8400 3D Mark06 23k
Q6600 3D Mark06 19.5k

Sorry i had to share the vids

http://youtu.be/9NpnMQ3HEbg

http://youtu.be/4kFnlhsKBKg

setter · 17 Oct 2011 at 23:34

Having owned both a q6600 and a q9550, (both at 3.8ghz), the difference between the two for games wasnt an awful lot. The q9550 ran a lot cooler though, £50.00 would nab a q6600 GO on mm, but an EO stepping q9550 will cost a fair bit more. The problem is finding a decent clocking q6600, the last production batches werent great clockers.

Crezzlin · 17 Oct 2011 at 23:35

PS.. i still have the rampage formula and 2 chips in garage, can do some benchmarks at the wkend on BF3 if needed, What GPU he use???

andy_mk3 · 17 Oct 2011 at 23:36

I'm quite happy with my Q6600 for now, looking at the reviews there isn't a huge difference in performance compared to a Q9550. It'll certainly do me until IB!

Marine-RX179 · 17 Oct 2011 at 23:56

Crezzlin said:
From my past i had the rampage formula x38 then x48 with a E8400 4GHz and a Q6600 3.5GHz, the E8400 would kill the Quad in all game benchmarks, i was running 2 3870x2's at the time so the extra clock speed of the E8400 may of helped,,

Still have results

E8400 3D Mark06 23k
Q6600 3D Mark06 19.5k

Sorry i had to share the vids

http://youtu.be/9NpnMQ3HEbg

http://youtu.be/4kFnlhsKBKg

I'm afraid results like that is no longer relevant to today's standings. Back then before Windows 7, all games/game bench were using 2 cores or less, so of course you will see better performance on the overclocked E8400 than the overclocked Q6600, as you are essentially comparing 2 cores on 4GHz to 2 cores on 3.5GHz.

In today's gaming where the game would use 3 cores or more, the overclocked Q6600 is superior to the overclocked E8400.

Crezzlin · 18 Oct 2011 at 02:46

Marine-RX179 said:
I'm afraid results like that is no longer relevant to today's standings. Back then before Windows 7, all games/game bench were using 2 cores or less, so of course you will see better performance on the overclocked E8400 than the overclocked Q6600, as you are essentially comparing 2 cores on 4GHz to 2 cores on 3.5GHz.

In today's gaming where the game would use 3 cores or more, the overclocked Q6600 is superior to the overclocked E8400.

I didnt think about that, it was on vista and xp at the time, im going to fire it up and do some testing at this wkend on win7 see how the 3870x2's peform its been 2ys or more lol

drunkenmaster · 18 Oct 2011 at 05:17

Ok, who cares about stock speed, the Q6600 was a great chip because it got you the SAME chip architecturally, but a lower clock speed and fantastic price. I've been saying all over the place lately, if there was a HT enabled i7 only slightly above the 2500k in price but with a lower clock speed, it would be awesome and no one would save £10 on a higher clocked non HT 2500k. Stock speed doesn't matter, capable speed and whats disabled on the chip.

The Q6600's great clockers hit 4Ghz, average clockers hit 3.6Ghz, poor clockers hit 3.3Ghz, 3.3Ghz is almost a 50% bump on the stock speed, you'd need a horrific chip to not be capable of that(and I'd put 99% of the few of those you see down to poor overclockers, people refusing to use more voltage or having dodgey mobo's).

Theres a few games out there that need 3.2-3.4Ghz for "great" performance, there aren't many and most will still have very good performance well below that.

The amount a game is multithreaded doesn't really matter, MANY multithreaded games still have a heavy duty single thread that needs a bit of ummpfh behind it.

Q6600 is still a fantastic chip, that or a X555be(that unlocks to a quad core and hits 4Ghz) are probably the longest lasting chips to date with great initial value. You still can't buy an Intel quad core, 3-4 years later, for less than a Q6600 was at times, and now if you go for a lower end quad it has several features missing.

AS for 2 cores at 4Ghz vs 2 cores at 3.5Ghz, compared at non gpu limited settings, there would be a difference, on gpu limits, there wouldn't be any difference, and obviously if a game can use 3 or 4 threads well the quad would destroy it.

linktoinsanity · 18 Oct 2011 at 09:23

drunkenmaster said:
Ok, who cares about stock speed, the Q6600 was a great chip because it got you the SAME chip architecturally, but a lower clock speed and fantastic price. I've been saying all over the place lately, if there was a HT enabled i7 only slightly above the 2500k in price but with a lower clock speed, it would be awesome and no one would save £10 on a higher clocked non HT 2500k. Stock speed doesn't matter, capable speed and whats disabled on the chip.

The Q6600's great clockers hit 4Ghz, average clockers hit 3.6Ghz, poor clockers hit 3.3Ghz, 3.3Ghz is almost a 50% bump on the stock speed, you'd need a horrific chip to not be capable of that(and I'd put 99% of the few of those you see down to poor overclockers, people refusing to use more voltage or having dodgey mobo's).

You're assuming a rather wrong point in that it's not the SAME architecture as you say. The Q6600 is based on an older 65nm chip, the E8600 is based on the slightly (these days) newer 45nm chip. The 45 nm chip outperforms the 65nm chip at the same clock speeds and as it runs cooler can potentially overclock higher.

http://www.techspot.com/review/85-intel-core-2-wolfdale-vs-conroe/ (It's about the dual core versions, but you'll get the jist and I have to go to work so I'm not hunting for a better link yet).

I do not know where you get your facts on the overclock from but on this forum the majority don't get much higher than 3.2Ghz, and 4Ghz on a Q6600? Very few manage that.

Marine-RX179 said:
Yea well, he ain't gonna be getting a Q9xxx CPU for £50 2nd hand.

Probably worth looking around. He might do, if he doesn't I really wouldn't see the Q6600 CPU as enough of an upgrade (if at all) to warrent the effort.

Marine-RX179 · 18 Oct 2011 at 10:59

LinktoInsanity said:
You're assuming a rather wrong point in that it's not the SAME architecture as you say. The Q6600 is based on an older 65nm chip, the E8600 is based on the slightly (these days) newer 45nm chip. The 45 nm chip outperforms the 65nm chip at the same clock speeds and as it runs cooler can potentially overclock higher.

http://www.techspot.com/review/85-intel-core-2-wolfdale-vs-conroe/ (It's about the dual core versions, but you'll get the jist and I have to go to work so I'm not hunting for a better link yet).

I do not know where you get your facts on the overclock from but on this forum the majority don't get much higher than 3.2Ghz, and 4Ghz on a Q6600? Very few manage that.

No offense, but judging from your post, you simply don't know the Q6600 well enough to give advise or criticise on its performance or capability. Q6600 is indeed on 65nm, and the E8600 is indeed on 45nm. But to say the E8600 is faster than the Q6600 on the same clock speed base purely on the point that it is on a smaller nm is over simplifing it. Q6600 might be on the less power efficient 65nm process, but it has 8MB L2 Cache whereas the E8600 only has 6MB L2 Cache.

As for overclocking, it is VERY dependent on the motherboard, particularly the chipset. Most decent motherboard that has a P35 or P45 chipset will have no problem clocking the Q6600 to 3.6GHz, and also doing good overclock for dual-core like the E8600 CPU. However if it was motherboard with other chipset, such as X48, in this situation the max achievable overclock for the Q6600 would probably drop to around 3.4GHz. However it doesn't not affect Core2Quad CPUs alone...overclock for dual-core CPU such as the E8600 will also suffer...instead of hitting 4.25~4.5GHz, they would only be hitting around 3.8-4.0GHz max as well.

andy_mk3 · 18 Oct 2011 at 13:20

I used to have an E8400, the Q6600 at a lower clock still way out-performs it gaming.

Deception · 18 Oct 2011 at 13:45

Best bet would to hit up a wanted thread in MM, put price range and see what people offer you. You might be able to get a decent quad and Gfx card to keep your brother going in BF3

linktoinsanity · 20 Oct 2011 at 19:22

Marine-RX179 said:
No offense, but judging from your post, you simply don't know the Q6600 well enough to give advise or criticise on its performance or capability. Q6600 is indeed on 65nm, and the E8600 is indeed on 45nm. But to say the E8600 is faster than the Q6600 on the same clock speed base purely on the point that it is on a smaller nm is over simplifing it. Q6600 might be on the less power efficient 65nm process, but it has 8MB L2 Cache whereas the E8600 only has 6MB L2 Cache.

As for overclocking, it is VERY dependent on the motherboard, particularly the chipset. Most decent motherboard that has a P35 or P45 chipset will have no problem clocking the Q6600 to 3.6GHz, and also doing good overclock for dual-core like the E8600 CPU. However if it was motherboard with other chipset, such as X48, in this situation the max achievable overclock for the Q6600 would probably drop to around 3.4GHz. However it doesn't not affect Core2Quad CPUs alone...overclock for dual-core CPU such as the E8600 will also suffer...instead of hitting 4.25~4.5GHz, they would only be hitting around 3.8-4.0GHz max as well.

You are of course with that post making the assumption that I am recommending the E8600 over a Q6600, I am not really doing that. If I were the E8600 will probably still outperform the Q6600 at most tasks that don't utlilize all four cores and even those that do probably won't make enough difference to warrent the upgrade. I am talking about going to a Q9xxx cpu, rather than bothering with the Q6600 which is more of a sidegrade. I went from an E8400 to a Q9650 and it didn't make a huge difference in much at all. This was a couple of years ago I admit, before that many games that utilized Quads came out, but there still aren't a huge amount of games that will make use out of the Q6600s extra cores over the drop in performance from the programs which don't use all four cores.

I am not recommending the OP doesn't go to a Quad alltogether, just don't bother going to even older tech with the Q6600.

Still, if you want to heat up the arguement to defend your precious Q6600 I don't really care. I am trying to give another side of the coin for the original poster. After all it's his choice at the end of the day, I just feel on going to the Q6600 he will regret it.

P.s. I may not know from first hand the Q6600, but I have owned a similar CPU to the OP and a better one that the Q6600 (Q9650) and I am basing my judgement from that so I'd appreciate it if you didn't call me clueless just because I don't see the Q6600 in the same rose tinted fashion that you do.

holymonk · 20 Oct 2011 at 21:46

For what its worth I had on Wednesday an E8400 overclocked to 3.7Ghz, in this day and age the Quads are far superior, moving to a sandybridge even at 3.2 destroyed it.

Marine-RX179 · 20 Oct 2011 at 22:43

LinktoInsanity said:
You are of course with that post making the assumption that I am recommending the E8600 over a Q6600, I am not really doing that. If I were the E8600 will probably still outperform the Q6600 at most tasks that don't utlilize all four cores and even those that do probably won't make enough difference to warrent the upgrade. I am talking about going to a Q9xxx cpu, rather than bothering with the Q6600 which is more of a sidegrade. I went from an E8400 to a Q9650 and it didn't make a huge difference in much at all. This was a couple of years ago I admit, before that many games that utilized Quads came out, but there still aren't a huge amount of games that will make use out of the Q6600s extra cores over the drop in performance from the programs which don't use all four cores.

I am not recommending the OP doesn't go to a Quad alltogether, just don't bother going to even older tech with the Q6600.

Still, if you want to heat up the arguement to defend your precious Q6600 I don't really care. I am trying to give another side of the coin for the original poster. After all it's his choice at the end of the day, I just feel on going to the Q6600 he will regret it.

P.s. I may not know from first hand the Q6600, but I have owned a similar CPU to the OP and a better one that the Q6600 (Q9650) and I am basing my judgement from that so I'd appreciate it if you didn't call me clueless just because I don't see the Q6600 in the same rose tinted fashion that you do.

You are clearly missing the point- which is the cost. 2nd Q6600 only cost £50, and it would only cost the OP may be £10-£15 to upgrade to it after selling his E8600. You assuming all of us that recommended Q6600 are idiots that didn't know Q9550/Q9650 are faster CPU to upgrade to? Did you stop for a second to think why people are not recommending it?

2nd hand Q9550 still goes for something like £115~£130, and 2nd hand Q9650 still goes for around £130~£150. If people have to pay that kind of money for 2nd hand CPU, they'd be better of just stretch the budget a bit and get a NEW i3 2100 (which will be faster than than Q9550/Q9650 with held-back overclock on the X38 chipset board on games), P67/Z68 motherboard and 4GB DDR3 ram for a total £200 all with warranty, plus open the upgrade path for possible future upgrade.

You think I am defending Q6600 just because I am using one? I talk about how the i3 2100 is superior to the Core2Quad and Phenom II X4 on gaming all the time HAH!

And no the E8600 's Wolfdale 45nm process is superior to Q6600's 65nm process in the way that it is at a lower process with lower power consumption and able to overclock a couple hundred MHz further, but architecture itself is no faster in anyway, and on the same clock speed it is no faster than 2 cores on the Q6600. The extra 600-900MHz overclock on the dual-core CPU is insignificant comparing to the benefits of what two extra cores at 3.2-3.6GHz has to offer.

And you are mad about people implying that you are..."clueless" as you put it on the subject being discussed...but is there anyone to blame for this but yourself, when you are arguing with drunkenmaster, who have provided accurate and detailed information regarding the overclock of the Q6600 using your limited knowledge about the chip in question?

setter · 20 Oct 2011 at 22:58

Marine-RX179 said:
2nd hand Q9550 still goes for something like £115~£130, and 2nd hand Q9650 still goes for around £130~£150.

Crikey, thats an awful amount of money on an s775 cpu, i7 920/30's can be picked up for £90-110.00 now.

Gregster · 21 Oct 2011 at 06:18

I have my q8400 45nm clocked at 3.2 and is very stable at that....loads more room for improvement but I am happy with it.
You say you will be playing BF3 and deffo that is a game that "wants" a quad core. Not to many games utilise all 4 cores but this is one game that does. Whatever you go for I hope it clocks nicely for ya and best of luck

bhavv · 21 Oct 2011 at 07:19

IMO it would be better to sell your current mobo + CPU, and buy a spanking new I5 2500k and Z68 mobo.

holymonk · 21 Oct 2011 at 11:49

lol love the sig bhavv

linktoinsanity · 21 Oct 2011 at 12:07

Marine-RX179 said:
And you are mad about people implying that you are..."clueless" as you put it on the subject being discussed...but is there anyone to blame for this but yourself, when you are arguing with drunkenmaster, who have provided accurate and detailed information regarding the overclock of the Q6600 using your limited knowledge about the chip in question?

Arguing with drunkenmaster, oh dear, must not ever be done. What he said was not even that accurate. To prove accuracy you post sources, not just write detail.

I'm not even going to discuss this further with you, you have made your point already and I have made mine, trying to dish my opinion because it is different to yours is pathetic to be honest. I looked into both the Conroe and the Wolfdale when I bought mine and there were other improvements between them. Same applies between the Kentsfield and the Yorkfield cores as basicly the cores are the same (in the 45nm versions), just more of them in the Quad versions, with more cache.

And the 45nm IS faster clock for clock than the 65nm. If you think I have some sort of vendetta against the Q6600 you are not correct (In another thread I have actually suggested sticking with one over a Phenom II upgrade). I just don't think going "backwards" is worth it for the small increase in a few applications in performance, considering generally it will be slower than a faster, newer dual.

I'm with bhav etc when they say they'd just swap out the whole lot rather than bother going to a Q6600 (for reasons I have posted up to three times for your benefit now) or the Q9450+ (cost).

It's the effort combined with the cost that means it's really not worth it. That £50 may as well be spent on a faster graphics card. I won't be changing my brother's E8400 for a Q6600 that's for sure, if I can find a cheap one I may stick it in my dad's E2200 based PC but that's a different kettle of fish.

ToejaM · 23 Oct 2011 at 11:36

Great advice from what I picked out here people, apologies for cutting and running with the thread post. Actually forgot I'd made it.

Managed to get a 4890 gfx card to upgrade his 8800GTX so that should be a solid improvement. If I remember rightly he's running the chip at stock due to some stability issues we thought were related to the graphics card.. since doing a full windows update it seems to have fixed the problem. I swear the boy never listens when I give him advice the first three times round. Convieniantly informs me of no crashes after I buy him the upgrade! He doesnt know there is a 4890 in the post to him though.. so that'll be a nice suprise

Anyway he's getting about 60-80fps in L4D2 I dont know how he copes, I'd shoot myself. Gunna talk him through getting the same 4.3ghz overclock I managed as he's got my old stuff with the only difference being the psu and case. Though his psu is a 1kw psu and mine is a 850 I think.

Will be good to see if he gets any boost in L4D2 but I suspect the gfx is the bottleneck these days.

Think what I'm going to do is get his cpu overclocked and see what the framerates are like with the new card and better clock speed.

Looks like getting a suitable quad core to replace his e8600 is going to have to be an i5 build so he'll have to wait. I dont think its worth fannying around selling the e8600 and replacing it with a cpu that doesnt give huge improvements for the time put into it.

I'm hoping he'll at least manage a good fps amount on medium in bf3 (dx10.1 as the new card isnt dx11) but we'll see.. may have to send him another 4890 or something when I manage to sell myself for more money