New CPU - E8600 or Q9550

[Craig321]

I'm looking to upgrade my E6600 soon.

Putting overclocking aside which would be more worth it?

E8600
Q9550

My current set-up is in my sig if that helps - I'll also be buying 8GB RAM with the CPU.

I muti task a lot, encode the odd video (Premiere, Movie Maker, VirtualDub), quite a lot of VMWare (that's mostly RAM intensive, but a quad would surely help).

Basically just wondering if I should be getting the faster dual core, or the slower quad core for what I do.

I also play a few games (should get ArmA tomorrow, but I'm not letting one game on it's own influence my decision).

I'm leaning more towards quad at the moment for future games, and the multi tasking. I do like the extra power on the E8600 though - what kind of difference would be seen between the two on single-core tasks?

Craig.

 

[goujon945]

Quad for sure. On offer this week too

 

[Craig321]

I'm tempted to spend a bit more and go for the Q9650 - surely the 9650 would come pretty damn close to the E8600 even for single/dual core tasks?

 

[Garner]

Quad core for definate

The Q9550 is: £169.98 this week
The E8600 is £194.99

The quad is very fast, 12mb cache and can be overclocked a lot with a decent cooler (as quad stock coolers are really bad). I would definately go with the Q9550 as its future proofed for a while, very cheap, fast and you will regret it 100% if you buy the E8600

 

[Mr-White]

Get the quad, i'm getting one to replace my e6600

MW

 

[gurusan]

q9550

 

[HazardO]

Quad for sure, It will be much better for VMware, you could provide dedicated CPUs for the VMs (Check that the CPU has hardware virtualisation support, not all of the intel CPUs do). Also gameing is starting to benefit from quad cores these days.

 

[linktoinsanity]

Q9550. More of an upgrade over your E6600. Also, the Q9650 is a good cpu, but remember that you can overclock the Q9550 to some good speeds and it's quite a bit cheaper.

 

[Craig321]

Thanks for all the replies everyone. Think I'll be going for the quad

 

[JonJ678]

Quad for sure (Check that the CPU has hardware virtualisation support, not all of the intel CPUs do).

This one does support virtualisation. Q9550 for the win, love mine to bits

even if I am half an hour late

 

[gurusan]

All E8xxx and all Q9xxx chips support virtualisation with the exception of the very rare E8190

 

[mysticsniper]

Thanks for all the replies everyone. Think I'll be going for the quad

You won't regret it mate. After a few weeks, you'll noticed its a no brainer

 

[Craig321]

Q9550. More of an upgrade over your E6600. Also, the Q9650 is a good cpu, but remember that you can overclock the Q9550 to some good speeds and it's quite a bit cheaper.

If I was to get the Q9550 to 3.33GHz (same as the E8600) am I right in saying it'd match the E8600's performance in single/dual core tasks?

 

[Big.Wayne]

The Q9550 would actually be slightly faster due to overclocked FSB!

 

[Craig321]

Nice - won't be difficult at all to get 500MHz out of the quad to get it up to E8600 speeds will it?

Heats shouldn't be an issue as I'll have a Scythe Ninja on it and I doubt the voltages will need to be changed to add 500MHz?

 

[Ross1234]

Nice - won't be difficult at all to get 500MHz out of the quad to get it up to E8600 speeds will it?

Heats shouldn't be an issue as I'll have a Scythe Ninja on it and I doubt the voltages will need to be changed to add 500MHz?

No

 

[Big.Wayne]

I'd say you have a rather challenging task ahead of you trying to get a quad running 24/7 stable at 500MHz-FSB

 

[Ross1234]

He means adding 500mhz to the overall clock speed I think.

 

[Big.Wayne]

Heh you maybe right!

 

[Craig321]

I'd say you have a rather challenging task ahead of you trying to get a quad running 24/7 stable at 500MHz-FSB

Yep, I'm aiming for a 500MHz FSB, that's exactly what I said

Would be rather impressive running at 4.25GHz though.

Now to find a decent 2x2GB (x2) or 4x2GB kit of RAM