Q6600 or E6700

bobby_valentino · 21 Jun 2007 at 19:27

Hi, im due an upgrade, and was looking at the benchmark performances between these two CPU's. I really need your lotz help, as im torn apart and cant decide which one to go for. Iv summed up that quad core will be good, but there arnt many apps to take advantage, and dual core is good, but could get outdated really quickly once the 22nd comes for the price cuts grr. All replies and suggestions welcome!!

robj20 · 21 Jun 2007 at 19:36

If you can afford a quad get one, iv got the Q6600 already gone past the speed of a QX6700 only thing different is the 6700 has unlocked multipliers.

truebluecfc · 21 Jun 2007 at 19:40

E6600 tbh, especially if your Gaming a Quad Core is a wate of money, unless you actually need the power of a Quad Core then dont get it as its a waste of money and the E6600 is still an extremely quick CPU and worth the money. With the £££'s you've saved you can get a "true" Quad Core then they come out sometime this year i think.

bobby_valentino · 21 Jun 2007 at 19:52

Ah few questions, what are multipliers? (allow you to up the cpu speed or something?... im a bit of a n00b at this)

Also what do you mean by 'true' quad core?

d34d_m34t · 21 Jun 2007 at 20:13

the multiplier is partly what determines the speed of the cpu. for instance, e6600 has an effective fsb of 1066 which is actually 266 x 4. the multiplier is 9, so 266 x 9 = 2.4ghz, the overall speed of the cpu. some 'extreme' edition cpus allow you to increase the multiplier over the stock setting, so increasing the speed of the cpu without having to alter the fsb.

as for the 'true quad core' comment, essentially the current intel quads are actually 2 dual cores stuck together, so it's basically 2 x 2 cores, with each set of 2 communicating over the fsb. In theory having all 4 cores on one piece of silicon would increase speeds, however in practice it's mostly just AMD propogandists trying to find any way they can to trump intel, since AMD's first quad core offering will be launcing later this year, and will have all 4 cores on one die.

Anyway, I would definitely go with a quad core, it will be a better long term solution if you want to avoid upgrading again for a while, and the prices are coming to down to almost silly levels now, after july 22nd a Q6600 could be about half as much as an E6700 was 4 months ago :eek:

bobby_valentino · 21 Jun 2007 at 22:04

great, thanks for that, really helped!

Sparky · 21 Jun 2007 at 22:10

d34d_m34t said:
the multiplier is partly what determines the speed of the cpu. for instance, e6600 has an effective fsb of 1066 which is actually 266 x 4. the multiplier is 9, so 266 x 9 = 2.4ghz, the overall speed of the cpu. some 'extreme' edition cpus allow you to increase the multiplier over the stock setting, so increasing the speed of the cpu without having to alter the fsb.

as for the 'true quad core' comment, essentially the current intel quads are actually 2 dual cores stuck together, so it's basically 2 x 2 cores, with each set of 2 communicating over the fsb. In theory having all 4 cores on one piece of silicon would increase speeds, however in practice it's mostly just AMD propogandists trying to find any way they can to trump intel, since AMD's first quad core offering will be launcing later this year, and will have all 4 cores on one die.

Anyway, I would definitely go with a quad core, it will be a better long term solution if you want to avoid upgrading again for a while, and the prices are coming to down to almost silly levels now, after july 22nd a Q6600 could be about half as much as an E6700 was 4 months ago

Im sorry but unless most people start to suddenly feel the need to encode,rip,play a game and run Windows 99% of people would never see the use of 4 cores.So where you get this future proof comment from leaves me a bit puzzled.

d34d_m34t · 21 Jun 2007 at 22:15

CS||nuTs said:
Im sorry but unless most people start to suddenly feel the need to encode,rip,play a game and run Windows 99% of people would never see the use of 4 cores.So where you get this future proof comment from leaves me a bit puzzled.

That's exactly the same thing people said about dual cores when they first came out, that for just general use/gaming they were overkill. But now look at game boxes, eg the new DiRT game, it says 'recommended system spec intel core 2 Duo'. the exact same thing will happen with quad cores in the future. If you think it wont then you're just kidding yourself.

Sparky · 21 Jun 2007 at 22:16

And how many games currently require dual core?How long has dual core been available? Who is trying to kid themselves?

d34d_m34t · 21 Jun 2007 at 22:29

okay - core 2 duo came out middle of 2006, and now we have games that say 'system recommendations - core 2 duo'. The difference for that particular tech to be useful in games was 1 year.

i agree that quad core for gaming is not needed right NOW, but that's why i said futureproofing. and one game (being released in the future~!) that will make use of quad core is Alan Wake. Maybe just call it a hunch but i don't think it is destined to be the only one.

edit: Infact I know it's not the only one because Supreme Commander, available in shops this very moment, will happily make use of as many cores as you can throw at it. Infact when you get into big battles with 100's of units on the map it runs like a little bitch, even with a core 2 duo, so i would say in that scenario quad would be highly recommended!

Sparky · 21 Jun 2007 at 22:57

You think core2duo was the 1st dual core chip? lmao

d34d_m34t · 22 Jun 2007 at 00:00

No?

the first dual core I owned was a pentium D...However I was using the core 2 duo example just to show that it took 1 year between the release of a certain technology and the release of software which recommends using that technology to run optimally. Sorry, i will write in small words and with big coloured crayons next time.

Sparky · 22 Jun 2007 at 00:16

So these games you mention only run on Intel? It doesn't say on the game "Dual Core CPU"?

By the way your tone is changing..i like it

ergonomics · 22 Jun 2007 at 00:19

supcom uses all 4 cores....

d34d_m34t · 22 Jun 2007 at 00:26

CS||nuTs said:
So these games you mention only run on Intel? It doesn't say on the game "Dual Core CPU"?

By the way your tone is changing..i like it

nope it doesn't say dual core, in the system recommendations it says "core 2 duo @ 2.66ghz or Athlon X2 3800", which i believe are both more powerful processors than a pentium d.

By my tone i hope you mean my unwaveringly congenial and cooperative attitude

Sparky · 22 Jun 2007 at 00:30

So it no longer says Core2Duo only? It now says Athlon X2 3800 as well.

I just wanted that clearing up.

truebluecfc · 22 Jun 2007 at 00:37

ergonomics said:
supcom uses all 4 cores....

And you need a Quad Core to run that do you?

Thats not what were saying, i was suggesting that you dont need the power of a Quad Core to run any game out at the moment and probably for a long time, and also it doesnt quite use all the 4 cores like your suggesting.

ergonomics · 22 Jun 2007 at 00:39

alright calm down. i did not say AT ALL that you NEEDED a Quad. but it USES ALL THE CORES. as i stated?

what i was implying is that relatively fast games are already supporting all 4 cores.

d34d_m34t · 22 Jun 2007 at 00:42

you get a BENEFIT from having 4 cores - that is the point. it makes the game experience a lot smoother. But you could probably still run SupCom on an old Pentium 3...i wouldn't want to be the poor sod who tries it though.

truebluecfc · 22 Jun 2007 at 00:47

ergonomics said:
alright calm down.

?