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Q6600 vs i3/i5/i7

Gashman said:
as far as i have noticed, theres very little difference between the two, a 3Ghz Q6600 will be almost impossible to tell apart from a 3Ghz i5 for example. wouldn't bother upgrading from Q6600 for i3, i5 or i7.
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I've not got an i3/i5 etc but from what I can see heat output/power draw is lower on the newer CPUs, that along with performance increase in things like rendering etc might make it a worthwhile upgrade?
 
yeah the power draw is lower and as far as im aware they don't heat up as much, but depends if your really bothered by those two factors so much? if yes then sure, an upgrade could have its benefits but then so could an upgrade to a Phenom II X4 which as far as i can remember draw less power than their intel rivals while under load and stay nice and cool also, just personal taste im guessing :)

think the OP was referring to gaming performace as well
 
I still have a 3 year old chip (sig).
Id have to upgrade to i7 to be worthwhile which could cost £600 for cpu, ram, mobo.
As I mostly need performance for games Id be better off getting a 775 socket SLI mobo & another graphics card I think. Although cant see the point in getting another mobo.
Although my Gigabyte P35 DQ6 does have 2x burnt out PCI slots & once had an 8800gtx that set on fire. Mobo still kicking though :D
 
Sadly there isnt the jump that make's replacing my q6600 worth while

clockspeed is still king not mutli cores we have been stuck at 3.4ghz ish for the last 6ish years
 
As much as I have been defending the i series I still too have my Q6600 :D that along with my 4870 and IP35 Pro have lasted me a good while!
 
The Q6600 is going to go down as a CPU that just will not die. It is coming up on 4 years old and I don't see any compelling reason for me to upgrade from it.

Might be different if you do rendering etc.
 
I don't think this has been mentioned yet:

The OP seems to assume that i3/i5/i7 are all quad cores. This is not the case.

The i3 and 600 series i5 do appear to have 4 cores, but in reality they are dual cores with 2 virtual cores produced by hyperthreading. A true quad core using similar architecture and the same clockspeed (ie i5 750) is is a good deal faster in almost all tasks.

The true quads in the desktop i3/i5/i7 range are the i5 750 and 760 and all of the i7 range.

It should also be noted that the architecture on the dual i3 and i5 dual cores is not the same as the true quad i5 and i7s. The cheaper chips are built using a Clarkdale core which is not as fast clock-for-clock as an i5/i7 quad (which use Bloomfield or Lynnfield cores), even in single threaded applications. The cheaper chips also come with a lower thermal design power and an graphics chip on-die.

As for the Q6600 - great chip. If you plan on running a single GPU system then you really don't need to upgrade yet - just overclock it as far as it will go (aim for 3.6GHz with a G0 version).
 
I'm not one for benchmarks and fancy graphs, mostly because the more I look at them the more confused get! And also the benchmarks seem to set the goalposts at different levels dependent on type of task etc.

All I would like to add is that in the "real world", when I run my Q6700 alongside my i7 at the same time I can "see" no real difference. That's not gaming wise, of course because of the different GPU's, but in all other everyday tasks they seem, to me, very much the same. Although the initial outlay in pounds sterling is miles apart. :)
 
coughs said:
Thanks for the explanation.

Why wont the Q6600 handle SLI or XFIRE?
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Sorry, was just using it as a rule of thumb. In fact and overclocked Q6600 works well with many crossfire configurations, the CPU will only limit very high-end crossfire arrangements.

As for SLI, the s775 boards that support SLI don't tend to overclock the Q6600 as well as Intel boards. So I would suggest that if you are dead-set on SLI then the Q6600 (or the s775 platform in general) is not the best match.
 
Essexraptor said:
I'm not one for benchmarks and fancy graphs, mostly because the more I look at them the more confused get! And also the benchmarks seem to set the goalposts at different levels dependent on type of task etc.

All I would like to add is that in the "real world", when I run my Q6700 alongside my i7 at the same time I can "see" no real difference. That's not gaming wise, of course because of the different GPU's, but in all other everyday tasks they seem, to me, very much the same. Although the initial outlay in pounds sterling is miles apart. :)
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its very task specific really.

the general use pc doesn't require much in the way of processing power, and will never use the slower cpus to thier max, so u wont really see any difference between the 2.

gaming is also simlar, there is only so much a cpu can do to improve the game. So if a game cant max out a slower CPU, then a faster one isn't going to make a difference.

its the reason a lot of ppl wont spec an i7 for gaming, because its simply not needed, they dont get used to thier fullest in most games, and a cheaper cpu will get the same performance but save you money.

if however you do some very cpu intesive tasks, like video encoding, then u start to see the difference, and the i7 can be quite far ahead then
 
Cycrow said:
its very task specific really.

the general use pc doesn't require much in the way of processing power, and will never use the slower cpus to thier max, so u wont really see any difference between the 2.

gaming is also simlar, there is only so much a cpu can do to improve the game. So if a game cant max out a slower CPU, then a faster one isn't going to make a difference.

its the reason a lot of ppl wont spec an i7 for gaming, because its simply not needed, they dont get used to thier fullest in most games, and a cheaper cpu will get the same performance but save you money.

if however you do some very cpu intesive tasks, like video encoding, then u start to see the difference, and the i7 can be quite far ahead then
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Very much the point I was trying to make, although very badly :)
 
i went from a Q6600 to an i7, i noticed hardly any improvement in games.

i did notice a massive improvement in converting HD films to dvd/ipod etc.
 
clv101 said:
Until what? Playing the latest games or running windows/office stuff? Maybe 3 years and 8 years respectively at a guess.
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OOOH great news then, probably the wrong section but would i need to push the clocks any further to make the most of xfire 5850's?
 
I can answer why them bechys are looking dodgy, cus that benchmark is crap and don't use it to compare systems.
 
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