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Quad or Dual?

aries2580

aries2580

aries2580

Associate
Joined
1 Apr 2009
Posts
413
Hey all,

So im selling my Q6600 and a few other components not being used and I was wondering which of these two processors is the better choice for me.

Quad Or Dual? (clicky)

Uses:
Games (crysis, farcry2, ut3, CSS, and dow to name a few)
Word processing
Visual Studio 2008
Video encoding is important, as i have a lot of mvk movies and anime that I would like to watch on my ps3 or on the pc itself.
But if WMP can play mkv's then the importance of the encoding drops.

(another story all together - mkv's with subs on the ps3 is this possible?)

In my eyes
Quad: Pro
Best for encoding
Applications will start to take advantage of the quads soon... (future-proofing)

Dual: Pro
Best for games when clocked highly (so I have heard)
clocks higher
Takes advantage of my blackops x48 better than a quad (again from what I have read on xtreme systems quads clock better on P45 and duals clock quite well on x48)
Runs cooler

My system
GTX285 OC2
X48 Blackops
4GB OCZ DDR3 1600MHz (rated speed) Some specs here

Thanks in advance for any replies :)
 
Last edited:
You can overclock dual cores to silly speeds and although quads may not reach the same levels, they can be clocked high enough to make a performance difference to play all the latest games plus you have the best of both worlds should you need it. i say quad.
 
Admiral Huddy said:
You can overclock dual cores to silly speeds and although quads may not reach the same levels, they can be clocked high enough to make a performance difference to play all the latest games plus you have the best of both worlds should you need it. i say quad.
Click to expand...

Hey Admiral Huddy (cool site btw I have visited it a few times :))

I think with the quad processor I wouldn't settle for less than 4GHz.
Ambition! :P
 
Thanks :)

I still think that although QC isn't mainstream, I think it will come into it's own over the next few years. I guess this depends on your own upgrade road path. If you upgrade regularly then it won't be a problem going for a DC now an upgrade when the time comes..
 
Do you mean decoding? If you're just watching .mkvs then that is decoding, not encoding. If you mean converting from .mkv to something else, then that is encoding, but I don't know why you'd want to do that. To watch .mkvs I just use media player classic with a couple of codecs installed.
 
If you have the budget I wouldn't even consider dual.
Especially with games like sup-com2 coming up. seeing as the i7 can be clocked to 4GHX+ usually without any problems.

and you do video encoding. That is enough of a reason on it's own to go quad.
 
Quad - almost all new games can run more than two threads and the speed deficit is usually made up for by having more cores. That's just in gaming too; when you need more cores for other apps, they'll be there, and Windows should be more responsive.
 
Ben M said:
Do you mean decoding? If you're just watching .mkvs then that is decoding, not encoding. If you mean converting from .mkv to something else, then that is encoding, but I don't know why you'd want to do that. To watch .mkvs I just use media player classic with a couple of codecs installed.
Click to expand...

I need to encode them to watch on my PS3 :D
ATM this computer is too noisy to watch films (its actually really quiet yet there is still a hum and the PS3 is barely audible so I would prefer to watch everything on that.

Anyway, :eek: didn't know there were so may replies lol. (busy with sandbox 2)

So looks like a quad is in order.
Although one question. OCUK say the multiplier is x10 yet on intel it says x9:confused:

x10 would be ideal as im sure you all know - 400fsb 4GHz and my ram running at its rated speed.
 
Quad. In the next 18 months, software will really begin to take advantage of those extra cores, and it is likely you'll have a smoother experience if you are multitasking. For example, I have dual screens on my setup, and while i'm gaming i sometimes have iTunes running, a film running or web browser open so that when i'm playing FPS rounds where you spawns are limited, i have something to do in the mean time, and the quad makes that possible :)

go for it, they are awesome and you wont regret it.
 
timefalls said:
Quad. In the next 18 months, software will really begin to take advantage of those extra cores, and it is likely you'll have a smoother experience if you are multitasking. For example, I have dual screens on my setup, and while i'm gaming i sometimes have iTunes running, a film running or web browser open so that when i'm playing FPS rounds where you spawns are limited, i have something to do in the mean time, and the quad makes that possible :)

go for it, they are awesome and you wont regret it.
Click to expand...

haha that sounds kewl! :D

Might swap out my OCZ Vendetta 2 for something else, a bit meatier.
I have the retention bracket from it. So I can reuse that thankfully.
 
Q9650 is 9x multi

Quads do clock better on P45 over X48 by the way, but 450 fsb should be no problem at all on your board and Q9650
 
If money no object q9650 for the 9x multi, or if on a budget q9550 is good, i done this swap a while ago, had a 3.8ghz capable q6600, changed to a q9550 to try one out, currently testing at 3.8ghz, runs a heck of a lot cooler than the q6600 did.
 
Same question I was putting to myself aries2580, was so tempted to go back to a dual but my head is telling me to buy the quad which I will at the end of the month. Just hope I don't get a poor overclocker this time. Needs to hit 3.6, any less won't do.
 
Either q9650/9550 will hit 3.6 with ease, probably on stock volts or a tiny increase in the case of the q9550.
 
aries2580 said:
It should be ok like you said, but its seriously gonna **** up my ram speed. I don't think 1800 CL9 is happy land :(
Click to expand...

It's the fsb that is quad pumped (450 x 4 = 1800) not the RAM. An fsb of 450Mhz with a default 1:1 divider results in an actual ram speed of 450Mhz (900mhz effective due to double data rate).

Your OCZ ram is rated to run at 1600Mhz effective double data rate @ CL7, which means its actual ram speed is 800Mhz. The 1800mhz CL9 you refer to is an actual speed of 900mhz.

The Q6600 you have now has an fsb of 266mhz. If you haven't overclocked your current Q6600 and you are using a 1:1 divider with your OCZ ram then you would currently be running the ram at an actual speed of 266mhz. As such, using the same divider and pushing the fsb to 450mhz also results in 450mhz actual ram speed, still well below 800Mhz CL7 and 900mhz CL9.

Even if you was to use the next available higher divider of 4:5 your ram would still only be running at an actual speed of 563mhz. Here's a list of dividers used with 450mhz fsb; and the resulting actual ram speed and effective in brackets:

FSB of 450Mhz and different dividers
1:1 = 450mhz (900mhz)
4:5 = 563mhz (1126mhz)
2:3 = 675mhz (1350mhz)
3:5 = 750mhz (1500mhz)
1:2 = 900mhz (1800mhz)

As you can see, you're not going to hit 900mhz unless you use the high 1:2 divider with 450mhz fsb.

Most bioses won't use 1:1, 4:5 labels for dividers and will instead use multipliers (2x, 2.4x etc) or they will just show the resulting actual or effective ram speed as you cycle through the options.

If you want to quickly see what divider you are currently on then just download CPU-z, run it and goto the "Memory" tab.

Hope this helps clear things up a bit :)
 
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