Really Struggling Not To Buy a Q6600 - been asked b4 i no, but help :(

[Combat squirrel]

As title, iv been running a core 2 E4300 at ~3.1ghz for a few months, with the intention of getting a quad core, be it a 65nm one or the new 45nm ones, I mainly game on my main pc, as well as a reasonable amount of photoshop+light room, also my pc is a file server for 3 other PC's constantly accessing it.

Now these threads have been written many a time, but I really cannot decide, additonally im at my parents house visiting, 10 mins drive from OCUK, so I could just pop down the road and buy one easy!

I run a gigabyte DQ6 p35 chipset, which is ok at reasonble FSB speeds but not silly high, over 400ish seems not so good

With that in mind the high multi of the 95w q6600 is tempting, where as I have no ideas of pricing of 45nm cores, iv googled and converted the price which is a little higher than the q6600 now, but with usual tax im gussing the 2.66ghz part will be way over £250/270 on realease - is this a good guess? id not be surprised if its ~ £300 on realease.

As its a gaming PC, photoshop and file server I think 4 cores would be nice, what to do? iv been pondering this for 2 days, penryn for double-ish the price or £156 now for something ~ 5-7% slower per clock, but with potentail to clock a lot higher in raw mhz terms due to my fsb issues, HELP! im truely 50/50 either way, the draw to either is 0% but I know I want one of them

EDIT: I suppose the main issue is pricing of penryn, id certanly buy a q6600 over a penryn if penryn costs 2x more than what q6600 is now, so whats most likely guess on the 2.66ghz-ish part ? + any help ASAP ! would be awesome, id like to get to ocuk before 3pm if poss

 

[Yiuca]

In my personal experience so far converting the price doesn't seem to work too well since in my opinion this country rips us off on tech prices, however I'm not 100% sure of the details but it is looking as though Penryn maybe held back a little longer, Maybe. I myself am likely going for a Q6600 G0, To which the Q6600 can overclock seemingly pretty well, I know the Penryn will run less power, hence less temp thus more overclocking potential, but in someways it still has to be confirmed to how much potential is actually there... (Unless I've missed an article here n there) personally I've decided to not wait for Penryn & go for the Q6600 sooner than to wait specifically for Penryn... though that is just a personal choice. I guess overall if you feel like you'd be fine with OC a Q6600 to 3-3.6Ghz (or more depending on cooling solution & pure out luck, you know how hardware seems to have different stable thresholds even within the same chips) then go for the Q6600, it still remains to be seen how far Penryn can get with overclocking as far as I know.

 

[Combat squirrel]

interesting, cheers for that, any other input? if gibbo reads this a ballpark figure of penryn ?

 

[555BUK]

Quad cores are good for benching but little use for anything else (currently). Most apps and games show very little increase when going from a dual to quad core setup.

Ask yourself this - how often do I actually need more power? Most games and Photoshop work fine on much lower clocked systems than yours. You know you're just wasting your money.

 

[C64]

Agreed you can only lose if you go quad now by the time it's actually worth having one for a killer game there will be better quads around and your 6600 will be worth £50.Unless you sell before it's inevitable price plummet happens.

 

[lsg1r]

Personally I would at the very least wait till penryn, my reasoning is simple, new chip should push the price of the old chips so you could get something cheaper or a better cpu for the same cost, if you're questioning it this much then really you can wait a little while longer.