Swap X6800 for QX6700 ?

[Flanno]

One of my mates is keen to swap his QX6700 for my X6800. Apparently on air the most he can get out of the quad core is around 3.3ghz (regardless of voltage) with a tuniq tower. And at that after priming for a while with Orthos his cores get into the low 80's according to Core Temp. Even idle they are in the high 40's to low 50's. Can confirm these temps as we installed the cpu on 2 other rigs. I know the tjunct is 100 so it's still within spec.

My own X6800 runs at 3.53ghz on stock volts and never goes over mid 50's to high 50's when priming. It can go higher. I have had it at almost 3.8ghz with higher voltages.

So should I swap ? They say you can always overclock a quad but can't add more cores to a duo. But I think I would not be running much faster then 3ghz with my mates quad to keep temps decent. Is it worth the extra cores to loose the 500 mhz speed increase ?

 

[Flanno]

Thanks for your input. I am thinking along the same lines.

However are Valve going to make use of multi core tech next year. Then there is Unreal Tournament 2007 and Alan Wake and probably some other games out there which will benefit from Quad. So I am thinking if I make the swap now, it will be cheaper then selling my X6800 at a loss and buying a quad in 6 months time or whenever these games surface.

 

[Flanno]

Isn't Episode 2 out in Feb ? Will there be 45nm quads out by then ?
I suppose by the time multicore gaming is the norm, there probably will be.


XtAsY - what are your temps like. Do you overclock your quad ?
From the reviews I have read the quad at stock is slower then the e6700 when gaming and this is down to multicore overhead in the os and also the fact most games are not multicore aware. Also again from reviews the X6800 when overclocked takes a nice lead over the quad in gaming. Whether that sort of speed is needed is another thing.

 

[Flanno]

Well I mainly use my pc for games, so a quad would be no benefit now to me now. But if games are going quad next year, then the question is when quad core games are coming out.

 

[Flanno]

Flanno mate, do you see games utilising dual core at all now? lol, so it kinda gives u a rough idea of when games r actually going to utilise quad cores.

COD2, Oblivion, and Quake4 are the only ones I can think of that use multithreading so I assume they use both cores. Since dual cores are becoming the norm now, won't developers start writing games that take advantage of this like on the Xbox 360. And since Intel are pushing multi core tech with Alan Wake wont developers start taking advantage of this in order to differentiate their games in the market ?

 

[Flanno]

Mothing wrong with my temps at all. Its about 40 in idle and 50 on load.

Look at it like this, you've seen the graphs showing how much faster the quad is than the X6800 when it comes to things like CPU rendering and multithreaded applications? Well, expect the same massive performance gains in multithreaded games. Half Life 2 - Episode 2 is due Q1 next year. UT2007 will also be out by summer next year, and maybe Alan Wake. You've got 2 extra cores so essentially you have twice the computing power. The X6800 is the better gaming CPU for the moment, but not for that much longer.

Yeah....I think I will go for the quad. Will be changing over in 2 weeks or so.

You are obviously on water or better to be getting 50 underload. As I do not think it is possible on air going by user reviews on various forums. Sure the thing idles on air in the 40's and that's with a Tuniq and an Akasa Eclipse with decent fans.

 

[Flanno]

Good advice. Yeah...he wants to do a straight swap and now I know why. There is a MAJOR fsb overclocking problem with quads using 680i mobos. Everyone on the EVGA site can only overclock their quads using the multiplier. Very few if any have gotten past 300mhz fsb !! Not good. Seeing as at the end of the month I am planning on getting a BFG 680i mobo and another BFG 680i, things do not bode well in the overclocking department for me if I was to get a quad.

Still, the quad will have a higher resale value in the future, and when games support it - it will be faster. I suppose I could live with just upping the multiplier.

http://www.evga.com/community/messageboard/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=21683

 

[Flanno]

cheers mate.

what are you temps at 3.2 when priming. My mates hits 80.

 

[Flanno]

On a Tuniq ????

What are you using to measure the temps ???
By under load are you talking about gaming or priming.
You must be in a very cold room.

The reason I ask is because my cpu is cooled the same as yours and at 3.6ghz idles at the moment at 31 degrees according to CoreTemp. I just ran Orthos and within 2-3 seconds it suddently jumps to 47 degrees. And going by past sessions after about 8 hours, the max recorded temp was in the high 50's. During gaming it obviously doesn't get anywhere near that hot.

Now this cpu uses a lot less power then my mates 3.3ghz quad. We have had this running in my rig as well to verify his temps. And under the same conditions, each core idles in the low to high 40's. And running Orthos (verison I have uses only 2 cores), the temps can be seen to hitting high 60's on the 2 cores not been used, and high 70's on the ones been used...almost approaching 80 on on of them. This ties in with reviews and other users I have spoken to.

So I cannot see how it is physically possible on air to see a max of 55 degrees when priming. Even Core2Duo's go higher then this for most people. And I have spoken to lots, including people on water and phase.

Extreme Systems : lots of people reporting high 60's when priming (watercooled) and up as high as 80. Using Tuniqs on full speed.
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?p=1901644

Same on the evga forums
http://www.evga.com/community/messageboard/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=22894&#145450


The only thing I can conclude is that a lot of this depends on what you use to measure your temps. A lot of mobo's are very inaccurate though from what I read about the 680i it exagerrates temps upwards. I would have assumed that TAT or CoreTemp on an Intel mobo (which is what I am using) was accurate enough though, but maybe I am wrong. I also know lapping helps (maybe 4-5 degrees), but 55 degrees under load seems extraordinarily low.

Can you elaborate please as this is very important since I might be getting a quad soon.

thanks

 

[Flanno]

Yeah..that's true I reckon...the video card always made the biggest difference to me. My mate is gone awol anyway, so it will be the new year before we swap cpu's. Might as well.