• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

What CPU should I get? Budget £170

Freeman

Freeman

Freeman

Soldato
Joined
24 Jul 2004
Posts
5,565
Currently I have had a look at the C2D E8400 for about £170 and quite like it.

I am going to be building this rig for gaming, photoshop, video and 3D work as well as browsing.

Should I be going for Quad core? And can you suggest anything better than what I currently have suggested for around the £170 mark?

Cheers.
 
Im guessing a lot of people will recommend the Q6600 OEM with a better cooler. Such as the Tuniq Tower 120 or the Thermalright Ultra Extreme and overclock it.
 
Q6600

PhillyDee said:
Im guessing a lot of people will recommend the Q6600 OEM with a better cooler. Such as the Tuniq Tower 120 or the Thermalright Ultra Extreme and overclock it.
Click to expand...

Q6600 G0 stepping , overclock to over 3.0 on most boards. IIRC the benefit to photoshop is substantial. Gaming etc, not so much.

Add a good cooler, Tuniq 120 or the Arctic Cooler freezer pro 7
 
Got my e8500 for £160 2nd hand. Most i've ever spent on a chip but more than worth it IMO.

Great chip which is presently sat @ 3.8ghz on 1.265v

I'd imagine the e8400's are also excellent so wouldn't hesitate to recommend them.

As a casual gamer these seem the perfect balance of speed, power usage and cost. I've had a quad in the past but found it a little too much than i actually needed.

I suppose if you fold or do heavy encoding/video editing then a quad (q6600 G0) would be the best option.

gt
 
I have an E8400 (with Tuniq Tower 120mm) @ 4.2GHz on a Gigabyte GA P35 DS3P, will run @ 4.5GHz, really pleased with this processor....very good value, however, if you are going to be using Photoshop, video work, I would go quad core (Q6600). :)
 
Ok fair enough so you lot are basically saying the E8400 is fine for games and so on and the Quad would probably be a little more suited for the video encoding and photoshop work. I take it that there's no huge difference between the two?

Just so you know I won't be overclocking at all.

I am however changing the heatsink from stock no matter what CPU I get. I know for a fact the Ninja scythe rev B is very good.
 
Freeman said:
Currently I have had a look at the C2D E8400 for about £170 and quite like it.

I am going to be building this rig for gaming, photoshop, video and 3D work as well as browsing.

Should I be going for Quad core? And can you suggest anything better than what I currently have suggested for around the £170 mark?

Cheers.
Click to expand...


Quad for those tasks.


End of.
 
So do you folks reckon the QX9775 will do the job? Shame my motherboard is socket 775 or else I would.....................:p.......................NOT, OMG £900+ for just the CPU!!

Anyways, back to reality, so do you think the Q9300 would be my best choice considering my budget?
 
If your not overclocking at all a dual core wolfdale would probably be your best bet. Look at the performance figures from bit tech, had you been overclocking the choice would have been more difficult, but at stock clocks, for a set cost the dually would offer the better performance.
 
hiroofheroes said:
If your not overclocking at all a dual core wolfdale would probably be your best bet. Look at the performance figures from bit tech, had you been overclocking the choice would have been more difficult, but at stock clocks, for a set cost the dually would offer the better performance.
Click to expand...

What about the benefits from Quad, as he has mentioned he'll be doing graphical work and some encoding
 
hiroofheroes said:
If your not overclocking at all a dual core wolfdale would probably be your best bet. Look at the performance figures from bit tech, had you been overclocking the choice would have been more difficult, but at stock clocks, for a set cost the dually would offer the better performance.
Click to expand...

How do you work that out?

He's doing video work.

the quad would be faster
 
Freeman said:
So do you folks reckon the QX9775 will do the job? Shame my motherboard is socket 775 or else I would.....................:p.......................NOT, OMG £900+ for just the CPU!!

Anyways, back to reality, so do you think the Q9300 would be my best choice considering my budget?
Click to expand...

Q9300 is a nice cpu.

will offer SS4 instructions for Adobe software making a decent choice.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom