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What processor for around £150?

furnace

furnace

furnace

Soldato
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What processor should I get for ~£150? I was looking at the Q6600 and the E8400 - the other processors don't seem to be worth the extra cash for what looks like little gain :confused:

Quad core would be nice - especially hearing about the Far Cry 2 gains with it - but I feel like the Q6600 would be a bad choice with people saying it's "getting on a bit" and for some reason people recommend the newer dual cores over this quad core.

Why are the newer 3Ghz dual cores more expensive than this 2.4Ghz quad-core?

I won't be overclocking. The system will be a 1066Mhz DDR2 with P45 chipset and GTX 260 graphics card. What processor would you get, bearing a £150 budget in mind?

Finally, is this a bad time to buy a CPU with nehelem around the corner? I could wait a couple of weeks if that's a sensible thing to do.
 
The nehelams are very expensive and require a big upgrade of hardware to run.

If i were you and didn't want to do any OC'ing then i'd go for a good quality dual core, if it has a higher clock speed than the quad core then it'll be faster as long as you're not doing a lot of stuff at once. I.E. Gaming :)
 
furnace said:
What processor should I get for ~£150?
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E8500 with E0 stepping if you intend to overclock.

furnace said:
Why are the newer 3Ghz dual cores more expensive than this 2.4Ghz quad-core?
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The Wolfdale based dual cores are faster at almost every task except video encoding. They run cooler, use less electricity and are updated technology. My Dual-Core E8500 feels faster than either my Q9450 or Q6600 did. Infact I upgraded from a quad OC'd @ 3.6GHz to a Dual @ 4.5GHz and have absolutely no regrets.
 
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555BUK said:
E8500 with E0 stepping if you intend to overclock.

The Wolfdale based dual cores are faster at almost every task except video encoding. They run cooler, use less electricity and are updated technology. My Dual-Core E8500 feels faster than either my Q9450 or Q6600 did. Infact I upgraded from a quad OC'd @ 3.6GHz to a Dual @ 4.5GHz and have absolutely no regrets.
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To be accurate there is around 200mhz difference clock for clock over the 45nm and 65nm parts.

A Q5500 @ 4GHZ Is the same speed as a 4ghz 8500 as they are the same cpu.

One has 2 cores the 8500 the other has 4 cores.

Its maddness to upgrade from a 3.6ghz Q9450 for a dual core especially in vista.
 
To the OP,

If I was buying a new cpu now I would wait until the 19th of oct for the intel price cuts and get a nice new 45nm quad.
 
easyrider said:
Its maddness to upgrade from a 3.6ghz Q9450 for a dual core especially in vista.
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Running my Q9450 @ 3.4GHz versus my E8500 at 4.7GHz (max stable oc's for both cp's in the same rig) results in the dual being noticeably faster within Vista 64. I have no doubt that quad performance will improve as new apps become available which can take advantage of the extra cores, but at the moment dual's still rule. Out of all my games only Supreme Commander ran faster on the quad, and then only by 3%.

If you encode a lot of video the quad will be better. Otherwise...
11169184hc5.jpg
 
They don't rule and a suicide shot of 4.7ghz of super PI means nothing.

Its a single threaded benchmark.


Show me a Prime shot of 4.7ghz 8hrs stable...

I would rather have two extra cores than a few 100mhz anyday like the majority of users that do more than game on their computers.


When using photoshop and premier and having internet exploer open with multi tabs and filters open in after effects the Quad is in a league of its own.
 
Well he says his 4.7 dual is noticeably faster than his quad in vista. If he doesnt run it at that speed 24/7 then the argument is moot.

I'm the same also, I'd rather have two extra cores to do the work and a little future proofing for new apps that can utilise four. Mines clocked at 3.6 though, I seriously doubt I would notice a difference in vista over that compared to a higher clocked dual..
 
MooMoo444 said:
Aren't you obliterating the E8600 running it at 1.53v? I always thought the 45nm's didnt like much voltage
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My E8500 suicide shot is 4.92GHz:). 4.7 is prime stable but temps are too high (even for me). 4.5 is absolutely fine and my chip does 4.2 on stock volts.

4.7 on my dual runs cooler temps than 3.6 did on my quad with the same cooling. Temperature is the killer, not volts - just ask those that pump 1.9v through their chips on phase.

edit: If we forget overclocking altogether, a stock E8400 to E8600 will be faster than a stock Q6600 or Q9550 in MOST apps. It will consume less power and run much cooler too.
 
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555BUK said:
My E8500 suicide shot is 4.92GHz:). 4.7 is prime stable but temps are too high (even for me). 4.5 is absolutely fine and my chip does 4.2 on stock volts.

4.7 on my dual runs cooler temps than 3.6 did on my quad with the same cooling. Temperature is the killer, not volts - just ask those that pump 1.9v through their chips on phase.

edit: If we forget overclocking altogether, a stock E8400 to E8600 will be faster than a stock Q6600 or Q9550 in MOST apps. It will consume less power and run much cooler too.
Click to expand...


As I stated you admit not running your PC at 4.7ghz 24/7 so as I have said your screenie means nothing.

Got a screenie of prime stabilty for 8hrs @ 4.7ghz?

Give me double the cores and twice the cache over a paltry 200mhz clock speed.

Its not all about the apps it also about multitasking.

You will find with mutli apps open the 2.83GHz clock speed, 12MB L2 Cache of the Q5500 clearly makes up for the 200mhz clock speed of the 8400 and its 6mb of cache.
 
easyrider said:
To the OP,

If I was buying a new cpu now I would wait until the 19th of oct for the intel price cuts and get a nice new 45nm quad.
Click to expand...

+1

i'd go for a quad to be honest, the nehalem prices are stupidly high, you'll need new mobo/ram/cpu which will easily set you back 600-650 just for those 3 components.

only problem with the q6600 is the vid of the newer chips are higher than the older ones, even though they're energy efficient, so you'll find it harder to get a higher clock speed if you intend to overclock.

if you can spare 40 quid then you might want to go with one of these
 
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