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Which CPU?

KraniX

KraniX

KraniX

Soldato
Joined
23 Mar 2004
Posts
3,837
Location
Yorkshire
Hey guys,

I'm looking at upgrading my system, sorted out a decent cheap motherboard, ram and gfx card but having a bit of an issue with which CPU from Intel to purchase.

I have preordered an e8400 but am thinking the quad Q6600 might be a better buy (plus I won't have to wait 2 weeks, heh) as it's only slightly more expensive but I'm not sure on the worthwhileness of the additional cores, what do you think?
 
I've just RMA'ed my E8500, due to the temps issue. I'll not be getting another as i didn't really notice much difference gaming wise to the E2200 that i had clocked at 3.3Ghz, which i was pretty disappointed about (mainly brought for UT3, which uses 4 cores). I think if your running Vista 64 especially a quad would be better. Especially since the unreal engine will be used for more games and other engines will be using 4 cores in the very near future too.
 
Crysis doesn't use anymore than 2 cores so comparing a dual and quad using crysis as a benchmark is not a true indication of the performance of these chips.
 
I think it's safe to say that for gaming, a dual, but if you encode/graphics work then a quad.
 
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Having a quad is not the be all end all, the quad runs nicer than my e6750 but 2 cores seem wasted. That being said my games run the same on my e6750 to my q6600, benefit of the quad means the 2 extra cores can do *** house work as my wife seems to have forgotten... offtopic there :D
 
Darryl_1983 said:
I've just RMA'ed my E8500, due to the temps issue. I'll not be getting another as i didn't really notice much difference gaming wise to the E2200 that i had clocked at 3.3Ghz
Click to expand...

I bought my e2180 (@3.2ghz) as a stop gap really because i upgraded from s939, DDR1 and AGP in one go and wanted to keep costs down. I always like the idea of getting a better CPU but, as gaming is the only CPU intensive task i do, whenever i look up benchmarks of CPU's in games I just can't justify the price/performance increase.
 
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